Contexts and Complexities A Case Study in Evolving Participatory Watershed Stewardship

The actions of organizations and individuals shaped an evolving practice of participatory watershed stewardship of Contra Costa County, California, between 1980 and 2006. This study applies Stokols's (2006) transdisciplinary action research (TDAR) framework to examine how various organizational and volunteer dimensions of watershed stewardship emerged to shape watershed stewardship within the county. Cast from a TDAR perspective and based on participatory research, site visits, interviews, observations, and local watershed documents, this study demonstrates how organizations and individual volunteer practices evolved to manage watershed stewardship across multiple scales. Transdisciplinarity when applied to participatory watershed stewardship involves the generation of knowledge through four primary approaches: (1) participation, (2) collaboration, (3) management, and (4) physical signs of care and ownership. The physical results are the creation of riparian habitat landscapes shaped by local volunteers and watershed groups. Both governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have developed multidimensional and transdisciplinary approaches to watershed stewardship by incorporating the ecological, physical, and social components across geographic scale.