Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Looking Upstream: Governance of the Forest-Water Interface in California

近几十年来，美国联邦公共土地机构与企业、非营利组织、大学和公民等非政府行为者的互动已经演变为基于网络的管理模式，用于管理公共土地和自然资源。这一趋势也出现在公共政策的许多其他领域，改变了社会就公共问题作出决定的方式，改变了政府机构的作用和责任。虽然这对民主和问责有重要影响，但关于政府机构如何适应基于网络的治理的研究很少，例如它们如何建立和塑造自己的网络。这项研究项目询问了关键的自然资源机构--美国林业局--如何采用基于网络的方法来管理公共土地和资源。随着基于网络的治理需求的增加，该机构选择与谁合作？为什么？这些选择可能如何反映政治限制或组织逻辑？由此产生的治理网络如何改变权力动态，并塑造公众参与决策的渠道？地方级网络如何嵌入州和联邦自然资源政治等更广泛的政治背景，并受到其影响？在我们的研究中，我们通过关注美国林务局如何使用网络方法来管理加州下游供水的国家森林来解决这些问题，内华达山脉的国家森林提供了该州一半的水资源？S供水。鉴于反复发生的干旱和气候变化将对取水时间和产量产生不利影响的预测，这些流域的管理日益成为下游水资源利益攸关方和决策者的关切。该研究项目将网络分析与三个国家森林及其流域的比较案例研究相结合。

Interactions of U.S. federal public lands agencies with non-government actors such as businesses, non-profit organizations, universities, and citizens have evolved in recent decades towards a network-based governance model for managing public lands and natural resources. This trend is also occurring in many other areas of public policy, changing how society makes decisions about public issues and altering the roles and responsibilities of government agencies. Although this has important implications for democracy and accountability, there is little research on how government agencies have adapted to network-based governance, for example in how they build and shape their networks. This research project asks how a critical natural resource agency, the U.S. Forest Service, pursues network-based approaches for managing public lands and resources. As the demand for network-based governance increases, with whom does the agency choose to work, and why? How might these choices reflect political constraints or organizational logics? How do resulting governance networks change power dynamics and shape public access to decision-making? And how are local-level networks embedded in, and shaped by, broader political contexts such as state and federal natural resource politics? In our study, we address these issues by focusing on how the U.S. Forest Service uses network approaches to manage national forests for downstream water supply in California, where national forests in the Sierra Nevada mountain range produce half of the state?s water supply. The management of these watersheds is increasingly a concern of downstream water stakeholders and decision makers in light of recurrent droughts and predictions that climate change will adversely affect water timing and yields. The research project combines network analysis with comparative case studies in three national forests and their watersheds.