Need as indicated by stakeholders

Individual and collective actions, intended and unintended, have consequences that put the quality of our water resources at risk. Non-point source (NPS) pollutants delivered across the landscape are a primary source of impairment of US waters (National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress http:www.epa.gov/305b; USEPA 2013). Although NPS pollution is diffuse, its ultimate source is readily understood as rooted in the day-to-day actions and management decisions of all citizens, urban and rural (Morton and Brown, 2011). The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) reports that siltation, nutrients, bacteria, metals, and oxygen-depleting substances are among the top contributors to water impairment in the nation (http:www.epa.gov/305b). USEPA estimates that the agricultural sector is the largest source of impairment affecting nearly half of all streams and rivers that have water quality problems and the source of more than 45% of damage to lakes and 18% of damage to estuaries (Ribaudo and Johansson 2006). In the Mississippi River watershed, agriculture contributes 71% of nitrogen and 80% of phosphorus to the Gulf of Mexico (Porter et al. 2015). Further, agriculture accounts for most of the drained wetlands in the contiguous 48 states (Hansen 2006) and a majority of threatened or endangered species listed (Cox 2007; Batie 2009). When an excess of pollutants such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment from human activities in agriculture, industries and urban areas leak into water bodies the result is often downstream eutrophication and hypoxia (insufficient oxygen to support aquatic life) (Gulf Hypoxia 2008 Action Plan). The incidence of hypoxia in coastal waters has increased 30-fold since 1960 (Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, 2010.), and is becoming a fixture in many freshwater systems including the Great Lakes.

Two water bodies with significant hypoxic zones are the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay. The Gulf of Mexico is fed by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, which drain a land mass comprising 41 percent of the contiguous United States. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, and the third largest in the world. The watershed covers approximately 64,000 square miles of the northeast and mid-Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, and Washington DC). Of particular concern in the Mississippi River Basin and the Chesapeake Bay region are the sediments, nitrogen, and phosphorous that derive from a combination of nonpoint sources (agriculture, development, and urban runoff) and point sources (wastewater treatment plants).All these problems will be exacerbated by climate change which is expected to lead to increased degradation of soil and water resources (Rossi et al., 2009; Collins et al., 2011).

Central to solving the problem of impaired waters is recognition of the role of humans, individually and collectively. Current land use decisions, identification of water resource problems, beliefs that the environment is at risk, perceptions of the need to act and willingness to engage in finding solutions are all factors that influence how water resources are managed. The importance of wide public involvement in solving the complex problems of water quality and NPS was a common theme in 2000 reports to USEPA by 39 states, tribes and territories submitting drinking water use data and reporting on the condition of their water bodies. A multi-state random sample water issue survey completed in 36 of the U.S. states (2002 through 2009) conducted by Dr. Robert Mahler, University of Idaho under a USDA Integrated Water Quality project reveals that the overall average perception for surface water quality is fair. The overall average perception of ground water quality is midway between fair and good/excellent, although higher than that of surface water (Hu and Morton 2012).

Although these findings suggest modest public awareness of water resources issues, key social, economic and ecological events and the mechanisms by which these conditions are translated into individual and collective actions and lead to changes in behaviors are not well understood. Similarly, the draft strategies on the Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi River Basin Task Force include many efforts to assist with land management at the local level through technical assistance, education, and financial resources to help land owners, local governments, and watershed-based organizations to make better decisions about land use and management. Public education campaigns can provide information to residents about the impacts of the land management activities on their nearby waterways. What is lacking, however, is an understanding of the decision-making process between awareness and action, or how other non-educational events might trigger awareness and action. Reimer et al. (2014) explore the complexities of understanding decision-making in the agricultural arena.

Importance of the work and what consequences are if it is not done

Policy tools designed to provide financial incentives and technical support for voluntary and cost effective actions by citizens and communities have been the dominant framework applied by agencies with NPS oversight. Voluntary approaches dominate largely because of the Clean Water Act’s exemption of nonpoint pollution (generally) from regulatory permit programs. This has meant using existing conservation programs and at times encouraging adaptive management. This approach has had limited success. The social sciences have not been systematically applied to discover which policy tools are most effective in changing behaviors and practices and to build a body of knowledge as to why they are effective, and how they might be modeled to guide future interventions. Yet programs are being created and implemented at multiple levels of government as well as by nonprofit organizations that attempt to change land management behavior without a clear social science knowledge base from which to create those interventions.

Although much of the biological science and technological solutions have been tested, the social and human science understanding of barriers and motivations for implementing/not implementing actions that reduce water resource impairments are not well understood. If we do not develop a clear, scientifically-sound understanding of human behaviors related to water management, we will continue to spend public money ineffectively on educational and voluntary programs without significant impact on water quality. Lack of adequate progress on water quality triggered regulatory actions in the Chesapeake Bay and could do so in the Mississippi River Basin or elsewhere. This move towards tighter regulations and punitive sanctions could put increasing pressure on both social and natural scientists to ensure that the science behind programs and policies is sound; currently, we do not have the social science knowledge we need to undergird such policy directions. This lack of social science knowledge ultimately results in an increased tension over the rights between the public and private ownership and use of water. The importance of understanding socioeconomic dimensions to increase voluntary adoption of practices is recognized by federal agencies working in partnership on Gulf Hypoxia (USEPA 2013).

We propose continuing this multistate research technical committee to begin to fill the gap in the knowledge base of social-human interactions with water resource management. The overarching research question of this project is: What are the key catalysts that interact with social and ecological conditions to create change in conservation behaviors, resource management, and governance within a water context? Specifically,

a. How are key catalysts for change in conservation behavior, resource management, and governance translated into individual, collective, and institutional action? b. How are catalysts influenced by socio-economic, institutional, and ecological conditions? c. What types of outcomes emerge from various types of catalysts? d. What are the various institutional roles in addressing these processes?

Our lack of understanding of the decision-making process is not limited to the area of water resource management. Research is also needed in the broader area of environmentally significant behavior (e.g. Stern 2000). A report from the National Research Council on environmental research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences identified understanding and better informing individuals’ environmentally significant behavior as one of the five top priority research areas (Brewer & Stern, 2005). Research in environmentally significant behavior may inform and guide water resource management.

Technical feasibility of the research

This group of scientists has been working together for over five years. We have made significant progress in identifying catalysts of change and have developed a preliminary typology that examines catalysts for change within an individual watershed (Prokopy et al. 2014). We are making progress on a second typology; a preliminary version is included in the next section. This team has documented its ability to work together with numerous publications, conference sessions and grant proposals written jointly – see annual reports for further information.

Advantages of doing the work as a multistate effort

Current team members represent two key basins - Mississippi River and Chesapeake Bay - that contribute to the development of significant hypoxic zones in major national water bodies. These two areas are also currently the focus of major federal and state efforts to remediate and prevent pollution. Multi- state efforts create openings for quasi-experimental designs and comparative analysis. Working through a multistate team will enable the researchers to develop and test knowledge about the individual and collective actions to improve water quality across multiple ecological, cultural, political, and social contexts. In other words, working across regions will allow the researchers to more accurately identify triggers of behavioral change and under what conditions those triggers effect change. Further, many of the social scientists participating in this research have excellent case study data that are specific to their states or regions. Working across multiple states will allow for comparisons of these cases to identify key variables. To date, the opportunities and funding for across state collaboration have been limited.

Likely impacts from successfully completing the work

We see two broad types of impacts of this work, enhanced knowledge for academics and improved programs and decision- making for policy-makers. First, we envision enhanced knowledge about the triggers of behavioral change related to water resources. To do this, we will continue to synthesize past and current case studies across states to identify common and unique social patterns that influence individual and collective actions. We will develop models of the mechanisms by which these events/conditions lead to both individual and collective actions related to local water resource management. Using this research, we will develop formal individual, collective and multi-level models of behavior related to water resource management that can then be tested across multiple scales and regions.

The second major area of impact of this research will be to provide information and guidance for resource management agencies (such as EPA and state level agencies) so that they have an enhanced understanding of the contribution of the social sciences to solving impaired water issues. These agencies will be better poised to develop tools for encouraging conservation behaviors that supplement and enhance current educational efforts. We also expect to develop adaptive management strategy guidelines that can be used to guide community development interventions, such as those used by nonprofit natural resource organizations (e.g., local watershed groups) and local government agencies to effectively mobilize resources for consistent water quality outcomes.