TY - JOUR
T1 - Knowledge governance and learning
T2 - Examining challenges and opportunities in the Colorado River basin
AU - Gerlak, Andrea K.
AU - Karambelkar, Surabhi
AU - Ferguson, Daniel B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program through grant NA17OAR4310288 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at the University of Arizona. We appreciate valuable comments on earlier drafts of this research from Kathy Jacobs, Steve Wolff, Kevin Dahl, John Weishert, Patrick McCarthy, Jennifer Pitt, Rabi Gyawali, Craig McGinnis, Bret Esslin, and Vineetha Kartha. Any errors should be attributed to the authors. Collaboration and Knowledge in the Colorado River Basin: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead. There are no conflicts of interest.
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program through grant NA17OAR4310288 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at the University of Arizona. We appreciate valuable comments on earlier drafts of this research from Kathy Jacobs, Steve Wolff, Kevin Dahl, John Weishert, Patrick McCarthy, Jennifer Pitt, Rabi Gyawali, Craig McGinnis, Bret Esslin, and Vineetha Kartha. Any errors should be attributed to the authors.
Funding Information:
Although Tribal representatives hold seats on a few advisory bodies, tribal participation is limited. The AMP is the only program where Indigenous communities are involved, to a limited extent, in conducting research ( USBR and USGS, 2017 ). In the LCR MSCP, relevant Indigenous communities do not inform the scientific efforts per se but may be involved in conservation work. For example, the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation received financial support from LCR MSCP to manage the Yuma East Wetlands as a conservation site ( LCR MSCP, 2019 ). Similarly, other actors more external to the process, such as independent researchers or members of the public, have little opportunity to directly participate or influence the process of selecting research priorities for the programs or conducting the research itself. The LCR MSCP and the Binational Environmental Work Group offer limited opportunities for indirect involvement through conference and educational events, respectively ( LCR MSCP, 2020a, 2020b ; Interviewee #2) ( Table 3 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for effective and sustainable water governance. In the Colorado River basin, collaborative programs have been established over the past 50 years to inform decision-making in the basin on a range of concerns from water quality to endangered species recovery and ecosystem restoration. We embrace a knowledge governance perspective to examine the institutional arrangements underpinning the production and use of knowledge in the basin's collaborative programs. Through a review of programmatic documents and targeted interviews with program participants, we find a recurrent emphasis on science-based decision-making to address specific resource challenges across the programs. Our unpacking of the institutional design of the knowledge governance processes highlights two key challenges: (1) the institutional design has created a federal agency–advisory committee–technical committee triad structure that limits the saliency and legitimacy of diverse interests, as well as credibility of diverse ways of knowing and formalized learning processes and (2) a focus on the river in discrete, fragmented units that hinders a broader view of the river as a system and neglects cross-programmatic learning. These findings question if certain institutional design elements may serve to limit the ability of these programs to address new challenges facing the basin. We outline some potential steps to address these challenges with the aim of building more impactful, collaborative knowledge systems that leverage learning to not only lend saliency, credibility, and legitimacy to broad, inclusive, and diverse ways of knowing but also promote adaptiveness in a rapidly evolving socio-environmental system.
AB - Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for effective and sustainable water governance. In the Colorado River basin, collaborative programs have been established over the past 50 years to inform decision-making in the basin on a range of concerns from water quality to endangered species recovery and ecosystem restoration. We embrace a knowledge governance perspective to examine the institutional arrangements underpinning the production and use of knowledge in the basin's collaborative programs. Through a review of programmatic documents and targeted interviews with program participants, we find a recurrent emphasis on science-based decision-making to address specific resource challenges across the programs. Our unpacking of the institutional design of the knowledge governance processes highlights two key challenges: (1) the institutional design has created a federal agency–advisory committee–technical committee triad structure that limits the saliency and legitimacy of diverse interests, as well as credibility of diverse ways of knowing and formalized learning processes and (2) a focus on the river in discrete, fragmented units that hinders a broader view of the river as a system and neglects cross-programmatic learning. These findings question if certain institutional design elements may serve to limit the ability of these programs to address new challenges facing the basin. We outline some potential steps to address these challenges with the aim of building more impactful, collaborative knowledge systems that leverage learning to not only lend saliency, credibility, and legitimacy to broad, inclusive, and diverse ways of knowing but also promote adaptiveness in a rapidly evolving socio-environmental system.
KW - Collaboration
KW - Colorado River
KW - Science
KW - Water governance
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85114994237&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.08.026
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.08.026
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114994237
VL - 125
SP - 219
EP - 230
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
SN - 1462-9011
ER -