Engaging Stakeholders
River health assessments do not occur in a vacuum. While technical experts typically conduct evaluations of ecological health and function, local stakeholders are key players in developing shared problem statements, research questions, and reporting outcomes. Stakeholders include all individuals, organizations, and constituencies who have an interest in river health and management. Anyone who might use assessment results should also be considered a stakeholder. Engaging relevant stakeholders takes advantage of their diverse local knowledge. It also ensures that the people and organizations that can affect river health outcomes have sufficient buy-in and confidence in the assessment process and results. Examples of stakeholders that may participate in your river health assessment include streamside landowners, water rights holders, water providers, municipalities, advocacy groups, and river management entities.
A local organization or institution with a history of engagement in water conservation, use and/or management is generally best suited for stakeholder engagement and outreach. These organizations often maintain strong working relationships with entities interested in the river and can use their established outreach and communication channels (e.g. email list serves) to quickly disseminate information about an upcoming or in-progress river health assessment. In watersheds where such an organization does not exist, other local stakeholder processes (e.g., Wild and Scenic stakeholder discussions, source water protection planning efforts, Wildfire Ready Watershed planning efforts, etc.) may present useful venues for launching stakeholder discussions about needs and opportunities for a new river health assessment.
Identify Potential Stakeholders
A central part of the stakeholder process is defining who should be at the table and why. Consider who may use the results of the river health assessment and whose input is required for improved outcomes. Meet with as many of these individuals and organizations as possible to identify what their interests are and what might make participation in a river health assessment process worthwhile to them. Stakeholder identification and engagement methods may include open houses, targeted outreach, interviews, surveys, or other techniques.
Your initial stakeholder outreach activities will provide basic information about whether sufficient stakeholder interest exists to pursue a river health assessment. Your interactions with stakeholders should also provide you with important insights about how to ensure that the assessment results are credible, accessible and worthwhile for the people and organizations whose cooperation is essential for turning assessment results into meaningful actions.
Your stakeholder interactions might benefit from adoption of some semi-formal organizational structure. Stakeholder group structure should be customized to the region and the people involved, but might include the following
Leadership Team
The group that serves oversee the entire river health assessment process and ensures that it moves forward and meets its intended purpose.
Technical Team
The group of trusted technical and semi-technical individuals and organizations that will develop your river health assessment framework in response to stakeholder input, carry out the actual river health assessment, and help communicate findings to the leadership team and other stakeholders.
Key Stakeholders
Individuals or organizations that have a direct stake in the outcomes of a river health assessment but may not have technical expertise. Members of this group may include private landowners, water users/providers, elected officials, small businesses that rely on the river (e.g., angling outfitters), and others.
Community Members
Local residents who are interested or may benefit from an improved understanding of river health conditions or who may be asked to support fundraising efforts or land use decisions that improve or protect river health.
Develop an Outreach and Engagement Plan
Once identified, stakeholders need to agree on commitment levels, group expectations, roles, communication strategies, and other aspects of successful collaborative group function. Most planning processes will benefit from the development of an Outreach and Engagement Plan. This plan should detail the organizations and individuals that will participate in planning activities, the schedule for meetings and planning milestones, the methods that will be used for communication and information sharing, and the types of decision-making that stakeholders will be asked to participate in. In many cases, it will be necessary to collaboratively develop a set of Principals for Effective Communication (See example here). The Principals should be developed with stakeholders and used subsequently to guide group discussions.
Consider Use of a Facilitator
Anyone forming a stakeholder group faces the challenge of being fully inclusive of all interested and necessary parties while remaining nimble, functional, and able to make decisions. In larger efforts, finding this balance may require professional facilitation. When key players with an interest in project outcomes are not on board with the assessment purpose, its methods, and/or results, the outcome of the assessment may not meet expectations or otherwise have a poor reception.
Facilitation may focus on the following: defining guiding principles, agreeing on strategies for individual and group interaction, identifying membership expectations and preferred communication pathways; completing foundational shared learning exercises to promote a shared understanding of watershed issues and concerns; and formal adoption of purpose and/or goal statements.
Put Stakeholder Knowledge to Work
The collective knowledge of a stakeholder group can be a critical resource for your river health assessment. Local landowners may be able to provide unique insights into current and historical river conditions through their lived experiences. They may also readily identify issues and concerns in the riparian corridor, provide access to private property for fieldwork, and help validate assessment and modeling results to ensure that they reflect on-the-ground conditions. Local resource management personnel can help connect existing conditions to past and current land, water, and wildlife management practices. Water commissioners can help you understand the interaction between hydrological year types, water rights administration, and streamflow conditions along the river corridor. Collectively, insights like these and many others can help you connect the dots between environmental stressors, river conditions, and secondary impacts on local economies or quality of life (see example figure below). Making these connections can greatly assist in your ability to communicate around river health assessment outcomes in a way that resonates with the local community.
The potential for other local knowledge to benefit your assessment effort should not be discounted. As an added benefit, incorporating stakeholder knowledge into your assessment process is a great way to enhance stakeholder buy-in.
