Kim Jae Hong, Keane Timothy D, Bernard Eric A
Department of Planning, Policy and Design, University of California, Irvine, 206E Social Ecology I, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning, Kansas State University, 216 Seaton Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2015 Mar 1;150:378-386. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.12.002. Epub 2015 Jan 4.
Fragmented jurisdictions and decision making structures can result in destructive competition and/or a lack of systematic cooperation that can hamper effective resource management and environmental planning, although the value of local autonomy and stakeholder participations should not be underestimated. This study empirically examines if political fragmentation in local governance is a significant barrier to successful resource management. To test this hypothesis, the authors quantify the degree of political fragmentation at two different geographical scales - 1) site-level: 12-digit watersheds and 2) regional: metropolitan statistical areas or equivalent regions - and analyze how water resource management outcomes vary with the level of political fragmentation using nationwide land cover and stream gauge information in the U.S. Regression analysis shows water quality declines (or slower quality improvements), measured in terms of total suspended solids, are associated with both site-level and regional political fragmentation indicators, suggesting that political fragmentation can make resource management more challenging.
分散的管辖权和决策结构可能导致破坏性竞争和/或缺乏系统性合作，从而阻碍有效的资源管理和环境规划，尽管地方自治和利益相关者参与的价值不应被低估。本研究实证检验了地方治理中的政治碎片化是否是成功进行资源管理的重大障碍。为了验证这一假设，作者在两个不同的地理尺度上对政治碎片化程度进行了量化——1）场地层面：12位数字编码的流域；2）区域层面：大都市统计区或同等区域——并利用美国全国范围的土地覆盖和水位测量信息，分析水资源管理结果如何随政治碎片化程度而变化。回归分析表明，以总悬浮固体衡量的水质下降（或水质改善放缓）与场地层面和区域层面的政治碎片化指标都有关联，这表明政治碎片化会使资源管理更具挑战性。
