Performance Evaluation of Watershed Environment Governance—A Case Study of Taihu Basin

The rapid development of urbanization and industrialization brings a series of problems of environment governance, and several basins are facing huge pressure. This paper selects the Taihu basin in the Yangtze River Delta of China as the study area, establishes the DPSIR model to measure the water environment governance performance of the region (), analyzes the causes of changes in the five subsystems (the governance performance of the subsystems is recorded as ), and uses the diagnostic model to identify the barrier factors that restrict the improvement of in the last 5 years. The results show that during the study period， of the driving force subsystem generally tends to increase and maintains a steady growth, which is closely linked to economic growth in the basin; of the pressure subsystem increases with a small fluctuation, and the pollution generation still needs attention; in the state subsystem, shows a large fluctuation, and varies significantly in a cyclical manner, corresponding to the short maintenance time and repeated treatment of pollution in the watershed; of the impact subsystem shows an overall upward but a slightly slower trend, and it is related to the fact that the industrial structure of the basin still needs to be improved; and of the response subsystem shows an overall upward trend and a slightly larger increase, and the multi-actor collaborative management has helped a lot. The main barrier factors include key cross-sections’ water quality compliance rate, the water quality compliance rate of key water function areas, water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value, and the lake trophic status index. Based on the results of the study, the article gives recommendations for watershed governance, such as controlling pollution generation, optimising industrial structure, using technological tools to help governance, sharing the cost of governance among multiple parties and strengthening supervision The findings help to make scientific environmental protection planning and policies of the study region. The research can also provide experience for other countries and regions in watershed governance.

Public Policy Analysis on Watershed Governance in Indonesia

This paper, which is focused on evaluating the policies and institutional control of the Brantas River Basin, East Java, Indonesia, aims to review government regulations on watershed governance in Indonesia. A qualitative approach to content analysis is used to explain and layout government regulations regarding planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and accountability of the central and local governments in managing the Brantas watershed, East Java, Indonesia. Nvivo 12 Plus software is used to map, analyze, and create data visualization to answer research questions. This study reveals that the management regulations of the Brantas watershed, East Java, Indonesia, are based on a centralized system, which places the central government as an actor who plays an essential role in the formulation, implementation, and accountability of the Brantas watershed management. In contrast, East Java Province’s regional government only plays a role in implementing and evaluating policies. The central government previously formulated the Brantas watershed. This research contributes to strengthening the management and institutional arrangement of the central government and local governments that support the realization of good governance of the Brantas watershed. Future research needs to apply a survey research approach that focuses on evaluating the capacity of the central government and local governments in supporting good management of the Brantas watershed.

Formulating Sustainable Watershed Governance Model: A Meta-analysis of Watershed Governance

Currently watershed governance still involves many stakeholders from different territories, ranging from local to cross-country, and also, different social, political, cultural, and economic factors. Therefore, this study aims to categorize the themes or concepts related to watershed management studies. Through descriptive analysis and the help of the Nvivo-12 software, 383 Scopus indexed paper articles, which were published by major publishers such as Emerald, MDPI, Sage, ScienceDirect, Springer, Taylor and Francis, were obtained. The results indicate that there are 155 concepts in the watershed governance study, and they can be categorized into 6 groups. Furthermore, they are also related to dominant themes such as water resources, governance, watershed, environment, local issue, and policy. The significance of this study is the discovery of the concept of watershed governance studies; therefore, it can assist in the development of conceptual frameworks in future studies. Meanwhile, the limitation of this study is that the articles it reviewed were obtained from only the Scopus database, therefore, it does not have comparable data. Consequently, future studies need to use a comparative analysis approach which involves both the Scopus and the Web of Sciences (WoS) databases.

Comparing Complexity in Watershed Governance: The Case of California

Environmental governance scholars argue that optimal environmental performance can be achieved by matching the scale of governance to the scale of the resource being managed. In the case of water, this means managing at the scale of the watershed. However, many watersheds lack a single watershed-scale organization with authority over all water resources and instead rely on cross-jurisdiction coordination or collaboration among diverse organizations. To understand what “watershed governance” looks like fully, this paper maps organizations with rights to use, regulate, or manage water in four subwatersheds in California (the American, Cosumnes, and Kings Rivers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed and the Shasta River in the Klamath watershed). We assemble datasets of water organizations, water rights holders, and water management plans and use content analysis and social network analysis to explore what water management looks like in the absence of a single basin authority. We describe the institutional complexity that exists in each watershed, compare the physical and institutional interconnections between actors in the watersheds, and then ask to what extent these connections map onto watershed boundaries. We find that the ways in which water management is complex takes very different forms across the four watersheds, despite their being located in a similar political, social, and geographic context. Each watershed has drastically different numbers of actors and uses a very different mix of water sources. We also see very different levels of coordination between actors in each watershed. Given these differences, we then discuss how the institutional reforms needed to create watershed-scale management are unique for each watershed. By building a stronger comparative understanding of what watershed governance actually entails, this work aims to build more thoughtful recommendations for building institutional fit.