Understanding water pollution management: Evidence and insights from incorporating cultural theory in social network analysis

Social network analysis gives a rigid assessment of network structure while cultural theory helps explain management outcomes in more detail. The combination of these methods provides significant and alternative insights about the complexity of water pollution management. Applied in the case study of the Calumpang Watershed in the Philippines, two types of relations were evaluated, namely, resource sharing and cooperative activities. Factors affecting cooperation and the creation of bridges were assessed in social network analysis, while cultural theory was used to reveal the underlying views of key actors on the nature of the river and its management. Evidence showed that cooperation was significantly influenced by resource sharing regardless of institutional affiliation, while bridges were created by becoming the pools of information and resources in the network. Using cultural theory, this study found out that local government officials dominantly have a mixture of hierarchist and egalitarian views characterizing belief in both rule-bound and group-motivated actions to solve the water pollution problem. However, their egalitarian views on management did not manifest in the current network. The study concludes that collaborative partnerships for water pollution management can be facilitated by promoting resource flow, utilizing influential bridges in the network, and understanding the unconventional values of government actors. Combining social network analysis and cultural theory is recommended to generate a more critical assessment of the institutional complexity of pollution and other water issues in watersheds.