Relationships Between Environmental Governance and Water Quality in a Growing Metropolitan Area of the Pacific Northwest, USA

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dc.contributor.authorChang, Heejun
dc.contributor.authorThiers, P.
dc.contributor.authorNetusil, Noelwah R.
dc.contributor.authorYeakley, J. Alan
dc.contributor.authorRollwagen-Bollens, Gretchen
dc.contributor.authorBollens, Steve M.
dc.contributor.authorSingh, Sonia
dc.date.accessioned2018-03-05T21:08:52Z
dc.date.available2018-03-05T21:08:52Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractWe investigate relationships between environmental governance and water quality in two adjacent growing metropolitan areas in the western US. While the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington metro areas share many common biophysical characteristics, they have different land development histories and water governance structures, providing a unique opportunity for examining how differences in governance might affect environmental quality. We conceptualize possible linkages in which water quality influences governance directly, using monitoring efforts as a metric, and indirectly by using the change in the sale price of single-family residential properties. Governance may then influence water quality directly through riparian restoration resulting from monitoring results and indirectly through land use policy.We investigate evidence to substantiate these linkages. Our results showed that changes in monitoring regimes and land development patterns differed in response to differences in growth management policy and environmental governance systems. Our results also showed similarities in environmental quality responses to varying governance systems. For example, we found that sales prices responded positively to improved water quality (e.g., increases in DO and reductions in bacteria counts) in both cities. Furthermore, riparian restoration efforts improved over time for both cities, indicating the positive effect of governance on this land-based resource that may result in improved water quality. However, as of yet, there were no substantial differences across study areas in water temperature over time, despite an expansion of these urban areas of more than 20% over 24 years. The mechanisms by which water quality was maintained was similar in the sense that both cities benefited from riparian restoration, but different in the sense that Portland benefited indirectly from land use policy. A combination of long-term legacy effects of land development, and a relatively short history of riparian restoration in both the Portland and Vancouver regions, may have masked any subtle differences between study areas. An alternative explanation is that both cities exhibited combinations of positive indirect and direct water quality governance that resulted in maintenance of water quality in the face of increased urban growth. These findings suggest that a much longer-term water quality monitoring effort is needed to identify the effectiveness of alternative land development and water governance policiesen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThe US National Science Foundation funded this study through the Portland-Vancouver ULTRA-Ex grant (grant # 0948983). Additional support was provided by Portland State University, Oregon State University, Washington State University, and Reed College.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1383-2014en_US
dc.format.extent15 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M2DJ58J46
dc.identifier.citationChang, H., et al. "Relationships between environmental governance and water quality in a growing metropolitan area of the Pacific Northwest, USA." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 18.4 (2014): 1383-1395.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1383-2014
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/7843
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherEuropean Geosciences Unionen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Geography and Environmental Systems Department Collection
dc.rightsThis item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the author.
dc.rightsAttribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)*
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/*
dc.subjectwater qualityen_US
dc.subjectenvironmental governanceen_US
dc.subjectPortland, Oregonen_US
dc.subjectVancouver, Washingtonen_US
dc.subjectland developmenten_US
dc.subjectwater governanceen_US
dc.titleRelationships Between Environmental Governance and Water Quality in a Growing Metropolitan Area of the Pacific Northwest, USAen_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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