River imaginaries and climate adaptation in the Bajo-Magdalena

Worldwide, rivers face challenges due to human and climatic pressures which influence river
management. Floods, droughts, pollution, damming and hydropeaking are only a few examples of these pressures. River management is influenced through a climate adaptation lens, which holds specific ideas on rivers managed in light of climate change futures. In this study, we explore diverse river imaginaries in the context of climate change adaptation that shape and materialise adaptation projects in the Bajo-Magdalena catchment of Colombia. River imaginaries are defined as ‘collectively held and publicly envisioned reproductions of riverine socio-natures, mobilized through truth claims of social life and social order’. The Bajo-Magdalena catchment forms a dynamic swamp ecosystem where several adaptation projects have been implemented and shared as success stories of adaptation. Through interviews, field visits and participant observations, we identified two distinct river imaginaries. The first river imaginary stemmed from an alliance between ecocentric and technocratic river imaginaries that materialised in the form of ‘nature based solutions’. In this imaginary, truth claims produced by models and modellers together with hydraulic infrastructure engineering formed
de dominant mode of knowledge-production. The second river imaginary contested this by presenting grassroot based initiatives that materialised as community projects such as food-gardens or reforestation projects. In this imaginary, truth claims challenged forms of technocratic, modernist, and capitalist river management that aimed to domesticate rivers and instead prioritised local knowledgeproduction. Although holders of both imaginaries used similar climate change futures to justify actions in the present, the distinct river imaginaries made that actions materialised differently.