(HAB)itual Challenges: Social-Ecological Risk and Harmful Algal Bloom Management

• In Event: Responding to Dynamic Environmental Risks

Abstract

Research in environmental governance shows that misalignment between management boundaries and ecological systems can be addressed through collaboration. Factors associated with social risk like trust and opportunity for free riding help shape the types of collaboration pursued in different contexts. Receiving much less attention is the role that ecological risk plays in shaping the collaborative activities pursued. Using the case of Lake Erie harmful algal bloom (HABs) management, we employ social-ecological network analysis (SEN) to explore how the social and ecological risk influences the management activities pursued in the region. HABs have been a policy challenge in the Lake Erie region for more than 40 years despite widespread international to local efforts to reduce them. We analyzed a set of planning documents written between 2012 and 2017 and found that the number and type of actors involved in Lake Erie HABs management fluctuates across basins of differing ecological risk levels. Our findings also suggest that there is an evolution in the type of collaborative activity that actors pursue (e.g., building new institutions, information sharing) across basins of increasing ecological risk. In this paper, we measured watershed risk based on the contribution of phosphorus, the widely accepted limiting factor in the Lake Erie HABs challenge. This research builds on existing SENA scholarship by explicitly considering the role of ecological risk in influencing policy networks.

Authors

• Meghan Klasic, University of Minnesota

• Mark Lubell, University of California, Davis