Social learning in collaborative watershed planning: the importance of process control and efficacy

Collaborative environmental management with stakeholder engagement is increasingly employed around the world. A key component of collaboration is social learning; through deliberation, stakeholders with different perspectives and information can learn from each other and develop a shared vision and plan for moving forward. This study compares social learning in collaborative watershed partnerships across two states within federal systems: Ohio (USA) and Niedersachsen (Germany). Analysis indicates that, although processes in both contexts generated social learning, Ohio partnerships exhibited significantly higher levels. A key difference linked to these results is the higher levels of local process control and individual efficacy in Ohio.