Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2013MN352B

Building sustainable governance frameworks to sustainably manage Minnesota's Water Resources

Institute: Minnesota
Year Established: 2013 Start Date: 2013-03-01 End Date: 2014-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $29,998 Total Non-Federal Funds: $58,621

Principal Investigators: Sherry Enzler, Mae Davenport

Project Summary: The ability to sustainably manage water in Minnesota is dependent in part on our ability to build sustainable social-hydrological systems that can resiliently manage the interactions between hydrological systems, water users and governance systems. The recent Minnesota Water Sustainability Framework found that Minnesota's current governance framework is a substantial barrier to sustainable water management and recommends that we re-vision our water policy and governance construct to advance sustainable water management. Accomplishing this feat requires a deeper understanding of Minnesota's water governance framework across geographic landscapes. Using the Vermillion River Watershed in the southern Twin Cities Metropolitan area and building on previous research regarding the watershed's hydrological system and user data this research is intended to develop our understanding of governance frameworks across the Vermillion River Watershed and using the work of Ostrom et al to build an interactive model to explore how governance impacts both users and the hydrological system.