Collaboration in Cross‐Jurisdictional Water Quality Governance: A Novel Framework and Case Study

ABSTRACT

Collaborative governance is often employed to address the inherent complexity of surface water quality governance and provides a structure for cooperation across federal, tribal, state, and local boundaries. However, although guidance exists for assessing specific dimensions of collaborative governance, tools to comprehensively evaluate the quality of collaborative governance in a system are lacking. We propose a framework consisting of six key indicators informed by Environmental Justice Theory designed to assess collaboration quality in cross‐jurisdictional water governance. We apply this framework to a case study of a cross‐jurisdictional Lake Management Plan in the Coeur d'Alene Basin of Idaho, United States, that involved collaboration between four governmental entities to address significant water quality challenges. Applying this framework, we diagnose barriers to high‐quality governance, such as weak accountability mechanisms due to a lack of regulatory authority, spatial inequities regarding implementation burden, and structural inefficiencies driven by insufficient funding and differing definitions of success. Instances of high‐quality collaborative governance were also identified, such as increased monitoring, public outreach, and strong cross‐jurisdictional staff relationships. Broadly, this study highlights the need to assess the quality of collaboration across governance systems for more effective cross‐jurisdictional cooperation and subsequent improved policy implementation.