Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Environmental Science and Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci Examining motivations influencing watershed partnership participation in the Intermountain Western United States Ryan M. Roberts a, *, Kelly W. Jones a , Stuart Cottrell a , Esther Duke b a Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA b LightHawk, Fort Collins, CO, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Wildfire risk Environmental collaboratives Watershed partnerships Environmental management Q method ABSTRACT There has been a rise in environmental collaboratives as a form of watershed governance. These collaboratives depend on a diversity of organizations acting collectively by pooling their resources, yet little information exists as to why organizations decide to become involved in these initiatives. This study attempts to identify why organizations involved in watershed partnerships decide to participate by assessing external and internal mo- tivations. We used Q method to survey 38 representatives from 32 organizations currently participating by investing time or resources in these partnerships in the Intermountain Western United States. Factor analysis revealed six distinct perspectives organizations hold that influence their decision to participate. Our findings differ from the broader environmental management literature in that internal motivations played a much larger role in organizations’ motivations for participation. Specific categories of internal motivations that were im- portant included: 1) Environmental Mission, 2) Environmental Leadership, and 3) Wildfire Information. Results suggest that diverse strategies are needed to engage potential partner organizations in watershed collaboratives. 1. Introduction 1.1. Background State influence is weakening in many places around the globe with power shifting to stakeholders who have traditionally held minimal governing authority (Guízar, 2012). This trend toward decentralization is prevalent in conservation due to the mismatch between traditional forms of governance and ecosystem structures and processes (McLeod and Leslie, 2009). Unique styles of governance have emerged to address this misalignment (Yaffee, 2012). One example of decentralized gov- ernance is environmental collaboratives: groups of stakeholder orga- nizations that act collectively to solve a common conservation issue. Environmental collaboratives have been growing in prevalence due to the necessity for cross-boundary work in conservation (Kark et al., 2015). One problem increasingly addressed by environmental collabora- tives is catastrophic wildfires and their impacts on watershed resources. Three primary factors have contributed to the increased frequency and severity of wildfires over the past several decades: 1) hotter, dryer seasons due to a changing climate, 2) an increased buildup of fuel loads in forests, and 3) a growing human population in fire prone areas (Schoennagel et al., 2017). Wildfires often result in negative outcomes for watersheds, such as impaired source water quality due to increased sediment load from runoff (Thomas et al., 2017). High quality water is important to the mission statements of numerous public organizations and is a vital component for the daily operations of diverse private entities. The degradation of watersheds often results in the inability to use water resources without costly remediation (Finley, 2012). As of 2016, over 400 watershed partnerships operate globally across nearly 1.2 billion acres of land (Bennett and Ruef, 2016). Partnerships can be defined as an agreement between public and private organiza- tions to act collectively towards common goals of watershed health, and a growing subset of these collaboratives focus on investing in wildfire risk mitigation to avoid future costs associated with an impaired wa- terway. Programs focused on wildfire risk mitigation have gained po- pularity most rapidly in the Intermountain West region of the United States due to an increase of fire and water issues in the area. Due to the complexity and often high costs of implementing wildfire treatments on private and public lands, partnerships are critical for pooling resources across several organizations (Bennett and Ruef, 2016). Stakeholder organizations participate in watershed partnerships by investing their financial resources, human resources, or a combination thereof into these collaboratives. Watershed investments have in- creased at a rate of 12 % annually (Bennett and Carroll, 2014), yet little information exists regarding the various motivations driving this https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.02.021 Received 30 April 2019; Received in revised form 8 January 2020; Accepted 22 February 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: rmrobert@rams.colostate.edu (R.M. Roberts). Environmental Science and Policy 107 (2020) 114–122 1462-9011/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T