Property rights in natural resources and how they affect cooperation and collective action toward sustainable management of natural resources has been a key thread of scholarly inquiry for decades. However, a key knowledge gap is a comparison of different conceptual or theoretical approaches to the analysis of property rights. To fill this knowledge gap, we compare and contrast economic and legal pluralistic approaches to property rights to present a comparative review of studies on water rights in drainage and irrigation systems. In particular, we review studies on water rights in relation to managing agricultural drainage systems in the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) region of Ohio, United States and water rights in relation to the warabandi irrigation system prevalent in North–West India. Our comparative review demonstrates that economic approaches to the analysis of property rights recognize the role of incentives in motivating or hindering collective action behaviors pertaining to natural resource management. In contrast, legal pluralistic approaches to property rights recognize their different bases of legitimacy. Overall, we find that whereas economic approaches focus on the relationship between property rights structures, incentives, behaviors and outcomes, legal pluralistic approaches focus on the co-existence of different systems of property rights with different bases of legitimacy and their relationship with each other. We conclude our review by presenting the implications of our findings for research and practice, including how our findings contribute to the theorization of collective action. This article is categorized under:

Increasing the level of conservation efforts is crucial to achieving the goals of improving water quality and climate change adaptation. This study aims to investigate the influence of systems thinking and conservation planning on the adoption of agricultural conservation practices using farmers' survey data (N = 1008) in three watersheds in Indiana, U.S. We found that farmers who were systems thinkers were more likely to adopt multiple conservation practices than non-systems thinkers. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that not all farmers exhibit systems thinking tendencies; for both systems thinkers and non-systems thinkers, our findings underscore the pivotal role of conservation planning facilitated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in promoting farmers' conservation behaviors. Specifically, farmers who had a conservation plan demonstrated a higher likelihood of adopting cover crops, conservation tillage (marginal evidence), a nutrient management plan, filter strips/other buffers, and most notably, adopting multiple conservation practices than farmers without a conservation plan. This study also reveals the process of how systems thinking, seeking and/or using information, and conservation plan adoption influence the adoption of multiple conservation practices using structural equation modeling. Further, we contend that the nine-step conservation planning process with the support of a well-trained professional conservationist represents a more advanced and science-based form of systems thinking process beyond farmers' typical thinking in farm management. This process can offer farmers guidance for continued maintenance of conservation systems in the field and promote a system-based farming approach by integrating multiple practices, regardless of whether the farmers were systems thinkers or not. This study provides valuable insights and practical implications for outreach and educators in using the conservation planning process to engage deeply with farmers, nurture farmers' systems-thinking mindset, and facilitate a system-based farming approach.

Promoting conservation on rented farmland is a challenge for stakeholders working with non-operating landowners (NOLs) and tenant farmers (operators). We conducted an online survey to identify stakeholders who engage with NOLs, and understand how their positioning as ‘intermediaries’ could be leveraged to help bridge the NOL-operator communication gap. A majority of identified stakeholders/intermediaries worked in government agencies, university extension, law firms, or farm management companies. Intermediaries believed that NOLs trusted them for several conservation activities, however, they believed that NOLs were more influenced by operators than by intermediaries. The message that engaging in conservation can help preserve the farm for future generation was perceived to be influential in motivating NOLs. Our findings suggest the need for a holistic approach to engage NOLs by accounting for trust in and influence of intermediaries and operators, and the salience of conservation messages and messaging when promoting conservation behaviors on rented farmlands.

Peri-urban spaces are experiencing tremendous growth in the Global South, which in turn has fuelled a suite of environmental and natural resource management challenges, including inequitable access to and conflicts over natural resources, and the existence of institutional lacunae. Against this backdrop, we examine how scholars study collective action institutions around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, with a regional focus on South Asia, and present its implications for institutional design and development in peri-urban contexts. In order to do so, we use ‘organic institutions’ and ‘pragmatic institutions’– a type of institutional classification grounded in the origin of institutions, as a conceptual entry point. We find that less is known about the role of organic institutions in enabling collective action around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, even though their understanding is key for efforts at building effective pragmatic institutions. The paper concludes that practitioners working in peri-urban spaces should invest resources into understanding underlying social differences and developing strategies to mobilise social groups, by developing an understanding of organic institutions in peri-urban spaces.

Increased funding and resources have become available in recent years for agricultural producers to plant cover crops to improve soil health and prevent nutrient loss and erosion; however, cover crop adoption remains relatively low and has been uneven across different Midwestern counties. This study employed a controlled comparison method to investigate the social factors affecting cover crop adoption in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. In each state, the authors compared pairs of neighboring counties, where one county was a relatively higher adopter and the other was a lower adopter of cover crops, while controlling for variations in climate conditions. Results show that there were multiple factors explaining the difference in cover crop adoption among county pairs. Social factors included attitudes toward cover crops; conservation agency influence; presence of cover crop experts, advocates, and/or entrepreneurs; and collaboration between agencies and the private sector. Other important factors included topography, cattle raising, organic production, and local incentive-based programs. Among these, collaborations between agencies and the private sector played the most important role in explaining why some counties had higher rates of cover crop adoption compared to their neighbors.

Conservation practices (CPs) are integral to maintaining the long-term viability of agro-ecological systems. Because farming systems and farmers' values and attitudes are heterogeneous, factors that consistently predict conservation behaviors remain elusive. Moreover, heterogeneity is present among studies regarding the type of CPs examined, and whether behavioral intentions or actual behaviors were measured. This study considers the characteristics of each CP, and whether a given study measured behavioral intention or actual behavior, to better understand farmers' adoption of CPs. We reviewed and analyzed 35 years (1982-2017) of quantitative conservation adoption literature in the United States. We categorized CPs based on their primary purpose, the type of benefit they provide, and whether they are operational or structural. We also examined the following five CPs: conservation tillage, buffers or borders, soil testing, grassed waterways, and cover crops. In our behavioral intention and actual behavior analysis, we found that attitudinal factors predicted both conservation intention and action (actual behavior), whereas current or previous use of practices only influenced actions, not stated conservation intentions. In our analysis focusing on CP characteristics, we found that having specific knowledge about and positive attitudes toward the CP, adoption of other CPs, seeking and using information, larger farm size, and vulnerable land predicted actual adoption across nearly all CP categorizations. Nuances emerge when comparing predictors of CPs that share a particular characteristic. For example, we found farm characteristics to be comparatively more important in predicting adoption of soil management CPs than nutrient and livestock management CPs, and farmers' stewardship identity to be more important for permanent practices than operational practices.

Co-production of knowledge (through project design or research) is viewed as an effective approach to solving environmental problems, which may also increase community adaptive capacity in the face of climate change. However, the reality is that little is known about long-term impacts of co-production on researchers, communities, and outputs. We qualitatively analyzed case studies to understand co-production processes and related adaptive capacity outcomes. These 13 case studies were developed to identify impacts of the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture water (2001–2013) and climate (2010–2015) portfolios, which funded projects focused on research, education, and extension related to climate and water issues on working lands. Case study data included interviews, survey responses, and analysis of reports and publications related to a single project. We found that projects which were responsive to specific needs and assets of stakeholders had strong connections to adaptive capacity outcomes, but that these projects did not necessarily entail highly interactive practices of co-production of knowledge (e.g., stakeholder-driven research with continuous interactions between academic and non-academic partners). Our research provides evidence to suggest that, in some contexts, engagement approaches that are less time- and resource-intensive for stakeholders may be as effective at building adaptive capacity as highly interactive co-production efforts.

Decision-support tools (DSTs) are a type of innovation that can facilitate science-based decision-making, including nonpoint source pollution management in agricultural watersheds. However, organizational readiness for adopting innovations is a topic that has received limited attention in the literature. With the goal of filling this knowledge gap, we draw upon the diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory and literature around use of science by agency staff to assess United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Services' (USDANRCS) readiness towards using the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF) - a type of DST. To that end, we conducted 23 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 27 NRCS staff holding leadership positions to explore how they perceive and use the ACPF, and their perceptions of organizational and structural elements that could enable or hinder NRCS' readiness to adopt the ACPF. Results suggest that NRCS' readiness was an outcome of both organizational- and individual-level factors. Factors such as perceived scientific credibility and the influential role of leaders positively influenced NRCS' readiness; however, factors such as low levels of ACPF knowledge and perceived complexity negatively influenced NRCS' readiness. Overall, our findings suggest that NRCS is in the initial stages of getting ready to adopt the ACPF, and that there is a need for the agency to pilot ACPF in different watersheds and measure social and bio-physical outcomes.

The long-term viability of United States (US) agriculture and food systems is contingent upon sustainable soil and water conservation. Currently, the majority of conservation practices rely on voluntary adoption by farmers. However, a large and growing proportion of farmland is rented, thereby presenting a conservation decision-making context where tenant farmers have less control over conservation behavior than farmers who own the land they operate. For decades, social science scholarship has examined whether and how land tenure affects farmers’ conservation behavior. The overall effect of tenure on conservation behavior has been found to be inconclusive in quantitative studies, whereas qualitative studies suggest that it hinders conservation behavior. This article draws upon reviews of quantitative and qualitative studies examining conservation adoption in the US between 1982 and 2017 to highlight gaps in and opportunities for understanding the relationship between land tenure and conservation behavior. Highlighting the multidimensional nature of land tenure, we propose that future research on conservation adoption in agriculture use the following eight dimensions: within-farm tenure heterogeneity, tenure stability, market dynamics, type of lease arrangements, lease negotiation timelines, relational aspects, non-operating landowner characteristics, and operator characteristics. We invite scholars to operationalize and measure these dimensions to evaluate their effects on conservation behavior on rented farmland.

Institutions are critical for collective action around several environmental policy issues. A seldom-studied issue, agricultural drainage, provides a rich setting to examine how institutional mechanisms interact with two variables linked to collective action: group size and heterogeneity. In this study, we examine institutions for establishing and maintaining agricultural drainage systems in the Western Lake Erie Basin region of Ohio. Specifically, we examine whether and how drainage management institutions interact with two variables, group size and heterogeneity in benefits and costs, for solving the public-good dilemmas of agricultural drainage. Data for this study come from a comparative case study design, using semi-structured in-depth interviews, and a landowner survey. Results suggest that the Olson effect for group size is mediated by institution type, and heterogeneity in benefits and costs is mediated by fairness perceptions, in affecting incentives for collective action. We discuss our findings in light of theories of collective action.

Conservation programs often operate for many years with little information on program performance or impacts. A better process would encourage programs to “fail fast”—in other words, to implement rapid testing to learn and adapt early, and thereby avoid wasting resources. Here, we present a fail‐fast approach applied in a multiyear field trial program that sought to improve soil health in the US Cornbelt on farmland owned by nonoperating landowners. While failing fast requires investment and a supportive team culture, we recommend that this approach to program design, with metrics tailored to the program context, be used early and frequently throughout planning and implementation phases to improve program processes and test assumptions well before final outcomes are detectable.

Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) systems are critical for achieving biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and other environmental goals. However, ILK systems around the world are increasingly threatened by multiple stressors. Our study assesses the effect of climate change on ILK held by crop farmers in Peru's Colca Valley. We collected qualitative data on farmers' ILK through semi-structured interviews, which we supplemented with climatological trend analysis in four Colca Valley districts. We found that shifts in the rainy season together with warmer weather affected farmers' ILK, which was less effective for informing crop planting and irrigation practices in the context of climate uncertainty and unpredictability. Changing and uncertain ILK poses obstacles to adaptation strategies that require long-term institution building from local resource users, who may prioritize short-term solutions addressing urgent needs.

In the United States, agricultural runoff is the leading contributor of nutrient pollution in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, causing environmental impacts, including a large hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico (Rabotyagov et al. 2014). In an attempt to decrease these impacts, government agencies and nonprofit organizations invest billions of dollars annually promoting and paying for conservation practices (e.g, Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 [H.R. 2, 115th Congress, 2018]). Many of the programs through which these funds are administered may miss the mark because they are not tailored for an important and influential stakeholder for redressing the problem—the person who owns the farmland.

Abstract Addressing the environmental impacts of large‐scale agriculture requires innovative approaches to conservation program design and evaluation. We used a randomized controlled trial and a sample of 2225 landowners in the Mississippi River Basin to test a new conservation program that targets a growing but overlooked population—nonoperating landowners (NOLs). To spur adoption of conservation practices on farmland rented out by NOLs, the program provided NOLs with ready‐to‐use lease language and a financial incentive. The program's design was informed by field work, the behavioral science literature, and the social science literature on barriers to conservation on farmland. We cannot detect an effect on conservation practices from the lease language or the incentive. The take‐up rate for the incentive was one‐tenth the expected rate based on NOL responses to a hypothetical offer in a survey. The results underscore the importance of assessing program performance by rigorously testing programs in real conservation settings.

The United States media does not consistently associate natural hazards and the effects of climate change. Media messages about climate change can influence readers’ perceptions of and reactions to climate risk, and analysis of media messages in various news outlets can have important implications for the beliefs readers hold. We investigate how newspaper characteristics (political orientation, elite status, and proximity to a 2017 hurricane) correspond to the presence, accuracy, and content of climate change coverage occurring in the context of natural hazard articles. We performed a content analysis of hurricane coverage in six US newspapers. The 1057 articles identified from nine constructed week samples were coded for references to climate change, climate denial perspectives, and presentations of climate change consensus and for the use of proximity cues indicating the relative nearness or distance of climate impacts to US readers. Whenever reference to climate change occurred (26.7% of all articles analyzed), all newspapers accurately documented changing trends related to climate change. The conservative newspaper near a 2017 hurricane differed significantly from the other conservative newspapers in frequency of articles explicitly referencing climate change, as well as reference to climate change denial, climate change consensus, and use of proximal and distal proximity cues. This suggests that partisan norms around climate change coverage may be influenced by immediate proximity to a climate-related natural hazard.

Urban and agricultural communities are interdependent but often differ on approaches for improving water quality impaired by nutrient runoff waterbodies worldwide. Current water quality governance involves an overlapping array of policy tools implemented by governments, civil society organizations, and corporate supply chains. The choice of regulatory and voluntary tools is likely to influence many dimensions of the relationship between urban and agricultural actors. These relationships then influence future conditions for collective decision-making since many actors participate for multiple years in water quality improvement. In this policy analysis, we draw on our professional experiences and research, as well as academic and practitioner literatures, to investigate how different types of water quality interventions influence urban-agricultural relationships, specifically examining policy tools on a regulatory to voluntary spectrum. Interactions between farmers and other rural agricultural interests on one hand, and urban residents and their stormwater managers and wastewater treatment plants on the other, influence dynamics relevant for water quality improvement. We suggest that the selection of policy tools within complex governance contexts influence urban–agricultural relationships through financial exchange, political coalitions, knowledge exchange, interpersonal relationships, and shared sense of place. Policy tools that provide a means to build relationships and engage with people’s emotions and identities have potential to influence personal and community change and adaptive capacity, while processes such as lawsuits can catalyze structural change. Engaging these relationships is particularly critical given the need to move out of polarized positions to solve collective problems.

This paper describes the intervention strategy to improve water security in Sultanpur, a village in periurban Gurgaon, India. Most approaches to improving natural resource management in periurban contexts focus on mobilising the community; little attention is paid to reorienting the state or strengthening the user-bureaucracy interface. This paper describes the action research process that was followed to reorient civic agencies engaged in the provisioning of water and to break from a situation of distrust and prisoners' dilemma between water users and service providers. The paper argues that the creation and provision of a platform for direct engagement between water users and service providers can be a key tool for improving periurban water security. These platforms can provide support in building community resilience to face challenges such as climate variability and urbanisation, both of which threaten periurban water security. The action research emphasises on building the community's capacity to ask for improved water supply and to negotiate with state service providers, rather than augmenting water supply physically.

Adoption of innovations, including adoption of conservation practices, is a topic of extensive scholarly enterprise. The diffusion of innovations literature has often examined the characteristics of three sets of variables: the adopter, the change agent, and the innovation. This literature clearly establishes the crucial role of change agents in promoting an innovation. However, what we don't know is what makes change agents want to promote a particular innovation. In this study, change agents' perceptions of the attributes of two-stage drainage ditches, an innovative agricultural drainage ditch design, are examined in order to understand what affects their willingness to promote them. Diffusion of innovation theory provides the conceptual grounding as well as the theoretical motivation for this study. The data for this study come from semi-structured interviews with 17 change agents. Results suggest that change agents perceive the relative advantage associated with two-stage ditches to be low, and that two-stage ditches might be perceived by potential adopters to be incompatible with the prevalent sociocultural beliefs about drainage ditch management. Results also indicate that change agents' perceptions of environmental benefits of adopting two-stage ditches affects their willingness to promote them. Results are more broadly informative about promoting conservation practices, and is relevant for both academicians and practitioners.

Emphasizing the economic and environmental benefits of conservation is business‐as‐usual for environmental organizations seeking to influence conservation behavior, but these message frames are rarely tested. We embedded a large message framing experiment into the recruitment for a conservation agriculture program targeting farmland owners in the Mississippi River Basin. We found that framed messages do not increase enrollment in the agricultural program—the desired conservation behavior—compared to an informational message (control) and may decrease enrollment among farmland owners not already using conservation practices (i.e., cover crops).