Sustainability for the Nation Resource Connections and Governance Linkages (2013) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 1-12
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They came together to focus on that challenge and have modestly improved water quality and shellfish survival in Puget Sound. However, agencies making local land-use decisions affecting the Sound have declined to be involved, and progress in addressing Puget Sound's problems continues to be impeded by runoff from poorly located land developments.
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This shared vision has led to improved environments for endangered species, better collaborative water management, and more stable hydropower production. Why did these two situations challenge established governance systems?
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The systems that must be considered in addressing sustainability challenges are referred to in this report as social-ecological systems. These complex systems include the natural resource domains (air, fresh water, coastal oceans, land, forests, soil, etc.)
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DECISION FRAMEWORK Effective governance for sustainability requires strong organizational interaction and collaboration. A number of impediments or barriers frustrate federal government efforts to create linkages to address sustainability issues.
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While performance is assessed and adjustments continue to be made during this phase, as in the previous one, a point is reached where a formal assessment is needed. Using outcome measures developed under Phase 2, at this stage evaluations are conducted to see if short- and long-term outcomes are meeting goals.
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6 FIGURE S-2 The committee's proposed decision framework.
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The criteria include issues that are nationally important, require interdisciplinary data and analysis, involve multiple interconnected resource domains, would benefit from greater coordination, have the potential to leverage nongovernmental knowledge and resources, and would result in positive returns on investment. Opportunities to better identify and address sustainability linkages are extensive.5 The committee applied the selection criteria to highlight several significant issue clusters below.
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Either staff or leadership can initiate a process leading to success; however, both ultimately need to be involved. Success on sustainability issues in the federal government depends upon several key factors: engaging stakeholders throughout the process; including and integrating environmental, economic, and social dimensions; using a strong science base and processes that link science and decision making; and reaching stakeholder agreement on the nature of important connections (Chapter 4)
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Innovative initiatives such as converting vacant city lots into parks and the Green Stormwater Initiative have expanded the physical green footprint of the city while reducing crime and stress among residents. Phoenix, a rapidly growing and ethnically diverse desert city, faces a unique combina tion of sustainability challenges, including water scarcity, poor urban air quality, signifi cant loss of biodiversity, increasing demands on energy resources, and urban heat island effects on public health.
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Also very important are structuring sustainability decision making on long time frames and assessing ways to maximize benefits in all sustainability solutions and approaches. A National Sustainability Policy should be developed that will provide clear guidance to the executive agencies on addressing governance linkages on complex sustainability problems and inform national policy on sustainability (Chapter 5)
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. Moreover, successfully meeting sustainability challenges requires that agencies support additional interdisciplinary, cross-program research, such as NSF's Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability Program (SEES)
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program and into senior-level training such as the Senior Executive Service (SES) program.
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