Collaborative Research: GCR: Common Pool Resource Theory as a Scalable Framework for Catalyzing Stakeholder-Driven Solutions to the Freshwater Salinization Syndrome

美国和全球许多地区的内陆淡水盐浓度都在上升，这一趋势直接威胁到水质、生态系统和饮用水供应。研究小组将测试一种潜在的可推广的方法来扭转内陆淡水盐碱化，这种方法依赖于当地机构和其他利益相关者，与工程师、水文学家、社会科学家和政策制定者合作，为这个日益严重的问题制定适合当地的“自下而上”解决方案（与监管驱动的“自上而下”解决方案相反）。这项研究的测试案例将是奥科泉水库，这是弗吉尼亚州北部近200万人的饮用水供应。水库正在盐化，为了更好地了解潜在的原因，研究人员将把重点放在两个主要的盐源上：废水处理厂的废水和上游流域使用的除冰器。通过融合性研究、教育和外联，他们将确定促进利益攸关方之间合作的机制，以有效管理这一区域重要饮用水供应的盐预算。将与水研究基金会合作，在全国和全球范围内推广吸取的经验教训。内陆淡水盐碱化的核心是一个共同资源问题，因为所有参与者都可以获得内陆淡水，限制获取的代价高昂。诺贝尔奖得主埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆（Elinor Ostrom）通过对水资源部门集体行动安排的详细研究，开发了一个社会生态系统（SES）框架，用于诊断当地行动者可能在没有外界干扰的情况下联合起来管理CPR的条件。该项目假设Ostrom的SES框架可以用来诊断和解决限制或直接阻止内陆淡水盐预算自下而上管理的挑战和障碍。通过与当地水和废水管理人员和其他利益相关者的半结构化访谈，以共享学习和探索为特色的多利益相关者审议，生物物理和社会科学领域和建模研究，以及利益相关者对问题不断发展的理解的纵向研究，研究人员将测试奥斯特罗姆的框架可以“推动知识转化为行动”的假设，并催化自下而上的解决方案，以应对生态系统可持续性和人类水安全的威胁。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Inland freshwater salt concentrations are rising across many regions of the United States and globally—a trend that directly threatens water quality, ecosystems, and drinking water supplies. The research team will test a potentially generalizable approach to reverse inland freshwater salinization that relies on local agencies and other stakeholders—in partnership with engineers, hydrologists, social scientists, and policymakers—to craft locally tailored “bottom-up” solutions to this growing problem (as opposed to regulatorily driven “top-down” solutions). The test case for the study will be the Occoquan Reservoir, a drinking water supply for nearly 2 million people in Northern Virginia. The reservoir is salinizing and to better understand the underlying causes, the researchers will focus on two major salt sources: effluent from a wastewater treatment plant and deicer use in upstream watersheds. Through convergence research, education and outreach they will identify mechanisms that promote collaboration between stakeholders to effectively manage the salt budget of this regionally important drinking water supply. Lessons learned will be upscaled nationally and globally in partnership with the Water Research Foundation.At its core, inland freshwater salinization is a common pool resource (CPR) problem, because inland freshwaters are available to all actors and restricting access would be prohibitively expensive. From detailed studies of collective action arrangements in the water sector, Nobel-laureate Elinor Ostrom developed a social-ecological-systems (SES) framework for diagnosing the conditions under which local actors are likely to band together to manage a CPR without outside interference. This project hypothesizes that Ostrom’s SES framework can be used to diagnose, and resolve, the challenges and barriers that limit, or outright prevent, bottom-up management of inland freshwater salt budgets. Through semi-structured interviews with local water and wastewater managers and other stakeholders, multi-stakeholder deliberations featuring shared learning and exploration, biophysical and social science field and modeling studies, and longitudinal studies of stakeholders’ evolving understanding of the problem, the researchers will test the hypothesis that Ostrom’s framework can “propel knowledge into action” and catalyze bottom-up solutions to threats to ecosystem sustainability and human water security.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.