SCIENCE AND POLICY IN INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY1

ABSTRACT: Policy and management plans can be enhanced through effective communication between researchers and decision makers. Differences in understanding can come from differences in professional cultures. Scientists deal with facts, proof and incremental progress whereas the decision makers are often faced with perceptions, emotions and deadlines. A case study is presented illustrating the interaction between the political system and science on a water management issue. Irrigation projects in the western San Joaquin Valley of California lead to a situation requiring subsurface drainage and disposal of the drainage water. The original plan was to discharge the drainage water in the Suisun Bay east of the San Francisco Bay. Severe damage to birds associated with selenium in the water led to a reevaluation of irrigation and drainage management options. Federal and state agencies cooperated to establish a San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program (SJVDP) which was to develop plans for solving the problem. Discharge to the Bay was politically eliminated as an option for evaluation, an action criticized by a National Research Council Committee as not being scientifically based. The SJVDP published a Management Plan in 1990 which contained proposals viewed by the scientific community as not necessarily incorrect but not completely justified based on the scientific knowledge at the time. A segment of the Citizens Advisory Committee that was part of the SJVDP consisting of representatives from the interest groups viewed the Management Plan as a negotiated agreement between the environmental and agricultural interests. Presently, an Activity Plan exists, consisting of technical committees to evaluate the current technical and economic evaluation of the management options proposed in the Management Plan. This case study illustrates that factors other than scientific facts have bearing on decisions. Successful management plans must be technically sound, economically viable and socially acceptable. The scientific community needs to evaluate its role in the policy making arena and to focus research on questions of greatest value to decision makers, as well as to scientific peers.     

WICKED WATER PROBLEMS: SOCIOLOGY AND LOCAL WATER ORGANIZATIONS IN ADDRESSING WATER RESOURCES POLICY1

ABSTRACT: Water policy problems are wicked, not in an ethically deplorable sense, but in the sense that they present us with especially difficult challenges of becoming more effective in our interdisciplinary collaboration, of integrating two very different types of knowledge, of working across several socio‐political units of analysis simultaneously, and of better organizing water as a common property resource. Sociology, as a discipline, does not have a particularly rich history of successful interdisciplinary collaboration on water resources research and teaching, but it potentially has a most useful contribution to make by focusing on the analysis of local common property resource organizations that operate in the interface between individual resource users and State‐Federal entities. These organizations (e.g., water user associations, mutual companies, irrigation districts, acequias, conservancy districts) have been the orphans of water policy discourse but their operations are critical to undertaking more effective 21st century social analysis, research work, and action programs. Sociologists who work to better comprehend the operations of, and constraints upon, these organizations build a sociology that can better collaborate with other water‐related disciplines in addressing the challenges posed by the wickedness of our water problems.     

Considering the positive possibilities of leader political behavior

This Incubator presents an overview of a new construct, leader political support, which captures the positive possibilities of leaders' political behavior. A discussion of why leader political support may seem paradoxical is included, as well as a presentation of the need for its consideration and the research possibilities it provides. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The rise of politics and the decline of vulnerability as criteria in disaster decisions of the United States, 1953–2009

This paper examines the shift from vulnerability to political responsiveness in presidential and gubernatorial disaster decisions in the United States from 1953–2009 (President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President Barack Obama) using annual request, declaration, and approval data from multiple sources. It makes three key conclusions: first, the 1988 Stafford Act expanded federal coverage to all categories of disasters, added a significant range of individual types of assistance, and provided extensive funding for recovery planning. Second, the election effects on disaster decisions increased over time whereas the impact of social and economic vulnerability (measured by scope of disaster) declined. Third, the changes affected governors more than presidents, and the choices of governors drove those of presidents. The analysis underscores the increasingly political nature of the disaster decision‐making process, as well as the difficulty in emphasising mitigation and preparedness as intensively as response and recovery. Proactive intervention yields fewer political rewards than responsiveness.     

水体富营养化问题中外政策措施透析

富营养化问题正在污染地球上宝贵的饮用水资源。因此,防治和解决富营养化问题是全球的一项紧急任务。早在上个世纪,很多欧洲国家在富营养化的控制方面已经做了很多研究,尤其是对欧盟的立法与国家政策方面的研究。目前,很多欧洲国家都建立了相对完善的综合政策。中国太湖也面临着严重的水体富营养化问题。文章选取荷兰和英国作为案例分析,通过与太湖水体富营养化防治中存在的问题的对比和分析,提出一些可行性建议,对太湖水域的该问题的缓解起到一定的借鉴作用。     

水体富营养化问题中外政策措施透析

富营养化问题正在污染地球上宝贵的饮用水资源.因此,防治和解决富营养化问题是全球的一项紧急任务.早在上个世纪,很多欧洲国家在富营养化的控制方面已经做了很多研究,尤其是对欧盟的立法与国家政策方面的研究.目前,很多欧洲国家都建立了相对完善的综合政策.中国太湖也面临着严重的水体富营养化问题.文章选取荷兰和英国作为案例分析,通过与太湖水体富营养化防治中存在的问题的对比和分析,提出一些可行性建议,对太湖水域的该问题的缓解起到一定的借鉴作用.     

Making a case for the consideration of trust,justice, and power in conservation relationships

In conservation, trust and justice are increasingly recognized as both intrinsically valuable and critical for successful socioecological outcomes. However, the interdependence between these concepts has not been explored. The conservation trust literature provides examples of efforts to build trust between conservationists and local actors; yet, these interventions are often conceived to incentivize local cooperation within dominant paradigms. We argue that when trust building is promoted as a technical fix that does not plan in advance to address power asymmetries in conservation practice, inequities may inadvertently be re-embedded. Therefore, we conceptualized a framework that joins trust, justice, and power so that critical analyses of conservation partnerships can be more effectively undertaken. We drew on environmental justice theory to better calibrate the trust literature for the historical-political settings of conservation, especially in the Global South. Justice and trust share strong theoretical links where perceptions of justice shape a willingness to trust, and, equally, trust is a precondition for justice to be perceived. Different forms of trust connect to varied domains of justice and power in different ways, which mediates the outcomes of interventions. We applied our framework to case studies to explore how these interdependences play out in practice. Failure of agencies to attend to issues of maldistribution, misrecognition of cultural values and knowledge, and exclusion from participation strongly compromised trust. Moreover, the ways in which nature-dependent communities and marginalized conservation workers are trusted, or the conditions under which they give trust, can lead to partnerships being perceived as just or unjust. Focusing on trust and justice can help identify power dynamics so they can be addressed more readily and create space for alternative understandings of partnerships.