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Local governments around the world face mounting pressures that affect their provision of public services. To prepare for and respond to stressors and shocks, local service providers can choose from among a wide variety of actions. The adaptive actions they choose will influence which risks are addressed, when, and how. Selection of adaptive actions can also have long-term implications, if actions affect future options for adaptation. This research investigates the influence of institutions on selection of adaptive actions by local public service providers as they seek to respond to climatic stressors. Drawing on insights from focus groups with local drinking water utilities across the USA, the research identifies five institutional dependencies that affect the selection of adaptive actions and examines the pathways through which those institutional dependencies influence decision-making. These pathways are then combined to present a conceptual model of factors shaping selection of adaptive actions. Findings indicate that the polycentric institutional environment in which local service providers are embedded limits control over adaptation decisions, can constrain the set of feasible actions, and can add substantial transaction costs. As a result, selection of adaptive actions includes consideration of the effect of institutional dependencies on the feasibility and ease of implementation. 

A critical question in relation to inter-agency coordination is not only whether, but how, to coordinate. This question is particularly salient when agencies are subject to a top-down mandate. While inter-agency coordination can provide multiple benefits, agencies frequently have concerns about the potential risks of coordination. Differing coordination mechanisms may reduce or exacerbate those concerns. Depending on their coordination concerns, agencies will be inclined to favor certain mechanisms over others. Examination of the implementation of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which mandates local agency coordination, indicates that coordination mechanism selection is influenced by which combination of concerns agencies hold, with autonomy considerations taking priority over other concerns. These findings suggest opportunities to improve the explanatory power of theories of inter-agency coordination by incorporating potential hierarchies of concerns, their distribution across the multiple agencies tasked with coordinating, and configurational effects. To this end, we propose a contingency theory of agency concerns and coordination mechanism choice under a mandate to coordinate. 

Abstract Coordination mandates are used to steer collective action between local government agencies. When higher levels of government allow agencies to choose how to work together, the organizational forms and institutional arrangements they adopt likely influences their ability to achieve mandated coordinated outcomes. How group-level interactions influence achievement of coordinated outcomes is not well understood. California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) provides opportunity to shed light on this topic. SGMA is a state-legislative mandate that requires local agencies who share groundwater basins to undertake groundwater sustainability planning. The mandate affords agencies leeway in deciding how they engage with one another so long as they meet multiple requirements for coordinated outcomes. Drawing on institutional theories of collective action and ethnographic data collected from 2018 to 2022, we employ multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis to examine how configurations of organizational forms and institutional arrangements adopted by agencies in eighteen groundwater basins influenced their achievement of coordinated outcomes. Our findings highlight the importance of adopting collaborative institutional arrangements. Yet, the specific configuration of collaborative institutional arrangements varies depending on the type of coordinated outcomes agencies are mandated to achieve. These findings point to the need for mandates to require adoption of collaborative institutional arrangements, the specific configurations of which will be dictated by the requirements of the mandate. 

Small community water systems (CWS) often have difficulty maintaining high-quality service provision. Part- nerships can help alleviate these problems, yet may not be attainable or pursued. This research examines the perspectives of U.S. state agencies with drinking water primacy regarding the benefits of water systems part- nerships and the points of leverage that can induce water systems to partner. It assesses the benefits, drawbacks, and barriers to five common forms of partnerships as well as the approaches states can use to encourage small CWS partnerships. Findings indicate that while partnerships hold significant potential, in many contexts, there are inherent limitations to their formation. 

Project Overview Jurisdictional boundaries of governmental agencies often do not align with the geographic or social boundaries of the policy issues they are tasked with addressing. This spatial mismatch is especially common in relation to natural resources and the environment. Where it occurs, achievement of policy goals may require coordination across jurisdictions, which can lead to mutual benefits. Yet, governmental agencies may view coordination as costly or as leading to a loss of autonomy. This project examined coordination decisions made by local level governmental agencies in California, as they formed Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) and subsequently coordinated development of their first groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The project addresses the question of how agencies make decisions and manage interactions when under a coordination mandate that allots agencies the discretion to decide how to coordinate. More specifically, it investigates:What factors influence decisions regarding the geographic extent of and parties involved in development of new formal agencies for groundwater management,How do concerns about the potential risks of coordination affect the choice of coordination mechanisms,How does the structure of agency interactions affect their achievement of the objectives of the coordination mandate, andHow do agencies make sense of a coordination mandate and how does that sense-making process influence the decisions agencies make when deciding how to respond to the mandate? 

California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) is a landmark policy that requires achievement of sustainability at the groundwater basin level. In this policy review and analysis, we describe the horizontal, vertical, and network governance processes occurring under SGMA and discuss how they interact with one another. In doing so, we review existing governance theories that can help to shed light on how each governance process may unfold. Depicting SGMA as a complex system of simultaneous and interacting governance processes provides a useful platform for future evaluations of SGMA successes and failures as well as for transferring lessons learned from California’s implementation of SGMA to groundwater governance in other locations. 

SGMA is a landmark transition in California water policy. For local governments engaged in managing at-risk groundwater basins, SGMA brought a transformation of responsibility and authority. These changes reflect a continuation of California water policy, rather than a disjuncture. This policy analysis describes the changing role of state government in groundwater management in California, explaining that role, including the passage of SGMA, through the lens of path-dependent policy evolution. We identify three phases in state groundwater policy: initially the State enabled, subsequently the State incentivized, and with SGMA the State mandated local action. Later phases built upon previous ones and added to existing state policies rather than replacing them, resembling an evolution within the constraints established by earlier decisions. The changing role of the State in California groundwater management demonstrates how initial decisions can push policy along a trajectory, within which there remain opportunities for adjustment and change. 

With the passage of its 'Sustainable Groundwater Management Act' (SGMA), California devolved both authority and responsibility for achieving sustainable groundwater management to the local level, with state-level oversight. The passage of SGMA created a new political situation within each groundwater basin covered by the law, as public agencies were tasked with self-organizing to establish local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs). This research examines GSA formation decisions to determine where GSAs formed, whether they were formed by a single agency or a partnership, and whether agencies chose to pursue sustainable groundwater management by way of a single basin-wide organization or by coordinating across multiple organizational structures. The research then tests hypotheses regarding the relative influence of control over the resource, control over decision making, transaction costs, heterogeneity and institutional bricolage on GSA formation decisions. Results indicate mixed preferences for GSA structure, though a majority of public water agencies preferred to independently form a GSA rather than to partner in forming a GSA. Results also suggest GSA formation decisions are the result of overlapping and interacting concerns about control, heterogeneity, and transaction costs. Future research should examine how GSA formation choices serve to influence achievement of groundwater sustainability at the basin scale.