Water in 2025: Beliefs and Values as a Means for Cooperation  

Issues of water policy in the U.S.A. West are about people and the diverse beliefs and values that they hold. The relationship among these beliefs and values and society’s ability to find policy solutions is strong, but not always evident. To illustrate how beliefs and values are connected to water challenges, this paper highlights the results of two Q-Method surveys given to 84 water stakeholders in Colorado. The stakeholders included people representing environmental, agriculture, recreation, and urban interests as well as water providers, elected officials, and researchers.

Published by lynkathlene

I am a Director at Spark Policy Institute, an organization that provides research-based approaches to help solve complex, multi-sector problems. Current and recent projects include: (1) Colorado Farm to School that helps build the resources needed to link schools with producers, with the intent to bring fresh locally-grown produce into K-12 schools and create new agricultural markets for Colorado producers; (2) Lead staff for the legislatively mandated Colorado Farm to School Interagency Task Force; (3) Development of the statewide Colorado Food Systems Assessment Framework; (4) Food hub feasibility study for Southeastern Colorado; and (5) The statewide implementation of the MAYSI-2 in juvenile justice sites. In addition to major projects at Spark, I recently completed work on a Sustainable Citizenship project in New Zealand; past co-chair for the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Leadership for Healthy Communities initiative to reverse childhood obesity by 2015; and a panel reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT centers.