Embracing Watershed Politics
Embracing Watershed Politics

Author: Edella Schlager

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0870819755

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As Americans try to better manage and protect the natural resources of our watersheds, is politics getting in the way? Why does watershed management end up being so political? In Embracing Watershed Politics, political scientists Edella Schlager and William Blomquist provide timely illustrations and thought-provoking explanations of why political considerations are essential, unavoidable, and in some ways even desirable elements of decision making about water and watersheds. With decades of combined study of water management in the United States, they focus on the many contending interests and communities found in America's watersheds, the fundamental dimensions of decision making, and the impacts of science, complexity, and uncertainty on watershed management. Enriched by case studies of the organizations and decision making processes in several major U.S. watersheds (the Delaware River Basin, San Gabriel River, Platte River, and the Columbia River Basin), Embracing Watershed Politics presents a reasoned explanation of why there are so few watershed-scale integrated management agencies and how the more diverse multi-organizational arrangements found in the vast majorities of watersheds work. Although the presence of multiple organizations representing a multitude of communities of interest complicates watershed management, these institutional arrangements can-under certain conditions-suit the complexity and uncertainty associated with watershed management in the twenty-first century.

Watershed Politics, Policy, and Participation
Watershed Politics, Policy, and Participation

Author: Jennifer Wallace

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 21

ISBN-13:

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This paper examines how citizen activism in Vietnam on the issue of water governance is shaped by the regional context in which it is embedded. It is part of a larger research project that explores stakeholder participation at the local, national and basin level. The Mekong River Commission, headquartered in Vientiane, Laos, is the regional institution that is responsible for governing the river's resources. This paper thus focuses on interactions between local stakeholders in the Mekong delta and the Mekong River Commission as one of the possible pathways to influence water resources management in the region. The effect of linkages between local actors and international NGOs in (re-)shaping state policy has been well documented in the literature on transnational activism. However, the role of regional organizations as sites of political activism has remained largely unexplored. The functional area of water governance is a particularly interesting issue area to examine these transnational dynamics, since coordinated policy adoption by each of the member states in the region is essential to achieving an optimal outcome. Furthermore, the local stakeholders in the Vietnam delta are an interesting test group since they are in the most vulnerable position in the basin as the users farthest downstream. This means that they have little leverage in water-use negotiations, since they are impacted by upstream users but not vice-versa.

The Realities of Adaptive Groundwater Management
The Realities of Adaptive Groundwater Management

Author: William Blomquist

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 3030637239

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This book has three primary objectives. The first objective is to provide scholars with a more realistic view of adaptive management, without arguing against adaptive management. Adaptive management is necessary as well as desirable, but it is not easy, and demonstrating that through the Chino Basin experience is an important goal. The second objective is to provide practitioners with encouraging yet cautionary lessons about the challenges and benefits of an adaptive approach – in similar fashion as the first objective, the goal here is to endorse the adaptive approach but in a clear-eyed manner that clarifies how hard it is and how much it requires. A third objective is to show all audiences that resource governance systems can fail, change, and succeed. There is no such thing as an ideal institutional design that is guaranteed to work; rather, making institutional arrangements work entails learning and adjustment when they begin to show problems as they inevitably will.

New Strategies for America's Watersheds
New Strategies for America's Watersheds

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1999-04-28

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 0309064171

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Emergence of a toxic organism like pfisteria in tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay has focused public attention on potential hazards in our water. More importantly, it has reminded us of the importance of the entire watershed to the health of any body of water and how political boundaries complicate watershed management. New Strategies for America's Watersheds provides a timely and comprehensive look at the rise of "watershed thinking" among scientists and policymakers and recommends ways to steer the nation toward improved watershed management. The volume defines important terms, identifies fundamental issues, and explores reasons why now is the time to bring watersheds to the forefront of ecosystem management. In a discussion of scale and scope, the committee examines how to expand the watershed from a topographic unit to a framework for integrating natural, social, and economic perspectives as they share the same geographic space. The volume discusses: Regional variations in climate, topography, demographics, institutions, land use, culture, and law. Roles and interaction of federal, state, and local agencies. Availability or lack of pertinent data. Options for financing. The committee identifies critical points in watershed planning to ensure appropriate stakeholder involvement and integration of science, policy, and environmental ethics.

Swimming Upstream
Swimming Upstream

Author: Paul A. Sabatier

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2005-04-29

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780262264754

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In recent years, water resource management in the United States has begun a shift away from top-down, government agency-directed decision processes toward a collaborative approach of negotiation and problem solving. Rather than focusing on specific pollution sources or specific areas within a watershed, this new process considers the watershed as a whole, seeking solutions to an interrelated set of social, economic, and environmental problems. Decision making involves face-to-face negotiations among a variety of stakeholders, including federal, state, and local agencies, landowners, environmentalists, industries, and researchers. Swimming Upstream analyzes the collaborative approach by providing a historical overview of watershed management in the United States and a normative and empirical conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating the process. The bulk of the book looks at a variety of collaborative watershed planning projects across the country. It first examines the applications of relatively short-term collaborative strategies in Oklahoma and Texas, exploring issues of trust and legitimacy. It then analyzes factors affecting the success of relatively long-term collaborative partnerships in the National Estuary Program and in 76 watersheds in Washington and California. Bringing analytical rigor to a field that has been dominated by practitioners' descriptive accounts, Swimming Upstream makes a vital contribution to public policy, public administration, and environmental management.

Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Water Resources
Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Water Resources

Author: Oliver Fritsch

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2024-06-05

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1800887906

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This cutting-edge Handbook provides a global perspective on the current issues affecting water politics and governance. Focusing in particular on the policy-making process and the power dynamics that it involves, it showcases the emerging diversity of objectives, instruments and governance approaches in the field of water resources.

Political Pitfalls of Integrated Watershed Management
Political Pitfalls of Integrated Watershed Management

Author: William A. Blomquist

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Integrated watershed management, preferably under the direction of a watershed or basin management body, has been prescribed in the water policy literature and from other quarters for decades. Few instances may be found where this recommendation has been implemented. This gap between prescription and practice is sometimes attributed to politics, as a sort of nuisance to be overcome or avoided through rational comprehensive consensus-based decision making. Fundamental political considerations are inherent in water resources management, however, and are unavoidable even if the desire for watershed-scale decision making bodies were realized. Boundary definition, choices about decision-making arrangements, and issues of accountability will arise in any watershed, and may help to explain why watershed management has more often taken polycentric organizational forms composed of sub-watershed communities of interest. An example of a small Southern California watershed is used to highlight the political issues inherent in attempts at watershed management.

Environmental Politics for a Changing World
Environmental Politics for a Changing World

Author: Ronnie D. Lipschutz

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-07-12

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 153810511X

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This book argues that environmental problems are, first and foremost, political and, therefore, about power. Using a framework of political economy and political ecology, the authors deconstruct current environmental problems to identify root causes and address those problems through mobilization of collective action and social power. The second edition also offers: •Updated examples and stories of political struggles and the actors involved •Explicit attention to various forms of power in environmental politics, including structural and social power •Local politics and collective action as related to global environmental politics •Discussion of emerging issues such as synthetic biology; commodification and financialization of nature, including carbon markets; and geoengineering

Property Rights and Sustainability
Property Rights and Sustainability

Author: David Grinlinton

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-04-11

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 900420105X

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This book offers a unique and thought provoking exploration of how property concepts can be substantially reshaped to meet ecological challenges. It takes the discussion beyond its traditional parameters and offers new insights into conceptualizing and justifying property systems, in an age of ecological consequences.

Global Lessons for Watershed Management in the United States
Global Lessons for Watershed Management in the United States

Author: J. Goldstein

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2004-09-30

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1843397129

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Water resource management in the United States is evolving in the face of continuing challenges to protect water quality, provide adequate quantities of water for competing uses, and protect habitat and other natural resources. In many jurisdictions and agencies this evolution is increasingly leading toward adoption of watershed management. This approach is characterized by planning and decision making on a watershed scale, integration of a variety of competing water resource priorities and goals, cooperation of multiple stakeholders and governmental agencies, and increased levels of public participation. This report identifies the most promising watershed planning and management approaches from around the world; evaluates how they operate, their benefits and limitations; and assesses the degree to which these approaches could be successfully adapted to the U.S. context. Drawing on this international experience, the report is intended to inform policy makers and practitioners and to promote the implementation of integrated watershed management approaches that are most likely to succeed. This report: Provides a decision-making framework of watershed management efforts at all scales in the United States. Evaluates past U.S. watershed management experience and identifies key characteristics for success as well as major challenges and opportunities for improving the watershed approach. Summarizes and evaluates international case studies where innovative watershed management techniques have been used. Identifies ten key lessons for sustainable water management, including the role of water/wastewater utilities based on the experience of the international case study watersheds.