Abstract

Incorporating stakeholder engagement into environmental management may help in the pursuit of novel approaches for addressing complex water resource problems. However, evidence about how and under what circumstances stakeholder engagement enables desirable changes remains elusive. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for studying social and environmental changes possible through stakeholder engagement in water resource management, from inception to outcomes. We synthesize concepts from multiple literatures to provide a framework for tracing linkages from contextual conditions, through engagement process design features, to social learning, community capacity building, and behavioral change at individual, group, and group network levels, and ultimately to environmental change. We discuss opportunities to enhance the framework including through empirical applications to delineate scalar and temporal dimensions of social, behavioral, and environmental changes resulting from stakeholder engagement, and the potential for negative outcomes thus far glossed over in research on change through engagement.

摘要

将利益相关者的参与纳入环境管理可能有助于寻求解决复杂水资源问题的新方法。然而，关于利益相关者参与如何以及在什么情况下促成理想变化的证据仍然难以捉摸。在本文中，我们开发了一个概念框架，用于研究通过利益相关者参与水资源管理（从开始到结果）可能发生的社会和环境变化。我们综合了多个文献中的概念，以提供一个框架，用于追踪从情境条件、参与过程设计特征到社会学习、社区能力建设和个人、群体和群体网络层面的行为改变，最终到环境变化的联系。