Copyright © 2018 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Rudberg, P. M., and M. Smits. 2018. Learning-based intervention for river restoration: analyzing the lack of outcomes in the Ljusnan River basin, Sweden. Ecology and Society 23(4):13. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10472-230413 Research Learning-based intervention for river restoration: analyzing the lack of outcomes in the Ljusnan River basin, Sweden Peter M. Rudberg 1,2,3 and Mattijs Smits 1 ABSTRACT. We focus on a large and sustained stakeholder process for river restoration related to hydropower production that failed to reach any significant natural resource management outcomes. We explore to what extent the stakeholder process can be characterized as a learning-based intervention as well as the reasons for the lack of outcomes. The analysis draws on insights from existing literature of procedural and institutional factors identified to foster and hinder social learning in stakeholder processes. The analysis finds that the stakeholder process featured virtually all fostering procedural factors as well as various fostering institutional factors identified in the literature. The main hindering institutional element consisted of strong pre-existing water rights, granted by the legislation governing hydropower production and river restoration in Sweden. Existing legislation provided a key stakeholder with the power to successfully reach its objective through the unilateral action of exiting the stakeholder process. Our results demonstrate that various learning outcomes, including knowledge acquisition, trust building, and the creation of networks are possible in stakeholder processes that feature power imbalances. The results also suggest that, ultimately, the power imbalance limited the process from reaching significant natural resource management outcomes, both in the short and longer terms. Based on comparison with international cases, the results reveal the need to focus attention on the national scale to remediate power imbalances in stakeholder processes that arise from a share of stakeholders possessing strong prior rights to the use of natural resources. In such cases, sustainable management of natural resources could be better served by efforts to modify existing legislation, rather than investments in resource-intensive learning-based interventions. Key Words: hydropower; learning-based intervention; outcomes; river restoration; Sweden INTRODUCTION Social learning in stakeholder processes related to natural resource management has emerged as an influential strand of academic research during the last decades (Berkes et al. 2002, Keen et al. 2005, Wals 2007, Gerlak et al. 2018). Social learning can be defined as a process of iterative reflection that occurs from sharing experiences, ideas, and environments with others (Keen et al. 2005). A recent review identified that a majority of analyzed social learning processes in the literature refer to learning-based interventions, which can be defined as a government-led (or participatory action research) process to trigger or support social learning (Rodela 2013, Suškevičs et al. 2018). The literature contains numerous assertions related to the beneficial outcomes of social learning in stakeholder processes, including improved decision-making and problem-solving capacity as well as changes in perceptions, values, and norms (Walters 1986, Dale 1989, Lee 1993, Pinkerton 1994, Daniels and Walker 1996, Buck et al. 2001, Röling 2002, Olsson et al. 2004, Folke et al. 2005, Armitage et al. 2008). Ultimately, there seems to be an expectation that successfully facilitated learning-based interventions lead to desirable collective action and natural resource management outcomes (Schusler et al. 2003, Blackmore 2007, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007, Muro and Jeffrey 2008, Cundill and Rodela 2012). However, the relationship between learning-based interventions and natural resource management outcomes represents an area in which further research is warranted. Recent literature on learning and natural resource management increasingly focuses on whether and how natural resource management outcomes are, or can be, connected to learning processes (Siebenhüner et al. 2016, Armitage et al. 2017, de Kraker 2017, Suškevičs et al. 2018). However, Suškevičs et al. (2018) explicitly highlighted a shortage of analysis of ‘failed’ learning processes in the literature, i.e., processes that did not result in the expected outcomes. We focus on a case that, as we argue, can be analyzed as a failed learning-based intervention in the Ljusnan River basin (referred to hereafter as the Ljusnan process). The Ljusnan process ran between 2000 and 2007 and focused on river restoration of Sweden’s eighth most important basin in terms of hydropower production (Swedish Energy Agency 2014). The vision of public stakeholders, who initiated the process, was to recreate an ecologically sustainable river basin with varied natural and cultural environments in line with national and European Union (EU) environmental policy. Moreover, the Ljusnan process was initiated with the intention of constituting a model for coordinated hydropower permit reviews for river restoration in Sweden, the largest hydropower producer in the EU (CAB 2008, EC 2018). However, in 2007, after 25 project meetings, with an average of 12 participants per meeting and producing 21 project reports, the main hydropower producer in the basin exited the Ljusnan process, effectively ending it without any river restoration measures. We aim to explore the relationship between learning-based interventions and natural resource management outcomes. We do so by outlining a research framework based on key factors identified in the literature to foster or hinder social learning and by applying it to the Ljusnan process. In doing so, we are guided by the following questions: (1) to what extent can the Ljusnan process be characterized as a learning-based intervention and (2) how do procedural and institutional factors related to the Ljusnan process explain its lack of natural resource management outcomes? 1 Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University and Research, 2 GeoViable, 3 Stockholm Environment Institute