Understanding perceptions of successful cooperation on water quality issues: a comparison across six western U.S. interstate watersheds/Comprendre les perceptions d'une cooperation reussie sur des questions de qualite de l'eau : comparaison entre six bassins hydrographiques interetatiques de l'Ouest des Etats-Unis/Entendiendo percepciones de cooperacion exitosa en temas de calidad del agua

Water in the western United States sustains multiple purposes despite being over-allocated, over-used, and often quality-impaired. Interstate river watersheds, where rivers pass through jurisdictional boundaries of two or more states, face particular management challenges to facilitate cooperation across multiple state and local jurisdictional boundaries. This paper focuses on mechanisms of cooperation used to manage water quality across western interstate watersheds. A range of cooperative mechanisms were examined, from meetings to watershed management and creation of memoranda of understanding. To understand different stakeholders' perceptions of successful cooperation, forty-eight watershed professionals were surveyed across six study areas. Ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that survey respondents perceived watershed organizations, watershed partnerships, and meetings as the most successful cooperative activities for addressing water quality issues. This paper discusses the relationships between mechanisms of cooperation and additional variables examined in the study, and offers insights into regional cooperation and social cohesion over shared environmental resources. Keywords: environmental management, interstate rivers, watershed cooperation, water quality En depit d'une eau souvent de mauvaise qualite et soumise a une surexploitation et une surutilisation, cette ressource remplit de nombreuses missions dans l'Ouest des Etats Unis. Les bassins hydrographiques interetatiques (oU les fleuves traversent les frontieres juridictionnelles de deux Etats ou plus) rencontrent des problemes de gestion particuliers, dont le defi est surtout de faciliter la cooperation interetatique et les frontieres juridictionnelles locales. Cet article met l'accent sur les mecanismes de cooperation mis en place dans la gestion de la qualite de l'eau des bassins interetatiques de l'Ouest du pays. Un eventail de mecanismes de cooperation a ete examine, allant de reunions a la gestion de bassins et la creation de memorandums d'entente. Afin de comprendre la perception d'une cooperation reussie des differents acteurs, quarante-huit professionnels des bassins hydrographiques ont participe a une etude sur six cas. L'analyse de la regression logistique ordinale a revele que les participants percevaient les organisations des bassins, les partenariats de bassins et les reunions comme les activites de cooperation les plus reussies pour aborder les questions de qualite de