There has been a rapid expansion of academic interest and publications on polycentricity. In the contemporary world, nearly all governance situations are polycentric, but people are not necessarily used to thinking this way. Governing Complexity provides an updated explanation of the concept of...

"This study represents an effort toward understanding conditions that affect successful or unsuccessful efforts to devolve water resource management to the river basin level and secure active stakeholder involvement. A theoretical framework is used to identify potentially important variables...

"This paper describes and analyzes the effort to institute river basin management in the Tárcoles basin of Costa Rica. Located in west-central Costa Rica, the Tárcoles basin represents 4.2 percent of the nation's total land area, but is home to half the nation's population and the metropolitan...

"The authors describe and analyze the emergence of river basin management in the Warta River Basin of Poland. The Warta basin's 55,193 km2 cover approximately one-sixth of Poland, and the Warta is a principal tributary to the Oder. Water management issues include pollution of the Warta and its...

"The authors describe and analyze a nongovernmental, multi-stakeholder, consensus-based approach to river basin management in the Fraser River basin in Canada. The Fraser River drains 238,000 km2 of British Columbia, supporting nearly 3 million residents and a diverse economy. Water management...

Integrated watershed management, preferably under the direction of a watershed or basin management body, has been prescribed in the water policy literature and from other quarters for decades. Few instances may be found where this recommendation has been implemented. This gap between...

Decentralization and increased stakeholder involvement have been major elements of water sector reform as ways to promote sustainable and integrated resource management particularly of river basins. Based on an analytical framework for relating decentralization and stakeholder involvement to...