Srinivasan, Jaishri

This article examines the current conceptual and theoretical foundations of river governance. I define and distinguish between hydro-certain and hydro-uncertain governance. I begin by laying out the different modes/levels of certainty that drives hydro-certain decision-making in river governance in the ecohydrological, societal, political and legal realms. I then lay out what mechanisms need to be applied in shifting from hydro-certain to hydro-uncertain river governance. Finally, a complex systems framework for arid river governance is presented using the case example of the Colorado River basin in the United States West. This new systems framework showcases a different mode of governing arid rivers that involves acceptance of uncertainty. Sustainable arid river governance can only be achieved by undertaking the difficult work of facilitating land use transitions from current unsustainable agricultural modes to alternative low water use options. This framework can be applied to other arid river systems with appropriate contextual considerations.

Our study uses a context-mechanism-outcome approach to highlight how trust diversity emerges in wildfire collaborative archetypes and how it impacts collaborative environmental, social and process outcomes. Using survey data from wildland collaboratives, we identify three distinct collaborative archetypes arising from landscape and property rights heterogeneity, stakeholder distributions and value diversity and collaborative mission orientations. We characterize four distinct trust types of these collaborative groups including affinitive trust, dispositional trust, rational trust and procedural trust. We find that collaborative process mechanisms such as trust types, development and maintenance differ across collaborative archetypes. We also find that the contexts and mechanisms differentially influence outcome achievement with partial achievement of social and environmental outcomes but substantial gains in process outcomes depending on trust diversity and archetype group. Ultimately, understanding the mechanisms of operation in different contexts can help guide improved decision-making, navigate conflict and create more equitable participation in collaborative wildfire management.