Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement: A Comparative Study of Agency Capture in Stream Restoration

从当地社区团体到联邦政府，每年都要花费数亿美元和无数小时的时间，试图将河流恢复到更自然的状态。 不幸的是，基层对恢复项目的需求远远超过了当代如何实施这些项目的知识，这就增加了在河流恢复中什么是合理科学的冲突的风险。这些冲突中最重要的一个是由一个名为戴夫·罗斯根的顾问开发的相对简单的河流通道分类和恢复系统催化的。 尽管有水文学和地貌学高级学位的科学家和顾问的反对，罗斯根方法已经成为美国最有影响力的河流恢复方法。在过去的十年里，它已经被包括EPA、USFWS和USFS在内的联邦机构以及十几个州的自然资源部门迅速广泛采用，这一过程被称为机构捕获。 这个博士论文项目将解释Rosgen方法在面对科学反对时令人印象深刻的机构捕获记录，并阐明在溪流恢复中工作的社会政治力量。 研究将采取比较实地考察的形式，在采用了罗斯根方法的加州、马里兰州和蒙大拿州，以及没有采用罗斯根方法的华盛顿和俄勒冈州进行。 博士生将利用政治生态学和科学技术研究来回答三个关键问题。 (1)如何解释罗斯金方法被迅速采用的原因？ (2)机构俘获的形式和动力如何变化？ (3)为什么有些国家拒绝收养？与传统环保主义者试图保护纯净的自然免受人类进一步破坏相反，生态恢复声称人们可以超越保护并修复已经造成的环境破坏。 人类作为环境健康的积极贡献者的这种形象的巨大吸引力迅速使恢复，特别是河流恢复，成为环境运动的推动力和美国各级政府的制度化承诺。 这项研究将通过更好地了解限制科学家在制定恢复政策中的作用的社会和政治力量，对河流恢复产生广泛的影响。 此外，生态恢复正在改变美国的环保主义和环境政策，但社会科学家的研究不足。 这项研究将对影响恢复政策和环境本身的社会和政治力量进行急需的审查。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

Organizations ranging from local community groups to the federal government spend hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours of time each year attempting to restore streams to a more natural condition. Unfortunately, grassroots demand for restoration projects far outstrips contemporary knowledge of how to implement them, raising the stakes for conflicts over what constitutes sound science in river restoration. One of the most important of these conflicts was catalyzed by a relatively simple system for classifying and restoring stream channels developed by a consultant named Dave Rosgen. Despite the opposition of scientists and consultants with advanced degrees in hydrology and geomorphology, the Rosgen Method has become the most influential method of stream restoration in the U.S. Over the last ten years, it has been rapidly and widely adopted by federal agencies, including the EPA, USFWS, and USFS, and by natural resource departments from more than a dozen states, a process known as agency capture. This doctoral dissertation project will explain the Rosgen Method's impressive record of agency capture in the face of stiff scientific opposition and illuminate the socio-political forces at work in stream restoration. Research will take the form of comparative fieldwork in California, Maryland, and Montana, which have adopted the Rosgen Method, and Washington and Oregon, which have not. The doctoral student will draw on political ecology and science and technology studies to answer three key questions. (1) What explains the rapidity with which the Rosgen Method was adopted? (2) How do the forms and dynamics of agency capture vary? (3) Why have some states resisted adoption?In contrast to traditional environmentalist attempts to protect a pure nature from further human damage, ecological restoration claims that people can go beyond conservation and repair the environmental damage already done. The tremendous appeal of this image of humans as a positive contributor to environmental health has rapidly made restoration, particularly stream restoration, a driving force of the environmental movement and an institutionalized commitment at all levels of American government. This research will have a broad impact on stream restoration by providing a better understanding of the social and political forces that limit scientists' role in setting restoration policy. In addition, ecological restoration is transforming American environmentalism and environmental policy, yet is understudied by social scientists. This research will provide a much-needed examination of the social and political forces affecting restoration policy and the environment itself. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.