Engagement in water governance action situations in the Lake Champlain Basin

Patrick Bitterman; Christopher Koliba

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0282797

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 1, 2022
6 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Jacob Freeman, Editor PONE-D-22-24459Engagement in Water Governance Action Situations in the Lake Champlain BasinPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bitterman, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Thank you for submitting your work to Plos One. Two reviewers have now completed their assessments, and, on the basis of these assessments, I am recommending minor revisions. Both reviewers provide constructive criticisms that do not require new analyses, though additional analysis and clarification may be required in some instances. A area for improvement identified by both reviewers concerns the the generality of the results and how these contribute to a body of theory. Revier1 states: `` I believe the paper would benefit from a stronger explanation of the study’s findings beyond the Lake Champlain Basin study setting." Reviewer 2 notes: ``What are key theoretical puzzles that remain unresolved that you want to answer with regards to the impacts of scale, issues of concern, and scale issue homophily, and joint collaboration on actor participation in the action situations? What are the findings of existing studies, gaps/puzzles that remain, and how does your research address them?" Addressing these critiques will, I believe, improve the reach of the contribution and contribute to the scientific soundness of the manuscript for publication. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 20 2023 11:59PM. 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Kind regards, Jacob Freeman Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper evaluates a set of expectations about how actors participate in structured issue forums that address water quality governance challenges in the Lake Champlain Basin, USA. The authors use data from a survey of these actors to estimate network models to evaluate how patterns of participation are shaped by the scales at which actors and forums operate, the focal issues that forums address, and the joint focus of actors and forums on the same scales and issues. As the authors point out, there is need for greater understanding of how actors navigate governance systems that are complex in the sense that they encompass multiple interacting policy issues, and the study’s findings contribute significantly to this understanding. My main comment: I believe the paper would benefit from a stronger explanation of the study’s findings beyond the Lake Champlain Basin study setting. I address this point in more detail below. My other comments are divided into major and minor points. Major comments: - Nearly all of discussion focuses on the specific context of water quality governance in the Lake Champlain Basin. I encourage the authors to highlight the broader implications of the study. Likewise, the authors may consider explaining—more explicitly—the importance of the study setting in the introduction (e.g., is this a model system for studying institutional complexity? Are HAB or other water quality issues of particular importance/severity in the LCB?). - The abstract highlights as one of the core findings that agricultural actors are less likely to participate in forums, but I was not able to find explanation of the analysis linked to this finding. Minor comments: - The two ERGM models are similar enough that the authors may consider combining them into one table to make it easier to compare results between the two models. - In supplemental materials: the GOF plots include diagnostics that seem more appropriate for a “one mode” ERGM than for a bipartite ERGM (e.g., one measure for Degree, rather than Actor Degree and Action Situation Degree; Edge-wise Shared Partners). - In the first paragraph of “Analysis” (2.2), some clarifications could improve interpretation – for example, in the phrase “…many actors having few edge connections to other nodes”, does “other nodes” refer to action situations? If so, the authors may consider stating that. The phrase “The overall degree distribution of the network is exponential” is a little bit confusing because, to my understanding, the network being discussed is bipartite, with a degree distribution for actors and for forums (and the overall degree distribution combines the two, which complicates interpretation). - The authors may consider adding a short explanation of the rationale for estimating the first ERGM (i.e., rather than just estimating the second). Reviewer #2: The paper is generally well-written and easy to follow. I also like how it attempted to connect and apply the lenses of collaborative governance/policy networks (the ecology of games literature) and adjacent/linked action situations (a new spin in the IAD framework and the Bloomington school of institutional analysis) in analyzing the governance of a social-ecological system. But there is one major issue. It is not clear to me what research gap is addressed by this paper and what is its contribution to the literature. After providing big picture/general knowledge in much of the intro section, the authors suddenly provide a set of expectations/hypotheses in the last paragraph of that section (lines 106-117). I do not know where those come from and why those are important because there is no “theoretically” detailed, thorough, and convincing story leading to those expectations in the initial part of the paper. What are key theoretical puzzles that remain unresolved that you want to answer with regards to the impacts of scale, issues of concern, and scale issue homophily, and joint collaboration on actor participation in the action situations? What are the findings of existing studies, gaps/puzzles that remain, and how does your research address them? Because of these are unclear, the paper was unsatisfying to read (although I still liked the work). Certain parts of later sections touch on previous studies (e.g., lines 296-301), but they came too late and felt to be shallow. As a result of this issue, the paper’s discussion and conclusion sections are mostly speculative and lacking in substance (i.e., no punchlines). My suggestion is that the authors provide a concentrated dose of theoretical motivation directly leading to the expectations/hypotheses in the intro section (not just one paragraph but multiple paragraphs). Then, enrich and improve the discussion and conclusion sections based on that. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282797.r001
Revision 1
3 Feb 2023 Author Response These comments are also included in the uploaded Response to Reviewers Academic Editor: ACADEMIC EDITOR: Thank you for submitting your work to Plos One. Two reviewers have now completed their assessments, and, on the basis of these assessments, I am recommending minor revisions. Both reviewers provide constructive criticisms that do not require new analyses, though additional analysis and clarification may be required in some instances. A area for improvement identified by both reviewers concerns the the generality of the results and how these contribute to a body of theory. Revier1 states: `` I believe the paper would benefit from a stronger explanation of the study’s findings beyond the Lake Champlain Basin study setting." Reviewer 2 notes: ``What are key theoretical puzzles that remain unresolved that you want to answer with regards to the impacts of scale, issues of concern, and scale issue homophily, and joint collaboration on actor participation in the action situations? What are the findings of existing studies, gaps/puzzles that remain, and how does your research address them?" Addressing these critiques will, I believe, improve the reach of the contribution and contribute to the scientific soundness of the manuscript for publication. Response to Editor: We appreciate the comments of the reviewers, which we believe have contributed to an improved manuscript. Below, we address each comment individually. In particular, we have added more to the literature review, as well as explanation regarding the paper’s contributions to the body of theory and have cleaned up some minor issues regarding model specification and diagnostics. Reviewer 1 COMMENT R1-1 My main comment: I believe the paper would benefit from a stronger explanation of the study’s findings beyond the Lake Champlain Basin study setting. I address this point in more detail below. My other comments are divided into major and minor points. REPONSE TO R1-1 We appreciate the suggestion and have added text setting up the contribution in the introduction and have further explicated the contribution in the discussion section. Namely, we discuss the importance of considering context-dependent factors (e.g., scale, homophily) in institutional design aimed at improving participation in collaborative governance forums. We have also elaborated more on how our findings “…extend polycentric governance frameworks that chart how actor participation can connect forums across space and scale by showing how those connections are differentiated by the type of issue and by geographic scale.” At the request of Reviewer 2, we have also added text in the introduction better situating our work within the relevant literature. COMMENT R1-2 Nearly all of discussion focuses on the specific context of water quality governance in the Lake Champlain Basin. I encourage the authors to highlight the broader implications of the study. Likewise, the authors may consider explaining—more explicitly—the importance of the study setting in the introduction (e.g., is this a model system for studying institutional complexity? Are HAB or other water quality issues of particular importance/severity in the LCB?). RESPONSE TO R1-2 The LCB’s issues and the TMDL are not unique – there are hundreds of polluted watersheds across the US. The utility of studying the LCB is in the science-based approach to collaborative water governance taken by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (and others). It provides a sort of natural experiment in the governance principles central to this paper. We have added some brief text in the introduction to make this clearer. COMMENT R1-3 The abstract highlights as one of the core findings that agricultural actors are less likely to participate in forums, but I was not able to find explanation of the analysis linked to this finding. REPONSE TO R1-3 This was a miswording. It is not about agricultural actors’ participation, but rather actors’ participation in agricultural forums. The abstract has been corrected. COMMENT R1-4 The two ERGM models are similar enough that the authors may consider combining them into one table to make it easier to compare results between the two models. RESPONSE TO R1-4 The two results have been combined in what is now Table 4. COMMENT R1-5 - In supplemental materials: the GOF plots include diagnostics that seem more appropriate for a “one mode” ERGM than for a bipartite ERGM (e.g., one measure for Degree, rather than Actor Degree and Action Situation Degree; Edge-wise Shared Partners). RESPONSE TO R1-5 We appreciate you catching our mistake. This was a result of an error in a custom “helper” function I wrote to automate some of diagnostic functions (it was printing the incorrect graph). The models have not changed, but now properly report their fit in the supplemental information. We have also added some text in the methods section to elaborate on the gwb2degree term. COMMENT R1-6 - In the first paragraph of “Analysis” (2.2), some clarifications could improve interpretation – for example, in the phrase “…many actors having few edge connections to other nodes”, does “other nodes” refer to action situations? If so, the authors may consider stating that. The phrase “The overall degree distribution of the network is exponential” is a little bit confusing because, to my understanding, the network being discussed is bipartite, with a degree distribution for actors and for forums (and the overall degree distribution combines the two, which complicates interpretation). RESPONSE TO R1-6 The first paragraph on the Analysis section is describing the full network, visualized in Figure 1. The degree comment is for all nodes in this network, and the exponential comment also refers to the full graph and is supported by the citation. We later transform the full graph into the bipartite, which is described later in the analysis section when the ERGMs are introduced. We have added a bit of clarifying text in the first paragraph of the Analysis section, which we believe is sufficient. COMMENT R1-7 - The authors may consider adding a short explanation of the rationale for estimating the first ERGM (i.e., rather than just estimating the second). RESPOSE TO R1-7 We have added a short preamble to the first ERGM description in the methods section calling back to our research questions and setting up the baseline model. Reviewer 2 COMMENT R2-1 The paper is generally well-written and easy to follow. I also like how it attempted to connect and apply the lenses of collaborative governance/policy networks (the ecology of games literature) and adjacent/linked action situations (a new spin in the IAD framework and the Bloomington school of institutional analysis) in analyzing the governance of a social-ecological system. RESPONSE TO R2-1 Thank you for your kind comments. COMMENT R2-2 But there is one major issue. It is not clear to me what research gap is addressed by this paper and what is its contribution to the literature. After providing big picture/general knowledge in much of the intro section, the authors suddenly provide a set of expectations/hypotheses in the last paragraph of that section (lines 106-117). I do not know where those come from and why those are important because there is no “theoretically” detailed, thorough, and convincing story leading to those expectations in the initial part of the paper. What are key theoretical puzzles that remain unresolved that you want to answer with regards to the impacts of scale, issues of concern, and scale issue homophily, and joint collaboration on actor participation in the action situations? What are the findings of existing studies, gaps/puzzles that remain, and how does your research address them? Because of these are unclear, the paper was unsatisfying to read (although I still liked the work). Certain parts of later sections touch on previous studies (e.g., lines 296-301), but they came too late and felt to be shallow. As a result of this issue, the paper’s discussion and conclusion sections are mostly speculative and lacking in substance (i.e., no punchlines). My suggestion is that the authors provide a concentrated dose of theoretical motivation directly leading to the expectations/hypotheses in the intro section (not just one paragraph but multiple paragraphs). Then, enrich and improve the discussion and conclusion sections based on that. RESPONSE TO R2-2 We have added the requested paragraphs to the introduction section. We now more thoroughly review the literature on the determinants of collaboration. In particular, we explicate the effects of transaction costs, the importance of building trust, the effects of scale and issue/belief homophily, and take a much deeper dive into papers that explore the joint collaboration/collaborative closure dynamic. We have intentionally kept it brief, as the paper is quite long as it is. But it does add depth to the manuscript, including providing weight to our discussion and conclusion sections, and we appreciate the suggestion. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282797.r002
23 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Jacob Freeman, Editor Engagement in Water Governance Action Situations in the Lake Champlain Basin PONE-D-22-24459R1 Dear Dr. Bitterman, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Jacob Freeman Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thanks for submitting your paper to Plos One and supporting open science. The paper reports a nice contribution. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282797.r003
Formally Accepted
9 Mar 2023 Acceptance Letter - Jacob Freeman, Editor PONE-D-22-24459R1 Engagement in Water Governance Action Situations in the Lake Champlain Basin Dear Dr. Bitterman: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Jacob Freeman Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282797.r004

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