Collaborative Planning for Sustainability in the Iowa ... Throgmorton.pdfCollaborative planning (CP) differs substantially from a science-driven “rational-technical” approach:

Collaborative Planning for Sustainability

in the Iowa River Watershed

Prof. James A. Throgmorton with assistance from Spencer Schoonover

Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning

Reducing the risk of harm from future floods requires planning and action throughout the

12,500 sq. mi. watershed.

But this planning cannot be limited to flood mitigation because problems are so

interconnected.

It requires planning for sustainability.

The Great Flood of 2008 is a key indicator that our way of life in the watershed is not sustainable.

But flooding is only one sustainability indicator. There are others, all

contestable.

• Industrial agriculture erodes our topsoil and contaminates our rivers.

• Is very capital-intensive and fossil-fuel-dependent. • Contributes significantly to global climate change. • Survives on subsidies from the federal government. • Contributes to the hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf. • Creates public health problems. • Drives young people off the land and out of the state. • Destroys the biodiversity upon which life depends.

In the Iowa River watershed, these phenomena are highly interconnected.

As are the stakeholders and researchers that have interests in them.

Heavy spring rains fell on a landscape that had been radically reengineered, greatly reducing infiltration rates. Water flowed off bare fields.

Fields were bare because roughly 78 percent of the land in the watershed is used for growing

corn and soybeans. (Humans can’t eat the corn.)

Production of these crops is heavily subsidized.

In 1995-2006, Iowa received $16 billion in farm subsidies; $1.2 billion in 2006. More than any state other than Texas.

58-70 percent of the corn is fed to cattle and hogs in CAFOs, clustered in the upper watershed.

Public health concerns about CAFOs have been raised:

• Role of intensive livestock production in influenza outbreaks.

• Emergence of antibiotic resistant organisms. • Specter of a global pandemic arising from new strains

of avian influenza incubated in swine and transmitted to humans.

Workers in CAFOs and meat processing plants are most at risk.

• Most are Latino in-migrants, willing to do dangerous, unpleasant, unskilled labor at low pay.

• They bring economic vitality and social change to small towns; e.g., Marshalltown.

• But mobility and language create significant educational challenges within schools.

• Presence of “undocumented workers” or “illegal aliens” has proven politically controversial.

Many stream segments have become “impaired”; i.e, contaminated with sediment, nitrates,

pesticides, heavy metals, and bacteria.

Nitrogen in fertilizers contributes to the hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Industrialization of the farm economy has driven people off the land and out of small towns,

generating stories of grief and loss.

Industrial agriculture requires/creates consumers who demand corn-based products in the market.

Sixty-five percent of us

live in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. There we consume corn-based products, ignorant of the costs and consequences of their production. And suffer adverse health effects.

Our economy/way of life in the watershed

is not sustainable.

That’s a pretty strong negative claim, and maybe it’s not right.

A more positive and hopeful version would be:

Everyone who lives and works in the Iowa River watershed has a stake in ensuring that

our way of life does not undermine the quality of life for future generations or for people who

live in other parts of the world.

We need to make a “sustainability transition.” Consider two approaches:

• A science-driven, “rational-technical “

approach conducted by technical experts.

• A “collaborative planning” approach involving all interested stakeholders.

A “rational-technical” approach works well under certain conditions:

• Problem/concepts clearly defined. • Cause-effect relationships well-understood. • Decision-maker willing/able to act on technical advice. • Political-economic-institutional environment is stable. • Public’s role (values/interpretations) is inconsequential.

For example, when planning to build a new bridge.

But for major issues that the public cares about, the rational-technical

approach slams into polarized politics.

Adversary science takes over.

Moreover, good scientific work cannot tell us what choices we should make.

What we should do is a normative

question informed by science but not determined by it.

For complicated/contentious issues, a collaborative planning approach can

prove fruitful.

Collaborative planning (CP) differs substantially from a science-driven

“rational-technical” approach: • CP assumes stakeholders have diverse interests and

ways of framing the problem and interpreting “facts.”


“rational-technical” approach:

• CP assumes stakeholders have diverse interests and ways

of framing the problem and interpreting “facts.” • In CP, stakeholders jointly select goals and criteria for

evaluation, and engage in joint fact-finding.




of framing the problem and interpreting “facts.” • In CP, stakeholders jointly select indicators and criteria for

evaluation, and engage in joint fact-finding. • CP values the “local knowledge” of stakeholders.





evaluation, and engage in joint fact-finding. • CP values the “local knowledge” of stakeholders. • CP transforms interaction among problems into a

strength; it’s better for “wicked problems.”





evaluation, and engage in joint fact-finding. • CP values the “local knowledge” of stakeholders. • CP transforms interaction among problems into a strength;

it’s better for “wicked problems.” • CP potentially bridges the “effectiveness gap.”

Collaborative planning is a form of “adaptive governance”

• It can produce new governance institutions capable of generating long-term, sustainable policy solutions to wicked problems.

• It can build social capital, foster public learning, and

enhance “deliberative democracy.”

What principles typically guide collaborative planning?

• Requires a sponsor to convene, conduct, and support the process.

• Convenor must be recognized as unbiased and trusted. • Every interested party with a stake in the decision

should be represented. • Process should be facilitated by a neutral mediator

considered credible and trustworthy by all.

What principles typically guide collaborative planning?

• For technically-complex issues, enable all stakeholders to engage in “joint fact-finding” etc.

• Ensure all stakeholders have adequate

technical support for effective participation.

What principles typically guide the mediator?

• Help stakeholders negotiate as if relationships

mattered: be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

• Focus on interests not positions. • Create value by “trading across differences”

and inventing options for mutual gain. • Use mutually-acceptable objective criteria to

assess the quality of any proposed settlement.

The mediator should help stakeholders think about their BATNAs.

Collaborative planning faces several key challenges:

• Often participants cannot agree on common aims, have

unequal power, do not trust one another, and don’t know with whom they are linked.




• Requires institutionally-based scientific experts to work outside their “comfort zone.”





• Can involve significant transaction costs.





• Can involve significant transaction costs. • If powerful interests can get what they want outside

negotiations, they will have no incentive to participate.


• Often participants cannot agree on common aims, have unequal power, do not trust one another, and don’t know with whom they are linked.


• Can involve significant transaction costs. • If powerful interests can get what they want outside

negotiations, they will have no incentive to participate. • In such cases, collaborative planning can occur only

after political/economic shifts alter BATNAs.

Empirical research reveals successful collaborative planning at the

watershed scale :

• Collaborative management of watersheds took off in

the 1990s. >3500 as of 2002. • Innes et al.’s (2007) analysis of San Francisco Bay-

Delta Program. • Margerum’s (2008) analysis of 36 U.S. and Australian

collaboratives. • Ferreyra and Beard’s (2007) analysis of Maitland

Watershed Partnerships (Ontario).

But it also reveals significant challenges and critiques:

• Lubell (2004): watershed-based collaborative processes

are “all talk and no action.” • Leach (2006) analyzed 76 watershed partnerships in

California and Washington. Some excluded important national interests, but all displayed deliberativeness.

• Koontz and Thomas (2006) question whether CP produces better environmental outcomes. Needs more research.

Thinking pragmatically, a full-blown collaborative planning effort might be overly ambitious for the Iowa River

watershed right now .

What to do?

Begin planning for sustainability in the Iowa River watershed

Initiate a year-long process of civic discovery and collaborative learning.

Convened by the University of Iowa.

Facilitated by an expert mediator.

Involving all major stakeholders

• Agricultural interests • Federal government agencies • Iowa state agencies • Economic development interests • Urban interests • Environmental and outdoor sports interests • Public health interests • Educational interests • Others, including currently uninformed or

unorganized interests.

Assisted by diverse researchers at the University of Iowa and associated

institutions.

Like Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s A Wonderful Life, we find ourselves asking about

our identity, community, and future.

Who are we? Where are we headed? Where do we want to go? What kind of region

and culture do we want to build?

To give ourselves a sustainable future, we should begin planning

collaboratively.

Documents

Collaborative Planning for Sustainability in the Iowa ... Throgmorton.pdfCollaborative planning (CP) differs substantially from a science-driven “rational-technical” approach: