When considering ecosystem outcomes from a collaborative watershed management process, develop evaluation criteria that can account for the influence of scale and better reflect the potential contributions of the watershed team to their broad, longterm vision for the watershed. Continue reading →
Audience: Local decision-makers 
People who provide recognized leadership in the community whether in elected, appointed, salaried, or volunteer positions
Findings Navigation: Browse by Audience; Browse by Theme; Browse by Best Education Practice; Browse by multiple topics
Elmendorf, W. F., & Luloff, A. E. (2006) Finding 1
Use key informant interviews of local leaders to aid understanding for how to engage leaders in planning for conservation of open space. Consider attitudes, issues, and obstacles. Continue reading →
Elmendorf, W. F., & Luloff, A. E. (2006) Finding 2
Educate stakeholders to help them fully understand planning tools available to protect open space, the benefits of planning, and planning and collaborative techniques. Continue reading →
Elmendorf, W. F., & Luloff, A. E. (2006) Finding 3
To enhance local conservation planning, facilitate development of an organized public interest group who can speak on behalf of conservation initiatives. Continue reading →
Faysse, N. (2004) Finding 1
To enhance participation in water resource and watershed management, create small-scale user forums to improve the internal organization among small landholders and give them a voice. Continue reading →
Gearey, M., & Jeffrey, P. (2005) Finding 1
Use audience assessment strategies to identify which, if any, water and watershed governance strategies interest households and landowners. Build participatory opportunities around specific topics of interest. Consider household and landowner response to strategies such as: pollution control, lowering prices, protecting flood plains, improving storage facilities, improving repairs and maintenance and introducing enforced metering. Continue reading →
Hartley, T. W. (2006) Finding 1
To increase US public acceptance of water reuse, such as high awareness of treatment technology, trust in local government; and of the challenges and opportunities of water reuse in the US:
- Manage diverse types of information in order to serve the interests of all stakeholders, and ensure equal access of information, in order to promote learning and communication, and to build mutual understanding among all stakeholders.
- Nurture multiple motives for the public to engage, demonstrate genuine commitment to hear the public’s voice.
- Promote communication and public dialog in multiple forms and venues in all stages of decision making.
- Ensure decisions made are fair, sound, and reasonable.
- Build and maintain trust among decision makers and the general public.
Giordano, R., Passarella, G., Uricchio, V. F., & Vurro, M. (2007) Finding 1
To address the complexity of water resource management problems, combine the technological dimension with the social dimension, based on stakeholders involvement; use decision-support tools in a shared platform through which the debate is organised and the different sources of knowledge are integrated. Continue reading →
Giordano, R., Passarella, G., Uricchio, V. F., & Vurro, M. (2007) Finding 2
To address the complexity of water resource management problems, engage stakeholders in structuring, i.e. systematizing the knowledge which emerges during the participative process, in order to make it comprehensible for the other participants and functional for the decision process. Cognitive mapping (concepts linked to form chains of action-oriented argumentation) and analysis is an example of a system that can be used to produce different points of view and information, in order to enrich a collective ‘‘knowledge base’’ with creative ideas and concepts around the problem. Continue reading →
Ghanbarpour, M. R., Hipel, K. W., & Abbaspour, K. C. (2005) Finding 2
In the long-term watershed planning process, assess and analyse different stakeholders’ preferences in order to prioritize various strategies and alternatives. For example, use an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) or a social choice function (SCF) process. The analytical hierarchy process is best used with expert groups and includes (1) the structuring of a problem into a hierarchy consisting of a goal and subordinate features, (2) pairwise comparisons between elements at each level, and (3) propagation of level-specific, local priorities to global priorities. The intensity of preference between any two elements is assessed by integers ranging from 1 to 9 (Saaty, 1980, 1990). The social choice function is based on pairwise comparisons on the number of voters between pairs of strategies. It assumes that all assertions of preference between two strategies carry equal weight. Continue reading →
