Institutional adaptation and change in collaborative watershed management: An examination of the Northwest power and conservation council's fish and wildlife program

Transboundary institutions, such as treaties, compacts, collaborative agreements, councils, and collaborative programs, have long been recognized as valuable mechanisms for addressing and resolving the conflicts and environmental problems that result from the use and allocation of water resources that cross multiple political jurisdictions, both regionally and internationally (Florestano 1994; Lubell et al. 2002; Wolf et al. 2003; Gerlak and Grant 2009). In the United States, such collaborative efforts have emerged in recent years across a number of the largest and most ecologically, economically, and culturally significant watersheds. They can be found in the marsh wetlands of the Florida Everglades, along the coast of Louisiana, in the Midwest's Great Lakes region, and along the Pacific Northwest's mighty Columbia River (Wiley and Canty 2003;Vigmostad et al. 2005; Heikkila and Gerlak 2005; Doyle and Drew 2008; Gerlak 2008).