The Hammer and the Hand: Pluralistic Groundwater Governance and Conflict Transformation in Oregon’s Malheur Lake Basin

This thesis examines place-based water resources planning in Oregon’s Malheur Lake Basin and analyzes the extent to which pluralistic governance has the capacity to transform conflict in groundwater governance regimes. It provides a qualitative analysis of current literature on groundwater governanc...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bonini, Alyssa
Other Authors: Tippett, Elizabeth
Language:en_US
Published: University of Oregon 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1794/23780
Description
Summary:This thesis examines place-based water resources planning in Oregon’s Malheur Lake Basin and analyzes the extent to which pluralistic governance has the capacity to transform conflict in groundwater governance regimes. It provides a qualitative analysis of current literature on groundwater governance and uses process tracing to extract best practices from three case studies to identify best practices in pluralistic groundwater governance specifically as they apply to the Malheur Lake Basin. Findings suggest that in addition to a pluralistic governance structure composed of community-based processes and state-based enforcement mechanisms, conflict transformation is the most appropriate lens through which to address groundwater conflicts and disputes and should be an integral component of groundwater governance structures.