Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict investigates new types of water conflicts among users in the seemingly water-rich Eastern United States. Eight case studies of water quality, water quantity, and habitat preservation or restoration in Florida were chosen to span the range of conflicts crossing fragmented regulatory boundaries. Each begins with a history of the conflict and then focuses on the innovative institutional arrangements—some successful, some not—that evolved to grapple with the resulting challenges. In the chapters that follow, scholars and practitioners in urban planning, political science, engineering, law, policy, administration, and geology offer different theoretical and experience-based perspectives on the cases. Together, they discuss five challenges that new institutions must overcome to develop sustainable solutions for water users: Who is to be involved in the policy process? How are they to interact? How is science to be used? How are users and the public to be made aware? How can solutions be made efficient and equitable? In its diverse perspectives and unique combination of theory, application, and analysis, Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict will be a valuable book for water professionals, policy scientists, students, and scholars in natural resource planning and management.

[ Table of Contents ]                                             [ Preface pdf ]
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[Events based on this book]

John T. Scholz is Frances Epps Professor of Political Science at Florida State University.
Bruce Stiftel, FAICP, is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University, and Visiting Fellow in City and Regional Planning at Cardiff University (UK).

Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict

Publication Date: September 2005
6 x 9 300 pages
John T. Scholz and Bruce Stiftel, editors
ISBN 1-933115-18-1 $75.00 unjacketed hardback
ISBN 1-933115-19-X $29.95 paperback

Water policy seems in perpetual crisis. Increasingly, conflicts extend beyond the statutory authority, competence, geographical jurisdictions, and political constituencies of highly specialized governing authorities. While other books address specific policy approaches or the application of adaptive management strategies to specific problems, this is the first book to focus more broadly on adaptive governance, or the evolution of new institutions that attempt to resolve conflicts among competing authorities.


CONTENTS                                                                                                                [Return to Top]                                                                                    
Introduction: Challenges of Adaptive Governance
John T. Scholz and Bruce Stiftel

PART I:CASE STUDIES OF WATER CONFLICTS
1.  Florida’s Water Management Framework
      Richard Hamann, Associate in Law, University of Florida

Water Quality
2.  Suwannee River Partnership: A Voluntary Approach to Nutrient Management
      Aysin Dedekorkut, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning,  Izmir Institute of Technology (Turkey)
3.  Fenholloway River Evaluation Initiative: Collaborative Problem Solving Within the Permit System
      Simon Andrew, Doctoral Candidate in Public Adminstration and Policy, Florida State University.

Water Supply
4.  Tampa Bay Water Wars: From Conflict to Collaboration
      Aysin Dedekorkut, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning,  Izmir Institute of Technology (Turkey)
5.  The East Central Florida Regional Water Supply Planning Initiative: Creating Collaboration
      Ramiro Berardo, Doctoral Candidate in Political Science, Florida State University

Quantity, Quality and Habitat
6.  Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Basin:Tri-state Negotiations of a Water Allocation
      Steven Leitman, Environmental Planning Consultant
7.  Everglades Restoration and the South Florida
      Michael R. Boswell, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
8.  Ocklawaha River Restoration:The Fate of the Rodman Reservoir
      Mellini Sloan, Doctoral Candidate in Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University
9.  Aquifer Storage and Recovery
      Eberhard Roeder, Environmental Health Program Consultant, Bureau of Onsite Sewage Programs, Florida Department of Health

PART II: PRACTITIONERS’ PERSPECTIVES
10. Adaptability and Stability:A Manager’s Perspective
       Donald J. Polmann, Director of Science & Engineering, Tampa Bay Water
11. The Power of the Status Quo
       Richard Hamann, Associate in Law, University of Florida
12. Representation, Scientific Learning, and the Public Interest
       B. Suzi Ruhl, Director of Public Health and Law Program, Environmental Law Institute.
13. Adaptive Challenges Facing Agriculture
       Martha Rhodes Roberts, Institute of Food and Agricultural Science, University of Florida

PART III: RESEARCHERS’ PERSPECTIVES
14. Resource Planning, Dispute Resolution and Adaptive Governance
       Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
15. Policy Analysts Can Learn from Mediators
       John Forester, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University
16. Leadership and the Far Side of Public Learning
       Robert M. Jones, Director of the Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium,
17. Public Learning and Grassroots Cooperation
       Mark Lubell, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis
18. Putting Science in its Place
       Connie P. Ozawa, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University
19. Linking Science and Public Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Perspective
       Paul Sabatier, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis
20. Restructuring State Institutions:The Limits of Adaptive Leadership
       Paul J. Quirk, Phil Lind Chair in US Politics and Representation, University of British Columbia,
21. Incentives and Adaptation
       Lawrence S. Rothenberg, Max McGraw Distinguished Professor of Management and the Environment, Northwestern University
22. Conclusions:The Future of Adaptive Governance
       Bruce Stiftel and John T. Scholz                                                                           [Return to Top]   

PUBLISHED REVIEWS:
"Wet and Wild." APA Planning. 72(7,July 2006):53.
"If adaptive governance makes your eyes glaze over, maybe the clear and systematic approach of [Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict] might wake you up."

by Daniel Mazmanian in Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 36(4, 2006).:595-599.
"In uniting in a single volume the adaptive governance framework with case studies and commentaries by professionals and scholars, Stiftel and Scholz make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the emerging substate and subnational approach to environmental policymaking."

by Amy C. Lewis in Journal of the American Water Resources Association. 42(2006).
"I found it particularly interesting to read about the dynamics of conflicts and the processes that hinder and facilitate collaboration....Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict is a helpful resource for anyone involved in the often contentious world of water resource policy and management."

by Richard D. Margerum in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 49(5,2006): 794-795.
"Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict is a carefully conceived and very well organized text that provides important insights into water resource management and governance....Its effort to draw on a range of cases and perspectives in a concise and well-edited volume make it a valuable and accessible text for students, practitioners and researchers."

by William J. Wailand in New York University Law Review. 81(2006):1518ff.
"The book helps define a new form of institution that can meaningfully respond to the weaknesses of conventional approaches, by providing flexibility in the face of scientific uncertainty, and by providing an alternative to imposing top-down solutions on resistant resource users."

by William D. Leach in Journal of the American Planning Association. 72(4, 2006):514.
"If you could read just one book about the new, collaborative approaches to planning, this would be a solid choice....The touch love the authors show for their subject is exactly what adaptive governance needs at this stage to develop to its full potential."

by Kristan Cickerill in Ecological Economics 62(2007) 375-6.
"This book delivers delivers...an honest and often unsettling picture of efforts in adaptive governance."

by Mark Zeitoun in Environment and Planning A 39(2007):2540-1.
"...highly recommended reading for [its] contributions to the muddied world of transboundary water relations."

by Brian A. Ellison in Public Administration Review 67(5,2007):946-50.
"Scholz and Stiftel's excellent edited volume makes an important contribution to the literature on water resources management and development...."

by Thomas G. Safford in Society and Natural Resources 21(2008):175-177.
"This edited volume provides a wealth of empirical data on the social, institutional, and ecological challenges facing resource management practitioners and includes a range of analytic insights that will be of interest to managers and academics alike."

by James E. Hook in Agricultural Water Management, forthcoming.
"The editors of this very accessible text on water resource management present a basic theme - adaptive governance - as a more stable approach to conflict resolution involving water issues.  Each of its 22 chapters ties to this central theme in a carefully edited and surprisingly unified text...."

Chapters in Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict are based in part on work funded by the DeVoe L. Moore Center for the Study of Critical Issues in Economic Policy and Government, and were presented at the 2003 DeVoe  L. Moore Critical Issues Symposium at Florida State University.   A short synopsis of the book's research may be read here.

LECTURES AND EVENTS BASED ON THIS BOOK:
Devoe L. Moore Critical Issues Symposium: 2003: Adaptive Governance of Florida's Water Conflicts. Tallahassee, FL. 21 November 2003.

John T. Scholz. "Adaptive Governance of Water Conflicts."  Paper presented at the Midwestern Political Science Association, Chicago, April 2005.

Bruce Stiftel. "The opportunity of adaptive governance."  Keynote address, Going with the Flow: Governance Options for Clean Water Act Compliance: 2007 Road to Excellence Conference. Local Government Academy, 3 May 2007, Pittsburgh, PA. [Podcast]

Steve Leitman  and Bruce Stiftel. "Government fragmentation and the solution of water policy controversy."  Plenary address, Soil and Water Conservation Association conference on Water Resource Issues in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Basin: Working Together for a Better Future. 17 May 2007, Quincy, FL.

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