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

在美国和全球许多地区，内陆淡水盐浓度正在上升，这一趋势直接威胁到水质、生态系统和饮用水供应。 该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，该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（而不是监管驱动的“自上而下”解决方案）。这项研究的测试案例将是奥克泉水库，这是北方弗吉尼亚州近200万人的饮用水供应。水库正在盐碱化，为了更好地了解根本原因，研究人员将重点关注两个主要的盐源：污水处理厂的污水和上游流域的除冰剂使用。通过融合研究，教育和宣传，他们将确定促进利益相关者之间合作的机制，以有效管理这一区域重要的饮用水供应的盐预算。将与水研究基金会合作，在国家和全球范围内推广所吸取的经验教训，内陆淡水盐碱化的核心是一个共同的资源问题，因为所有行为者都可以获得内陆淡水，限制获得淡水的费用将高得令人望而却步。根据对水部门集体行动安排的详细研究，诺贝尔奖获得者埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆开发了一个社会生态系统（SES）框架，用于诊断当地行为者可能在没有外部干扰的情况下联合起来管理CPR的条件。该项目假设奥斯特罗姆的SES框架可用于诊断和解决限制或完全阻止自下而上管理内陆淡水盐预算的挑战和障碍。通过与当地水和废水管理人员及其他利益攸关方的半结构化访谈，多方利益攸关方的讨论，包括共同学习和探索，生物物理和社会科学领域和建模研究，以及对利益攸关方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“将知识转化为行动”并催化底层-该奖项反映了NSF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.