Doctoral Dissertation Research: Governing Sediment: An Institutional Geography of Land Use and the Environment in the North Coastal Basin of California

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Over the last three decades, the migration of urban and suburban dwellers into rural areas of the United States has dramatically transformed the rural landscape. This migration places development pressure on forested, agricultural, and wildlands and has led to the subdivision of large tracts of land into smaller parcels, which complicates environmental management. The challenge of controlling non-point source (NPS) pollution from rural private lands is of particular importance, because regulators and watershed managers face the task of developing new governance strategies that are effective for influencing the land-management practices of a large number of diverse landowners and land users. This doctoral dissertation research project will address this governance challenge by investigating if and how regulations and non-regulatory programs directly and indirectly promote the prevention and control of sediment (a common NPS pollutant) from private roads on residential, ranch, and timberlands in the North Coastal basin of California. The doctoral candidate will use an institutional analysis approach that explicitly acknowledges that the legal regulations ("rules in form") often differ from what happens on the ground ("rules in use"). One source of information will be in-depth interviews with key landowners, people associated with non-governmental organizations, and staff at government agencies. That information will be complemented by, a large mail survey of landowners, site visits, and archival research in order to provide data on the structural, environmental, and sociopolitical factors that reinforce differences in the ways people manage their land and that may influence the potential for transferring successful programs to different regions. The investigators expect to demonstrate that the logistical challenges of enforcing existing NPS regulations limit the potential for regulatory solutions, making it important to identify and invest in other social and cultural factors that influence the actual land-management practices on private lands.This research project will investigate the multiple factors that influence the effectiveness of regulatory and non-regulatory programs reducing NPS pollution and addressing other complex socioecological problems on private lands. It will provide agencies and environmental non-profit organizations with much needed information about on-the-ground-management practices of various groups of landowners and the efficacy of existing outreach programs. More broadly, the research will help regulators and land managers throughout the United States build effective strategies for influencing land-management practices on rural private lands where ownership and use is becoming increasingly diverse. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.