Ascertaining Intergovernmental Coordination Mechanisms

标题：确定政府间协调机制摘要：政府机构的管辖边界往往与它们负责处理的政策问题的地理或社会边界不符。这种空间错位在自然资源和环境方面尤其常见。在这种情况下，实现政策目标可能需要跨司法管辖区的协调，这可能导致互惠互利。然而，政府机构可能会认为协调代价高昂，或导致失去自主权。该项目将审查地方政府机构在响应国家立法授权进行协调以实现地下水可持续性时的选择。该项目将调查地下水可持续发展机构(GSA)根据加州可持续地下水管理法(SGMA)协调计划时做出的协调决定。该项目将采用混合方法，包括访谈、调查、内容分析和统计建模，以分析不同政府部门之间协调机制的差异。为此，研究将审查共享一个地下水盆地的政府间管理局提交的地下水可持续发展计划之间的兼容性，以及这些计划与国家地下水管理局关于盆地一级地下水可持续发展的法定定义是否相符。虽然这项研究考察了共享地下水的协调，但研究结果将更广泛地适用于其他共享自然资源和跨境环境问题的管理。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Title: Ascertaining Intergovernmental Coordination Mechanisms Abstract: Jurisdictional boundaries of governmental agencies often do not align with the geographic or social boundaries of the policy issues they are tasked with addressing. This spatial mismatch is especially common in relation to natural resources and the environment. Where it occurs, achievement of policy goals may require coordination across jurisdictions, which can lead to mutual benefits. Yet, governmental agencies may view coordination as costly or as leading to a loss of autonomy. This project will examine the choices of local governmental agencies as they respond to a State legislative mandate to coordinate in order to achieve groundwater sustainability. The project will investigate coordination decisions made by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) as they coordinate plans under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The project will employ a mixed-methods approach, including interviews, surveys, content analysis, and statistical modeling, to analyze differences in coordination mechanisms among various GSAs. To do so, the research will examine compatibility between groundwater sustainability plans submitted by GSAs which share a groundwater basin, as well as the fit of those plans with SGMA statutory definitions of groundwater sustainability at the basin-level. Though the research examines coordination over shared groundwater, findings will be applicable more broadly to the management of other shared natural resources and cross-border environmental issues.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.