Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning

Abstract

Watershed planning can lead to policy innovation and action toward environmental protection. However, groups often suffer from low engagement with communities that experience disparate impacts from flooding and water pollution. This can limit the capacity of watershed efforts to dismantle pernicious forms of social inequality. As a result, the benefits of environmental changes often flow to more empowered residents, short-changing the power of watershed-based planning as a tool to transform ecological, economic, and social relationships. The objectives of this paper are to assess whether the worldview of watershed planning actors are sufficiently attuned to local patterns of social vulnerability and whether locally significant patterns of social vulnerability can be adequately differentiated using conventional data sources. Drawing from 35 in-depth interviews with watershed planners and community stakeholders in the Milwaukee River Basin (WI, USA), we identify five unique definitions of social vulnerability. Watershed planners in our sample articulate a narrower range of social vulnerability definitions than other participants. All five definitions emphasize spatial and demographic characteristics consistent with existing ways of measuring social vulnerability. However, existing measures do not adequately differentiate among the spatio-temporal dynamics used to distinguish definitions. In response, we develop two new social vulnerability measures. The combination of interviews and demographic analyses in this study provides an assessment technique that can help watershed planners (a) understand the limits of their own conceptualization of social vulnerability and (b) acknowledge the importance of place-based vulnerabilities that may otherwise be obscured. We conclude by discussing how our methods can be a useful tool for identifying opportunities to disrupt social vulnerability in a watershed by evaluating how issue frames, outreach messages, and engagement tactics. The approach allows watershed planners to shift their own culture in order to consider socially vulnerable populations comprehensively.

Coupling ecosystem-centered governance modes with environmental justice

“…Demographics and cultural understandings of community identity will continue to change. Leaders can use analytics to design authentic civil society (re)engagement strategies (e.g., Cutts et al, 2018a), to differentiate actions that respond to political attention from those that respond to deep and systematized risk (e.g., Konisky and Reenock, 2018), and to educate governance actors on local lore and historical controversies (Hornik et al, 2016;Cutts et al, 2017;Mullenbach et al, 2022).…”

“…Environmental governance realigns coalitions to reflect natural boundaries-like those of a watershed-over political ones (Leach and Pelkey, 2001;Genskow and Born, 2006;Sirriani, 2009;Cutts et al, 2018a). New boundaries necessitate collaboration across political boundaries and environmental interests.…”

Práticas sociais, (des)proteção de direitos ambientais e ações estratégicas

“…As questões de sustentabilidade ambiental possuem uma estreita relação, embora no mais das vezes contraditórias, com as demandas sociais, configuradas a cada dia mais como demandas socioambientais (Ruscheinsky 2004(Ruscheinsky , 2014; Tierney y Oliver--Smith 2012). O planejamento de bacias hidrográficas pode levar à inovação política e à ação em direção à proteção ambiental de acordo com Cutts et al (2018), porém contraditoriamente os grupos sociais afetados geralmente demonstram baixo engajamento e os membros das comunidades sofrem impactos díspares causados por inundações e poluição da água.…”