Relationships Between Local Governments and Metropolitan Watershed Management Organizations, Twin Cities Metro Area, 1959-2014

Abstract

What happens when a state mandates that local governments in its major metropolis must collaborate at the watershed-scale to manage surface water? I answer this research question by investigating over three decades of intergovernmental dynamics following passage of Minnesota’s 1982 Metropolitan Area Surface Water Management Act, which required local units of government to manage surface waters through collaborative watershed management organizations. This longitudinal network data is a reconstruction from archival materials that shows how 201 local governments organize and re-organize themselves into 54 distinct watershed organizations. The earliest local government relationship in the set dates from 1959 and the latest from 2014, but the longitudinal analysis in the associated paper focuses on the 1975 to 2011 period. The data allow for longitudinal analysis of local government participation in watershed management organizations.