Coming to the table: collaborative governance and groundwater decision-making in coastal California

Abigail Brown, Ruth Langridge and Kirsten Rudestam

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2016, vol. 59, issue 12, 2163-2178

Abstract: Collaborative governance is on the rise in the United States. This management approach brings together state and non-state actors for environmental decision-making, and it is frequently used in California for decisions regarding local groundwater management. This study examines groundwater decision-making groups and practices in a central California coastal community to understand whether groups meet specific collaborative governance criteria and whether and why certain subsets of the population are excluded from groundwater decision-making practices. It also identifies actions for better group inclusion. We find that small farmers, the Hispanic/Latino community, and the general public are often excluded from groundwater decision-making groups and practices due to unawareness, mistrust, and insufficient resources. Education and awareness as well as incentives could help increase inclusion. This study provides insights into more equitable groundwater decision-making groups and practices, and also calls for more critical examination of the current stakeholder approach to decision-making.

Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2015.1130690 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:59:y:2016:i:12:p:2163-2178

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJEP20

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2015.1130690

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management is currently edited by Dr Neil Powe, Dr Ken Willis and George Bill Page

More articles in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().