Irrigation-Dependent Wetlands Versus Instream Flow Enhancement: Economics of Water Transfers from Agriculture to Wildlife Uses

Irrigated agriculture throughout western North America faces increasing pressure to transfer water to nonagricultural uses, including instream flows for fish and wildlife management. In an important case, increased instream flows are needed in Nebraskas Platte River for recovery of threatened and endangered fish and wildlife species. Irrigated agriculture in the Laramie Basin of southeast Wyoming is a potential water source for the effort to enhance instream flow. However, flood irrigation of hayfields in the Laramie Basin has created many wetlands, both ephemeral and permanent, over the last century. Attempting to increase Platte River instream flows by purchasing water rights or improving irrigation efficiency in the Laramie Basin would transform irrigated agriculture, causing a substantial fraction of the Laramie Basins wetlands to be lost. A creative solution is needed to prevent the sacrifice of one ecosystem on behalf of another. A rotating short-term water-leasing program is proposed. The program allows Laramie Basin producers to contribute to instream flows while continuing to support local wetlands. Permanent wetland desiccation is prevented and regional environmental water needs are met without impairing local ecological resources. Budget analysis is used to provide an initial cost estimate for acquiring water from agriculture through the short-term leasing program. The proposed approach is more expensive than traditional programs but allows contribution to instream flows without major wetland loss. Short-term leasing is a more efficient approach if benefits from wetlands exceed the difference in cost between the short-term lease program and programs that do not conserve wetlands.     

Mass Load-Based Pollution Management of the Han River and Its Tributaries, Korea

Spatio-temporal variations of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total coliform (TC) in the Han River, Korea, were investigated in terms of concentration-based and mass loading-based approaches. Considering the river water quality criteria regulated by the Ministry of Environment in Korea, the tributaries linked to the mainstream of the Han River were found to be highly contaminated with respect to both BOD and TC and, in fact, most of the tributaries exceeded the maximum water quality criteria. To evaluate the pollution impact of tributaries on the mainstream, the monthly water quality monitoring data for six years (from 1995 to 2000) were collected from the Han River basin, and statistically analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results revealed that mass loading-based approach was superior to the concentration-based approach for effective Han River watershed management. Overall results supported that the mass loading-based approach associated with total maximum daily loads (TMDL) management would be a useful and suitable protocol in watershed management for improving the water quality of the Han River and protecting public health. Therefore, this study supporting TMDL management can be applicable to a wide array of contaminants and watershed settings in Korea.     

RED RIVER OF THE NORTH BASIN,MINNESOTA, NORTH DAKOTA,AND SOUTH DAKOTA1

ABSTRACT: The environmental setting of the Red River of the North basin within the United States is diverse in ways that could significantly control the areal distribution and flow of water and, therefore, the distribution and concentration of constituents that affect water quality. Continental glaciers shaped a landscape of very flat lake plains near the center of the basin, and gently rolling uplands, lakes, and wetlands along the basin margins. The fertile, black, fine-grained soils and landscape are conducive to agriculture. Productive cropland covers 66 percent of the land area. The principal crops are wheat, barley, soybeans, sunflowers, corn, and hay. Pasture, forests, open water, and wetlands comprise most of the remaining land area. About one-third of the 1990 population (511,000) lives in the cities of Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. The climate of the Red River of the North basin is continental and ranges from dry subhumid in the western part of the basin to subhumid in the eastern part. From its origin, the Red River of the North meanders northward for 394 miles to the Canadian border, a path that is nearly double the straight-line distance. The Red River of the North normally receives over 75 percent of its annual flow from the eastern tributaries as a result of regional patterns of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soils, and topography. Most runoff occurs in spring and early summer as a result of rains falling on melting snow or heavy rains falling on saturated soils. Lakes, prairie potholes, and wetlands are abundant in most physiographic areas outside of the Red River Valley Lake Plain. Dams, drainage ditches, and wetlands alter the residence time of water, thereby affecting the amount of sediment, biota, and dissolved constituents carried by the water. Ground water available to wells, streams, and springs primarily comes from sand and gravel aquifers near land surface or buried within 100 to 300 feet of glacial drift that mantles the entire Red River of the North basin. Water moves through the system of bedrock and glacial-drift aquifers in a regional flow system generally toward the Red River of the North and in complex local flow systems controlled by local topography. Many of the bedrock and glacial-drift aquifers are hydraulically connected to streams in the region. The total water use in 1990, about 196 million gallons per day, was mostly for public supply and irrigation. Slightly more than one half of the water used comes from ground-water sources compared to surface-water sources. Most municipalities obtain their water from ground-water sources. However, the largest cities (Fargo, Grand Forks and Moorhead) obtain most of their water from the Red River of the North. The types and relative amounts of various habitats change among the five primary ecological regions within the Red River of the North basin. Headwater tributaries are more diverse and tend to be similar to middle-reach tributaries in character rather than the lower reaches of these tributaries for the Red River of the North. Concentrations of dissolved chemical constituents in surface waters are normally low during spring runoff and after thunderstorms. The Red River of the North generally has a dissolved-solids concentration less than 600 milligrams per liter with mean values ranging from 347 milligrams per liter near the headwaters to 406 milligrams per liter at the Canadian border near Emerson, Manitoba. Calcium and magnesium are the principal cations and bicarbonate is the principal anion along most of the reach of the Red River of the North. Dissolved-solids concentrations generally are lower in the eastern tributaries than in the tributaries draining the western part of the basin. At times of low flow, when water in streams is largely from ground-water seepage, the water quality more reflects the chemistry of the glacial-drift aquifer system. Ground water in the surficial aquifers commonly is a calcium bicarbonate type with dissolved-solids concentration generally between 300 and 700 milligrams per liter. As the ground water moves down gradient, dissolved-solids concentration increases, and magnesium and sulfate are predominant ions. Water in sedimentary bedrock aquifers is predominantly sodium and chloride and is characterized by dissolved-solids concentrations in excess of 1,000 milligrams per liter. Sediment erosion by wind and water can be increased by cultivation practices and by livestock that trample streambanks. Nitrate-nitrogen concentrations also can increase locally in surficial aquifers beneath cropland that is fertilized, particularly where irrigated. Nitrogen and phosphorous in surface runoff from cropland fertilizers and nitrogen from manure can contribute nutrients to lakes, reservoirs, and streams. Some of the more persistent pesticides, such as atrazine, have been detected in the Red River of the North. Few data are available to conclusively define the presence or absence of pesticides and their break-down products in Red River of the North basin aquifers or streams. Urban runoff and treated effluent from municipalities are discharged into streams. These point discharges contain some quantity of organic compounds from storm runoff, turf-applied pesticides, and trace metals. The largest releases of treated-municipal wastes are from the population centers along the Red River of the North and its larger tributaries. Sugar-beet refining, potato processing, poultry and meat packing, and milk, cheese, and cream processing are among the major food processes from which treated wastes are released to streams, mostly in or near the Red River of the North.     

Catalyzing Collaboration: Wisconsin’s Agency-Initiated Basin Partnerships

Experience with collaborative approaches to natural resource and environmental management has grown substantially over the past 20 years, and multi-interest, shared-resources initiatives have become prevalent in the United States and internationally. Although often viewed as “grass-roots” and locally initiated, governmental participants are crucial to the success of collaborative efforts, and important questions remain regarding their appropriate roles, including roles in partnership initiation. In the midst of growing governmental support for collaborative approaches in the mid-1990s, the primary natural resource and environmental management agency in Wisconsin (USA) attempted to generate a statewide system of self-sustaining, collaborative partnerships, organized around the state’s river basin boundaries. The agency expected the partnerships to enhance participation by stakeholders, leverage additional resources, and help move the agency toward more integrated and ecosystem-based resource management initiatives. Most of the basin partnerships did form and function, but ten years after this initiative, the agency has moved away from these partnerships and half have disbanded. Those that remain active have changed, but continue to work closely with agency staff. Those no longer functioning lacked clear focus, were dependent upon agency leadership, or could not overcome issues of scale. This article outlines the context for state support of collaborative initiatives and explores Wisconsin’s experience with basin partnerships by discussing their formation and reviewing governmental roles in partnerships’ emergence and change. Wisconsin’s experience suggests benefits from agency support and agency responsiveness to partnership opportunities, but cautions about expectations for initiating general-purpose partnerships.     

Role of Adaptive Management for Watershed Councils

Recent findings in the Umpqua River Basin in southwestern Oregon illustrate a tension in the rise of both community-based and watershed-based approaches to aquatic resource management. While community-based institutions such as watershed councils offer relief from the government control landowners dislike, community-based approaches impinge on landowners' strong belief in independence and private property rights. Watershed councils do offer the local control landowners advocate; however, institutional success hinges on watershed councils' ability to reduce bureaucracy, foster productive discussion and understanding among stakeholders, and provide financial, technical, and coordination support. Yet, to accomplish these tasks current watershed councils rely on the fiscal and technical capital of the very governmental entities that landowners distrust. Adaptive management provides a basis for addressing the apparent tension by incorporating landowners' belief in environmental resilience and acceptance of experimentation that rejects “one size fits all solutions.” Therefore community-based adaptive watershed management provides watershed councils a framework that balances landowners' independence and fear of government intrusion, acknowledges the benefits of community cooperation through watershed councils, and enables ecological assessment of landowner-preferred practices. Community-based adaptive management integrates social and ecological suitability to achieve conservation outcomes by providing landowners the flexibility to use a diverse set of conservation practices to achieve desired ecological outcomes, instead of imposing regulations or specific practices.     

Making Collaborative Watershed Management Work: The Confluence of State and Regional Initiatives

Initiatives in the Neponset, Ipswich, and Sudbury-Assabet-Concord watersheds highlight how watershed-scale innovation in engaging nongovernment participants is influenced, but not dominated, by the statewide program, the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative. The presence or absence of three elements—external support, process, and issue—and the order in which they occur, shape the viability of collaborative watershed-scale management initiatives. External support includes providing personnel or funding from outside an initiative. Process is the interaction among individuals undertaking watershed-wide policy development and/or implementation. An issue is an attention-requiring concern, vital to a watershed, that can most effectively be addressed by a coordinated strategy among different parties. A process generated by an issue is sustainable and amenable to enhancement through external support. The contribution of external support is most apparent when outside assistance is provided after an issue has crystallized into clear problem needs that can be addressed through specific research projects or implementation activities. Process is central in shaping issues, utilizing external support, and generating management results. The outcomes of voluntary processes in the three watershed initiatives highlight how the evolution of the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative leads to, and depends upon, the development of watershed-scale initiatives.     

Application of an Environmental Decision Support System to a Water Quality Trading Program Affected by Surface Water Diversions

Environmental decision support systems (EDSSs) are an emerging tool used to integrate the evaluation of highly complex and interrelated physicochemical, biological, hydrological, social, and economic aspects of environmental problems. An EDSS approach is developed to address hot-spot concerns for a water quality trading program intended to implement the total maximum daily load (TMDL) for phosphorus in the Non-Tidal Passaic River Basin of New Jersey. Twenty-two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) spread throughout the watershed are considered the major sources of phosphorus loading to the river system. Periodic surface water diversions to a major reservoir from the confluence of two key tributaries alter the natural hydrology of the watershed and must be considered in the development of a trading framework that ensures protection of water quality. An EDSS is applied that enables the selection of a water quality trading framework that protects the watershed from phosphorus-induced hot spots. The EDSS employs Simon’s (1960) three stages of the decision-making process: intelligence, design, and choice. The identification of two potential hot spots and three diversion scenarios enables the delineation of three management areas for buying and selling of phosphorus credits among WWTPs. The result shows that the most conservative option entails consideration of two possible diversion scenarios, and trading between management areas is restricted accordingly. The method described here is believed to be the first application of an EDSS to a water quality trading program that explicitly accounts for surface water diversions.     

黄河法中生态保护制度的构建

为了更好地贯彻黄河流域生态保护和高质量发展的国家重大战略,弥补分散立法的不足,实施流域综合管理,解决黄河流域面临的特殊生态问题,有必要制定黄河法作为黄河流域管理的基本法和综合法。本文利用数据分析法、实证分析法和文献研究法,以解决黄河流域面临的主要生态问题为目标和导向,依据有关政策文件、法律法规和改革成果,分析了黄河法需要建立健全的生态保护制度,包括全流域节水制度、水源涵养制度、水土保持制度和水污染综合治理制度、自然湿地生态修复制度等。     

Adverse Effects on Alfeios River Basin and an Integrated Management Framework Based on Sustainability

The Alfeios River, the longest and highest flow-rate river in Peloponnisos, constitutes an important water resource and ecosystem in Greece. In the present study, human activities in the Alfeios River Basin are described, and their impacts on water quality and the ecosystem are analyzed; effects resulting from interventions on river geomorphology between Flokas Dam and the river delta are determined. These actions have caused significant adverse impacts on the infrastructure (the dam, railroad, and road bridges), the level of aquifer water table and area water uses, and the aquatic and riparian ecosystem. A general integrated management strategy is formulated and a master management plan is proposed for resolving management problems in river basins. The plan considers local conditions and national requirements and complies with the European Communities legislation; it would help prevent further basin deterioration, improve water quality, and protect water resources and ecosystems in the area in accordance to sustainable development. The Alfeios River Basin serves as a case study in the development of the plan.Published online Note: This version was published online in June 2005 with the cover date of August 2004.     

Adaptive Management of Nonnative Species: Moving Beyond the “Either-Or” Through Experimental Pluralism

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/Crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid application of invasion biology’s a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class.     

Navigating Institutional Challenges: Design to Enable Community Participation in Social Learning for Freshwater Planning

Social learning is a process suited to developing understanding and concerted action to tackle complex resource dilemmas, such as freshwater management. Research has begun to recognise that in practice social learning encounters a variety of institutional challenges from the shared habits and routines of stakeholders (organised by rules, norms and strategies) that are embedded in organisational structures and norms of professional behaviour. These institutional habits and routines influence the degree of willingness to engage with stakeholders, and expectations of behaviours in social learning processes. Considering this, there has been a call to understand how institutions influence social learning and emergent outcomes. We addresses this by presenting a heuristic for implementing social learning cognisant of institutional context to answer three questions: (i) How institutional influences impact implementation of social learning design; (ii) how implementation of social learning design modifies institutions influencing social learning; and (iii) how these changes in design and institutions together shape social learning outcomes? To answer these questions a freshwater planning exercise was designed, implemented and evaluated as a social learning process with community groups in two New Zealand catchments. Incorporating participatory reflection enabled the project team to modify social learning design to manage institutional influences hindering progress toward outcomes. Findings emphasise that social learning is underpinned by participants’ changing assumptions about what constitutes the institution of learning itself—from instruction to a dynamic, collective and emergent process. Reflecting on these assumptions also challenged participants’ expectations about their own and others’ behaviours and roles in freshwater planning.     

WATERLAW AND THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE: A TEXAS EXAMPLE1

ABSTRACT Scientists usually regard all water as merely passing through, but in different phases of, the endless hydrologic cycle. The law divides water in the cycle into several different classes. Each is treated separately and generally without consideration of interconnections existing within the cycle. Different rules of law have arisen concerning the ownership and use of each legal class. Under Texas law several classes of surface and ground water are recognized, and weather modification efforts bring yet another class, atmospheric moisture, under consideration. It is instructive to follow water moving through the hydrologic cycle in the Nueces River basin, Texas, as a framework for discussing the substantial interconnections between the various legal classes of water and the difficulties that arise from attempts to apply different rules of law to each class. Strictures imposed by Texas water law can seriously interfer with coordinated, efficient use and management of water resources, as evidenced by the Nueces River basin. Well-recognized, existing water rights in the several phases of the hydrologic cycle make change of these institutional constraints difficult to achieve.     

粮食安全视角下黄河流域生态保护与高质量发展

黄河流域是我国重要的生态功能区，是实现国家粮食安全的重点区域。本文梳理了近期黄河流域的相关研究，从粮食安全视角下分析了黄河流域现阶段在流域水效率、流域水管理机制、流域水生态文明三方面的问题，并提出了关于黄河流域大保护与高质量发展的两方面建议。一是创新流域水管理机制，服务国家粮食安全。积极改进水资源管理方式，加大节水宣传教育力度，加强黄河流域水土流失综合治理，合理调控水价，完善黄河流域水权市场建设。二是践行"两山"理论，提升流域水生态文明。建设"四大体系"和"七大区域"，推进生态廊道建设；转变经济发展方式；提前布局水生态文明建设。     

Environmental Effects of Aquifer Overexploitation: A Case Study in the Highlands of Mexico

There are several environmental processes occurring under aquifer overexploitation conditions. These processes include groundwater table decline, subsidence, attenuation and drying of springs, decrease of river flow, and increased pollution vulnerability, among others processes. Some of these effects have been observed on the Upper Basin of the Lerma River. The Lerma River begins in the SE of the Valley of Toluca at 2,600 m asl, in the wetland known as Lagoons of Almoloya del Río. This wetland is made up of a group of lagoons, which are an important aquatic system from an environmental point of view. The water inflow of this wetland is a discharge of springs, which occur between the fractured volcanic material of the mountain range and granular volcanic–continental deposits of the Valley of Toluca aquifer. The intensive exploitation of the Valley of Toluca aquifer to supply urban and industrial water to Mexico City and Toluca began in 1950 and is responsible for a steady decline of piezometric levels of 1–3.5 m/yr. Other effects of this exploitation—the drying of the wetland, the decrease of river flow and the land subsidence—caused serious ecological and social impacts. The authorities declared this aquifer as overexploited in order to reduce the exploitation and preserve the availability of water resources in this important region.     

Ten Key Questions About the Management of Water in the Yellow River Basin

Water is scarce in many regions of the world, clean water is difficult to find in most developing countries, there are conflicts between irrigation needs and urban demands, and there is wide debate over appropriate means of resolving these problems. Similarly, in China, there is limited understanding of the ways in which people, groups, and institutions contribute to, are affected by, and respond to changes in water quantity and quality. We use the example of the Yellow River basin to argue that these social, managerial, and policy dimensions of the present water problems are significant and overshadow the physical ones. Despite this, they receive relatively little attention in the research agenda, particularly of the lead agencies in the management of the Yellow River basin. To this end, we ask ten research questions needed to address the policy needs of water management in the basin, split into two groups of five. The first five relate to the importance of water in this basin and the changes that have affected water problems and will continue to do so. The second five questions represent an attempt to explore possible solutions to these problems.     

滇池流域管理体制机制改革方案初探

滇池是中国重点治理的"三湖"之一。自"九五"以来国家已投入大量资金治理滇池水环境,但收效缓慢。流域综合管理是现代流域管理体制改革和发展的方向。面对流域社会经济的快速发展带来的污染压力和治理效果的不理想,流域管理体制机制的改革成为加快滇池流域水环境治理的必然选择和迫切需求。本文通过部门调研、专家访谈、信息综合分析等方法,剖析了滇池流域管理体制的问题,并提出了滇池流域管理体制机制改革方案。滇池流域的管理呈现出以部门为基础的横向管理和以行政单位为基础的纵向管理相交叉的条块分割局面,导致流域多头管理、多重目标。同时利益相关方参与广度和深度均不足。最后建议滇池流域的管理从管理机构、管理方式以及利益相关方参与等方面进行改革,分为近期、远期分步实施,最终实现一方主导、以流域为管理单元、利益相关方充分参与的流域综合管理体制机制。本文可为滇池流域管理体制改革提供有力参考,也可为其他流域管理体制的完善提供借鉴。     

CONSUMPTIVE USE OF STREAMFLOW INCREASES IN THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN1

ABSTRACT: This study examined the disposition of streamflow increases that could be created by vegetation management on forest land along the upper reaches of the Colorado River. A network optimization model was used to simulate water flow, storage, consumptive use, and loss within the entire Colorado River Basin with and without the flow increases, according to various scenarios incorporating both current and future consumptive use levels as well as existing and potential institutional constraints. Results indicate that very little of the flow increases would be consumptively used at current use levels, or even at future use levels, if water allocation institutions remain unchanged. Given future use levels and economically based water allocation institutions, up to one-half of the flow increases could be consumptively used. The timing of streamflow increases, and the institutional constraints on water allocation, often limit the potential for consumptive use of flow increases.     

BASIN SCALE WATER MANAGEMENT AND FORECASTING USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS1

ABSTRACT: Water scarcity in the Sevier River Basin in south‐central Utah has led water managers to seek advanced techniques for identifying optimal forecasting and management measures. To more efficiently use the limited quantity of water in the basin, better methods for control and forecasting are imperative. Basin scale management requires advanced forecasts of the availability of water. Information about long term water availability is important for decision making in terms of how much land to plant and what crops to grow; advanced daily predictions of streamflows and hydraulic characteristics of irrigation canals are of importance for managing water delivery and reservoir releases; and hourly forecasts of flows in tributary streams to account for diurnal fluctuations are vital to more precisely meet the day‐to‐day expectations of downstream farmers. A priori streamflow information and exogenous climate data have been used to predict future streamflows and required reservoir releases at different timescales. Data on snow water equivalent, sea surface temperatures, temperature, total solar radiation, and precipitation are fused by applying artificial neural networks to enhance long term and real time basin scale water management information. This approach has not previously been used in water resources management at the basin‐scale and could be valuable to water users in semi‐arid areas to more efficiently utilize and manage scarce water resources.     

IMPACTS OF A SEVERE SUSTAINED DROUGHT ON COLORADO RWER WATER RESOURCES1

ABSTRACT: The impacts of a severe sustained drought on Colorado River system water resources were investigated by simulating the physical and institutional constraints within the Colorado River Basin and testing the response of the system to different hydrologic scenarios. Simulations using Hydrosphere's Colorado River Model compared a 38-year severe sustained drought derived from 500 years of reconstructed streamflows for the Colorado River basin with a 38-year streamflow trace extracted from the recent historic record. The impacts of the severe drought on streamflows, water allocation, storage, hydropower generation, and salinity were assessed. Estimated deliveries to consumptive uses in the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and northern Arizona were heavily affected by the severe drought, while the Lower Basin states of California, Nevada, and Arizona suffered only slight shortages. Upper Basin reservoirs and streamflows were also more heavily affected than those in the Lower Basin by the severe drought. System-wide, total hydropower generation was 84 percent less in the drought scenario than in the historical stream-flow scenario. Annual, flow-weighted salinity below Lake Mead exceeded 1200 ppm for six years during the deepest portion of the severe drought. The salinity levels in the historical hydrology scenario never exceeded 1100 ppm.     

Institutional,Individual, and Socio-Cultural Domains of Partnerships: A Typology of USDA Forest Service Recreation Partners

Federal land management agencies, such as the USDA Forest Service, have expanded the role of recreation partners reflecting constrained growth in appropriations and broader societal trends towards civic environmental governance. Partnerships with individual volunteers, service groups, commercial outfitters, and other government agencies provide the USDA Forest Service with the resources necessary to complete projects and meet goals under fiscal constraints. Existing partnership typologies typically focus on collaborative or strategic alliances and highlight organizational dimensions (e.g., structure and process) defined by researchers. This paper presents a partner typology constructed from USDA Forest Service partnership practitioners’ conceptualizations of 35 common partner types. Multidimensional scaling of data from unconstrained pile sorts identified 3 distinct cultural dimensions of recreation partners—specifically, partnership character, partner impact, and partner motivations—that represent institutional, individual, and socio-cultural cognitive domains. A hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis provides further insight into the various domains of agency personnel’s conceptualizations. While three dimensions with high reliability (RSQ = 0.83) and corresponding hierarchical clusters illustrate commonality between agency personnel’s partnership suppositions, this study also reveals variance in personnel’s familiarity and affinity for specific partnership types. This real-world perspective on partner types highlights that agency practitioners not only make strategic choices when selecting and cultivating partnerships to accomplish critical task, but also elect to work with partners for the primary purpose of providing public service and fostering land stewardship.