Collaborative watershed partnerships in urban and rural areas: Different pathways to success?

This study addresses the impact of biophysical characteristics, institutional rules-in-use, and community attributes on the actors and actions of 2 collaborative watershed partnerships with different land use patterns: one in an urban environment, and the other rural. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework is employed to investigate the institutional performance of each partnership by evaluating the transaction costs and environmental, social, and policy outputs of the two different groups. Results suggest that the nature of environmental problems in the two watersheds, combined with unique cultural attributes, and varying institutional frameworks, lead to different partnership goals, processes, and outputs. In the urban setting, watershed practitioners have taken advantage of the “thick” institutional framework to establish stormwater institutions, remediate impairments, and strengthen local policies. In the rural watershed, partnership members have sought to combat threats associated with land conversion and incompatible development with comprehensive planning and by building relationships with landowners in an attempt to encourage the adoption of conservation easements and BMPs. Thus, different sets of variables are critical for success across the two types of settings.