Water Governance Challenges in New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande Valley: A Resilience Assessment

Benson, Melinda Harm; Llewellyn, Dagmar; Morrison, Ryan R.; Stone, Mark C.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2464387

Cited by 19 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…fixed water allocation rules (e.g., Heikkila 2011, Clarvis et al 2014). Craig et al (2017) refer to this shift as setting "legal floors, legal ceilings, and intelligible principles," which, for example, establish minimum requirements (floors), maximum Ecology and Society 22(1): 32 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss1/art32/ thresholds (ceilings), or general guidelines (principles) to guide decision making without specifying exact solutions that could become outdated or too rigid when social-ecological conditions change (e.g., Benson et al 2014). These approaches embody aspects of "reflexive law" (Teubner 1983, Orts 1995, which advocates that legal authorities establish goals, standards, and ground rules for engagement, but leave open final solutions, so that decision makers have both the legal guidance and flexibility they need to respond to complex societal dilemmas (Garmestani and Benson 2013).…”

Section: Reflexive Law and Legal Sunsets: Iterative Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

DeCaro¹,

Chaffin²,

Schlager³

et al. 2017

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Legal and institutional structures fundamentally shape opportunities for adaptive governance of environmental resources at multiple ecological and societal scales. Properties of adaptive governance are widely studied. However, these studies have not resulted in consolidated frameworks for legal and institutional design, limiting our ability to promote adaptation and social-ecological resilience. We develop an overarching framework that describes the current and potential role of law in enabling adaptation. We apply this framework to different social-ecological settings, centers of activity, and scales, illustrating the multidimensional and polycentric nature of water governance. Adaptation typically emerges organically among multiple centers of agency and authority in society as a relatively self-organized or autonomous process marked by innovation, social learning, and political deliberation. This self-directed and emergent process is difficult to create in an exogenous, top-down fashion. However, traditional centers of authority may establish enabling conditions for adaptation using a suite of legal, economic, and democratic tools to legitimize and facilitate self-organization, coordination, and collaboration across scales. The principles outlined here provide preliminary legal and institutional foundations for adaptive environmental governance, which may inform institutional design and guide future scholarship.

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Section: Reflexive Law and Legal Sunsets: Iterative Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

DeCaro¹,

Chaffin²,

Schlager³

et al. 2017

E&S

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“…The Prior Appropriation Doctrine allocates specific amounts of water to existing users based on historic water conditions. This policy is problematic because climate change has altered historic water patterns, and new http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss1/art33/ stakeholders and water uses have entered many watersheds (e.g., Benson et al 2014). Other policies prevent government agencies from responding to problems in a timely fashion.…”

Section: Mental Models (Cognitive Frames)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, as previously described, the U. S. Prior Appropriation Doctrine gives historic water users first priority during water shortages. This provision protects senior claims on water, but also impedes necessary reform and cooperation when new collaborative agreements and more flexible and inclusive water allocations are needed to address climate change (e.g., Huber 2011, Ruhl 2011, Arnold and Gunderson 2013, Benson et al 2014). …”

Section: Loss Aversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding and applying principles of social cognition and decision making in adaptive environmental governance

DeCaro¹,

Arnold²,

Boamah³

et al. 2017

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Environmental governance systems are under greater pressure to adapt and to cope with increased social and ecological uncertainty from stressors like climate change. We review principles of social cognition and decision making that shape and constrain how environmental governance systems adapt. We focus primarily on the interplay between key decision makers in society and legal systems. We argue that adaptive governance must overcome three cooperative dilemmas to facilitate adaptation: (1) encouraging collaborative problem solving, (2) garnering social acceptance and commitment, and (3) cultivating a culture of trust and tolerance for change and uncertainty. However, to do so governance systems must cope with biases in people's decision making that cloud their judgment and create conflict. These systems must also satisfy people's fundamental needs for self-determination, fairness, and security, ensuring that changes to environmental governance are perceived as legitimate, trustworthy, and acceptable. We discuss the implications of these principles for common governance solutions (e.g., public participation, enforcement) and conclude with methodological recommendations. We outline how scholars can investigate the social cognitive principles involved in cases of adaptive governance.

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“…1) and one basin in Australia have been published elsewhere (Arnold et al 2014, Benson et al 2014, Birge et al 2014, Chaffin et al 2014b, Cosens and Fremier 2014, Cosens 2015. The basin teams have used a variety of approaches that build off earlier approaches to resilience assessment (Resilience Alliance 2010, Nemec et al 2013), by adding assessment of governance and the role of law.…”

Section: Case Studies: Assessing Resilience In Social-ecological Watementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eighty-five percent of the basin is in the United States. Availability of a federal forum to litigate tribal rights and willingness of Congress to pass environmental legislation at the federal level economic dislocation will require local leadership and capacity building as well as federal investment to restore some of the watershed's ecologic capacity to adapt and to reduce the degree of water dependency (Benson et al 2014). …”

Section: Middle Rio Grande Watershedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regime shifts and panarchies in regional scale social-ecological water systems

Gunderson¹,

Cosens²,

Chaffin³

et al. 2017

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ABSTRACT. In this article we summarize histories of nonlinear, complex interactions among societal, legal, and ecosystem dynamics in six North American water basins, as they respond to changing climate. These case studies were chosen to explore the conditions for emergence of adaptive governance in heavily regulated and developed social-ecological systems nested within a hierarchical governmental system. We summarize resilience assessments conducted in each system to provide a synthesis and reference by the other articles in this special feature. We also present a general framework used to evaluate the interactions between society and ecosystem regimes and the governance regimes chosen to mediate those interactions. The case studies show different ways that adaptive governance may be triggered, facilitated, or constrained by ecological and/or legal processes. The resilience assessments indicate that complex interactions among the governance and ecosystem components of these systems can produce different trajectories, which include patterns of (a) development and stabilization, (b) cycles of crisis and recovery, which includes lurches in adaptation and learning, and (3) periods of innovation, novelty, and transformation. Exploration of cross scale (Panarchy) interactions among levels and sectors of government and society illustrate that they may constrain development trajectories, but may also provide stability during crisis or innovation at smaller scales; create crises, but may also facilitate recovery; and constrain system transformation, but may also provide windows of opportunity in which transformation, and the resources to accomplish it, may occur. The framework is the starting point for our exploration of how law might play a role in enhancing the capacity of social-ecological systems to adapt to climate change.

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Water Governance Challenges in New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande Valley: A Resilience Assessment

Abstract: digitalcommons.law.uidaho.edu/idaho-law-review This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ UIdaho Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Idaho Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ UIdaho Law. For more information, please contact

Cited by 19 publications

References 10 publications

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

Understanding and applying principles of social cognition and decision making in adaptive environmental governance

Regime shifts and panarchies in regional scale social-ecological water systems

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