Abstract

The “collaborative turn” in environmental policy has been a major theme in the United States over the past two decades. Collaboration and stakeholder participation are seen as important ways to address environmental issues, such as water pollution, that cross existing government boundaries. Along with changes in policy and management have come research studies focusing on these phenomena. This presentation discusses the evolution of social science research on collaborative watershed management (CWM) in the U.S. Scholars have developed multiple streams of inquiry stemming from basic questions about how CWM effort operate and what they accomplish, who participates and why, the impacts of collaboration on individuals and communities, and links to natural science and multiple scales. Findings suggest important areas for future research.