Evaluating the Effectiveness of Collaboration in Water Resource Planning in California: A Case Study of CALFED

该项目将通过对CALFED的深入研究，评估在加州有争议的水资源规划竞技场中合作的有效性，CALFED是一项大规模的努力，旨在为北美西海岸最大的河口决定指导政策和管理战略。CALFED汇集了联邦、州和地方机构以及利益相关者，以制定一个全面和长期的方案，恢复和管理这一关键的环境和经济资源。尽管加州水系统的这些方面之间存在着深刻的紧张关系，但通过促进参与者之间的建设性对话，这一努力已经产生了重大成果，正在改变加州水资源的讨论和管理方式。本研究的主要目的是检验三个有关合作政策对话的假设。首先，对话越符合某些合作条件，就越有可能产生创新、共同理解、长期工作关系和政治上可接受的解决方案。第二，合作对话的参与者改变了他们对问题的看法以及他们自己的利益和选择。最后，在某些情况下，出现了新的规范、做法和互动模式，这些规范、做法和模式不仅限于所涉个人，而且随着时间的推移而持续存在。研究方法包括对CALFED参与者的深入访谈，观察会议，审查记录辩论和行动的文件，并为讨论提供支持分析。该分析将比较CALFED内部更多和更少的合作对话的结果和对参与者以及参与者之间的做法和关系的影响。研究人员还将更新CALFED之前加州水政策和水问题的历史记录，并将记录CALFED以来的变化。CALFED案中明显的潜在发展压力越来越普遍，并适用于美国各地的水资源共享情况以及许多地方的其他多管辖区资源问题。决策者、规划者和管理者通常必须在他们的活动中兼顾环境和经济问题。拟议的研究将建立在这些做法的基础理论，以及在何种条件下，他们做和不工作。

This project will evaluate the effectiveness of collaboration in the contentious water-resource planning arena in California, through an in-depth study of CALFED, a large-scale effort to decide the guiding policies and management strategies for the largest estuary on North America's west coast. CALFED brings together federal, state and local agencies, as well as stakeholders, to develop a comprehensive and long-term program for restoring and managing this critical environmental and economic resource. Despite the deep tensions between these aspects of California's water system, the effort has already produced significant outcomes that are changing the way California's water resources are discussed and managed by fostering constructive dialogue among participants. The principal objective of this study is to test three related hypotheses about collaborative policy dialogues. First, the better a dialogue meets certain collaboration conditions, the more likely it is to produce innovations, shared understandings, long term working relationships and politically acceptable solutions. Second, participants in collaborative dialogues change their views of the problem and of their own interests and options. Lastly, new norms, practices, and patterns of interaction emerge in some instances which spread beyond the individuals involved and persist over time. The research methods include in-depth interviews of CALFED participants, observation of meetings, and review of documents recording the debates and actions and providing supporting analysis for the discussions. The analysis will compare the more and less collaborative dialogues within CALFED in terms of their outcomes and effects on participants and on the practices and relationships among players. The researchers will also update the historical account of water policy and water issues in California prior to CALFED and will document the changes since CALFED. The underlying developmental pressures evident in the CALFED case are increasingly common and apply to water sharing situations throughout the US and to other multi-jurisdictional resource issues in many locations. Decision-makers, planners, and managers routinely must incorporate both environmental and economic concerns in their activities. The proposed research will build basic theory on these practices and on the conditions under which they do and do not work.