Bidwell, Ryan. 2003. Watershed councils and the Oregon Plan: An analysis of watershed planning process. M.S.
The Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds represents the State of Oregon's comprehensive policy effort to address salmon conservation and watershed health through locally based collaborative watershed councils. Although State legislation provides few explicit requirements of councils, it does call for them to conduct a watershed assessment to be used as the basis for the development of a prioritized action plan. Once completed, action plans should guide councils in the selection of restoration, education or other projects deemed necessary to recover local salmon populations and otherwise improve watershed conditions.
It is in many cases too early or otherwise difficult to evaluate the success of watershed councils in restoring salmon populations or in improving watershed health. Given this fact, gaining a better understanding of the process employed in selecting council activities provides the best opportunity for preliminary assessment of the success of voluntary, collaborative groups in achieving ecological restoration goals. Accordingly, this research aims to better explain the process by which collaborative groups choose to or choose not to incorporate scientific information into their decisions and subsequent watershed restoration actions. Both the planning process and the final prioritized action plan itself (where completed) were evaluated for 29 watershed councils formed since passage of the Oregon Plan in 1997.
In practice, Oregon watershed councils continue to struggle in their efforts to move beyond their watershed assessments and begin the development and implementation of action plans. Specific findings include: 1) Many watershed councils are implementing restoration projects without a prioritized action plan; 2) Most watershed councils are not relying upon scientific information as the basis for selecting watershed restoration projects; 3) Watershed action plans that have been developed are often deficient in both process and content; and 4) Watershed planning processes do not appear to be improving over time. In general, these findings confirm expectations that collaborative decision-making processes may result in actions that successfully address shared social priorities, but may not necessarily target ecological priorities.
As collaborative decision making approaches seem to be an increasingly permanent fixture of natural resource management, it is important to consider how watershed councils and similar efforts might be assisted so as to more fully achieve both social and ecological policy goals. Findings from this study suggest that it is important to: 1) Provide clear policy expectations and guidance to assist collaborative groups in devising clear and concise watershed plans; 2) Make available affordable and user-friendly scientific tools to better inform collaborative decisions; 3) Revise funding strategies to reward councils who support proposed projects with a scientifically grounded watershed action plan; 4) Recognizing that social priorities may be more politically and socio-economically feasible than purely ecological priorities, further research should be conducted to explore how or if social priorities for restoration differ from ecological ones.
Read the full thesis (1.6 MB pdf)