Beyond “Community-Washing”: Effective and Sustained Community Collaboration in Urban Waterways Management

Abstract

Urban waterways are an important part of urban ecosystems, and well-managed urban waterways can support diverse benefits to communities and nature. The literature suggests that collaborative engagement is a pathway to unlocking broader benefits. There is, however, an intention–implementation gap, limiting the adoption of community collaboration in urban waterways governance. This paper reports on two case studies based on interviews and analysed with the aim of better understanding the factors that cause this dilemma. The case studies are in Melbourne, Australia, and are examples of where such community participation practices have been attempted. Our analysis includes twenty-three semi-structured interviews from these two cases. Data were analysed using the Values–Rules–Knowledge framework, a heuristic to help decision-makers analyse how social systems shape decision contexts. The results from the case study highlight three key factors that hinder effective community involvement. Bureaucratic processes act as de facto gatekeepers, reinforcing existing power dynamics. Inclusivity is difficult to define and achieve, highlighting the limited availability of appropriate tools. Finally, implementing participatory practices is resource intensive in terms of time, staff skills, and funding, leading to inadequate resourcing. Overcoming these challenges requires a comprehensive change in bureaucratic procedures, choice of engagement methods, and improved resource management.

1. Introduction

Socio-ecologically healthy and well-managed urban waterways provide many benefits for human and ecological well-being. These benefits range from natural, socio-cultural, and economic benefits, such as biodiversity and ecosystem well-being, physical and mental health improvement, riverine and flash flood risk mitigation, and, in some cases, opportunities for tourism [1,2,3,4]. In many cities, urban densification, urban sprawl, and human-centred urban development have led to significant land-use changes and the depletion of natural resources, including urban waterways [3,4]. However, the health of many urban waterways is poor, putting such broader benefits at risk [5,6].

As with other cities, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Melbourne metropolitan waterways, such as the Moonee Ponds Creek and Merri Creek, became highly polluted, eroded, and lost their biodiversity as they were converted into de facto drainage lines [7], with many becoming dumping sites for industries and businesses before the 1970s [8]. Similarly, with the effect of rapid urbanisation, urban stormwater has become a major threat to waterway health, with pollutants and litter running off hard surfaces into the waterways [8,9] at a rate of 2000 to 3000 tonnes of litter per year just in the City of Melbourne [10].

However, in the last few decades, major institutional, social, technological, and policy reforms have been widely adopted in urban waterways management and governance to restore ecological health and increase the adaptive capacity of waterways as a social–ecological system [7,11,12]. For different reasons, community and other relevant stakeholders’ concerns, interests, and influences on urban waterways’ health have resulted in a more collaborative governance approach based on co-designed catchment management programs [13,14,15].

Collaborative governance is an umbrella term used in diverse arrangements and processes that shape collective action among independent organisations or actors to address a common issue [16,17]. The literature defines it as a process or arrangement of collective decision-making, with two or more organisations or actors sharing resources to achieve collective outcomes that would not be achieved independently [16,18]. In the Australian context, Melbourne Water [14] adopted the collaborative governance approach for urban waterways that connects diverse stakeholders and interest groups in the government sector, i.e., planners, policymakers, and local practitioners, and community, i.e., industries, businesses, non-profit agencies, and local citizens, to enable improved understanding and responses to common challenges.

Community involvement in major decisions relating to urban waterways and their restoration is not new to Melbourne [7,19]. Earlier research on Australian urban waterways management has often focused on historical changes in waterways governance and governance structures, i.e., about who should be involved, in what arrangements, and with what funding [20,21,22], investigating the level of engagement [23,24] as well as ecological outcomes [25,26]. However, we argue that there is not enough broader evaluation of how to foster meaningful community participation and how to sustain it in practice [22].

Moreover, the academic literature has highlighted that decision-makers often intend to achieve a high level of community engagement that is collaborative and empowering. Further, such studies’ findings tend to focus on innovating collaborative and empowering methods, tools, and governance models, but with fewer considerations of the practicality and applicability of such methods in real-world contexts. Thus, our previous systematic literature review [27] concluded that this has generated an intention–implementation gap with community engagement in urban waterways management, which needs empirical evidence to support it and further research on what factors have caused this gap to endure as well as how to enable effective community engagement as intended.

Further, the previous literature has produced limited empirical evidence to support how effective community participation can be sustained in practice. Simply put, a scarcity of research explicitly delves into the root causes and implications of the implementation gap and what practical evidence is needed to support meaningful community participation in these contexts [28,29].

Against this background, this study seeks to fill this gap by investigating the decision-making contexts and social dynamics associated with managing urban waterways and how and why community participation practices sometimes fail to fulfil broader intentions. This issue is explored in two case studies, chosen as typical examples of collaborative community participation with high levels of intention, in terms of collaborative and empowering levels of engagement, and based on an analytical lens broadly based on the Values–Rules–Knowledge framework (VRK framework) [30,31].

The findings of this study aim to provide practitioners, policymakers, and community actors with insights into how to reframe the community engagement process in a targeted manner and focus on strategic changes in institutional, social, legislative, and technical systems to implement collaborative community participation as intended [32]. Broadly, we focus on achieving meaningful community participation for social–ecological resilience in a way that is acceptable to decision-makers.

Our research questions are:

RQ1: Why do urban waterways managers and government agencies want to engage the community collaboratively in the governance and/or management of urban waterways and vice versa?

RQ2: What factors, i.e., institutional, legislative, and/or social factors, constrain or support effective community collaboration in urban waterways management and/or governance?

This paper has four sections. Section 1 introduces the topic. Section 2 describes the methodology and case studies used to conduct this research. Section 3 introduces two cases. Section 4 reports the findings in terms of evidence for the intentions and implementation of community participation in two case studies and hindering or supporting factors of effective community participation in decision-making. In Section 5, we discuss our main findings concerning why meaningful community engagement is not successfully practised and discuss how effective community collaboration in urban waterways management (CCUWM) might be achieved.

We find that overcoming the implementation difficulties, and increasing widespread effective community participation in urban waterways management, will require the reform of bureaucratic procedures that constrain its implementation; more adequate fit-for-common-purpose and fit-for-community methodologies that ensure inclusivity; as well as adequate resource management to allow procedures and methods to be appropriately and continuously used.

2. Materials and Methods

For this study, we used two data sources: semi-structured interviews as well as relevant documents such as industry reports, policy documents and organisations’ annual reports.

We used a qualitative, interpretive case study approach to better understand community involvement in decision-making [33,34]. This is due to the need to understand the associated perceptions and interactions in-depth, as such topics need to be studied based on practical examples rather than theoretical experiments [33].

Because of these requirements, we limited the number of case studies to two, where we had reasonable access to interview participants. This allowed us to unpack how case study participants make sense of the practice of CCUWM, and how and why they take actions to shape management and/or governance [35,36].

Case study locations were chosen as practical examples of CCUWM: Merri Creek and Moonee Ponds Creek catchments in Melbourne, Australia. Purposive sampling was used to select the cases [37,38] as key cases, being some of the most mature known cases of attempting to implement CCUWM [17,33,39], with ongoing learning processes on how to practise CCUWM collaboratively and effectively. The cases were chosen because they:

• Represent collaborative urban waterways governance in Melbourne with the intention of strong community engagement in practice as well as in the management of waterways, including in decision-making;
• Are some of the most active cases of CCUWM in Melbourne over a long period of time, e.g., the community has continuously integrated with the Merri Creek catchment management actions over the last thirty years or so [40];
• In this regard, they represent pioneer catchments in Melbourne that adopted the collaborative governance approach under the Healthy Waterways strategy [11];
• Have clear signs of strong cultural imprints on ecosystems and landscapes, often to the benefit of social–ecological systems [41].

As such, they are good examples of this emerging practice to learn from, allowing us to investigate whether and how such practices were successful and what factors in any way favourably and/or adversely impacted the implementation of CCUWM.

An additional grey literature review on the projects helped to enhance the validity of the findings and allowed for the triangulation of results from multiple angles, including from the perspectives of consultants, government organisations, and community groups.

In this study, we define “effective” or “meaningful” community participation as an active or passive community engagement with a clear common purpose, including feeding into governance and/or management [28,42,43]. By active participation, we mean that the community is participating or collaborating in management or governance actions, i.e., preplanning, planning and designing, implementation, monitoring, and adaptation, as partners or stakeholders throughout the decision-making process. By passive participation, we mean that the communities indirectly collaborate, i.e., via surveys or knowledge of their attitudes, behaviours, lifestyles, and/or research and development.

2.1. Conceptual Frameworks

Two complementary conceptual frames were used in this study for the analysis of data, i.e., the coding of results. The Values–Rules–Knowledge (VRK) framework [31] provides a lens through which to analyse the factors that shape practice and decisions, whilst the IAP2 [44] scale allows for assessing the level of participation in the two case studies.

2.1.1. Values–Rules–Knowledge

We used the VRK framework [30,31] as a lens to code the qualitative data and to investigate the structures, processes, and relationships of community participation in the decision-making contexts of the case studies. It provides a means for analysing the factors that shape decisions, in this case, collaborative governance systems, which help to break down data into manageable and examinable elements for analytical purposes. Specifically, it allows us to critically explore the elements from institutional, social, ecological, legislative, and personal perspectives [45,46,47].

Values are here defined as “stated preferences, ethical precepts and principles that determine the way people select actions and evaluate events or those preferences” [30,31]. Values provide the metrics for prioritising choices.

Rules are here defined as “prescribed and proscribed actions and the associated bodies of laws (formal rules: regulations, legislation, treaties, ordinances and socially shared rules, and informal rules: norms, practices, taboos, habits, heuristics, for how rules are applied and interpreted” [30,31] within decision contexts. Rules—for example, legislation or institutional procedures—either enable or restrict decisions.

Knowledge is here defined as a “mix of evidence-based (scientific and technical) knowledge and experiential, understandings, meanings-based knowledge that forms part of constructed knowledge systems in the decision-making process”. Knowledge supports the identification, evaluation, and comparison of options/solutions within decision contexts [30,31].

For the two case studies, we extracted data on how the range of actors experienced community engagement in managing urban waterways, i.e.:

• Which Values either enable or hinder the implementation of CCUWM?
• What Rules either enable or hinder the implementation of CCUWM?
• What Knowledge systems shape the implementation of CCUWM?

2.1.2. The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Tool

To evaluate the level of participation in the two cases, we used the well-established International Association for Public Participation—IAP2 [44]—tool (see Section 4.1).

This scale has been used in many disciplines, including urban planning, environmental governance, and urban waterways governance [48,49]. Similarly, it has been used to describe the ways that stakeholders participate in different forms of engagement [49,50,51].

Here, we used the IAP2 [44] tool to compare the level of community engagement for different types of governance and management activities. This assessment also allows for better articulation of the gap between intention and implementation.

2.2. Data Collection

In addition to the grey literature data, we conducted twenty-three interviews, covering three from state agencies, seven from local councils (government organisations), ten from community groups and individuals, and three from scientists (academics) (see Figure 1). In this process, we identified participants by mapping actors who were either directly or indirectly engaged with the governance of the urban waterways in each case study (see Tables S1 and S2). Interviews were conducted between May 2022 and December 2022 and lasted between 30 and 90 min.

We considered broader local level actors as the community, which is a “combination of civil society, including residents, citizen associations and groups, advocacy organisations, environmental associations, volunteers, social-ecological activists and non-profit non-government agencies; and industry, business and private sector actors, including waterfront developers, wastewater treatment companies, retail and tourism businesses” [27]. This categorisation helped us to formulate targeted interview questions.

Participant recruitment followed purposive and snowballing sampling procedures. First, we formally requested each organisation, i.e., organisations’ general email/inquiry, to appoint a few resource persons who best fit our requirements, i.e., selection criteria. The selection of interviewees was restricted to those who could provide expertise or experiences on creek management and/or community engagement, particularly those who participated in collaborative management actions at any governance level, i.e., regional or local. The selection was not limited to a specific number of interviewees; it was dictated by the availability of suitable participants, but we made sure to have at least one person from each organisation or community group. This selection process could generate organisational biases, such as appointed interviewees being those who manage projects and programs, or only representing senior positions; we had limited influence in choosing them. However, even with the limited influence, we could define our sample to represent diverse participants, e.g., urban planners, ecologists, policy planners, managers, secretaries of community groups, and individual members of community groups.

We conducted two pilot interviews with agencies and community groups, which helped us refine the interview questions.

In the interviews, we asked participants about their experiences and perceptions of the process: how they collaborated, what they perceived to hinder or enable effective collaboration, and possible changes that should be considered for more effective and sustained CCUWM. For example, the questions we asked government agency representatives included:

• What different views, experiences, and connections were brought by the community from these programs? (Values);
• What legislation and policies, if any, have influenced, enabled, or hindered the practice of community engagement in urban waterways management? (Rules);
• What conflicts and synergies occurred in integrating local knowledge with technical/scientific knowledge in defining final decisions? (Knowledge).

The interviews were conducted online and in person with formal consent. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and stored in the University OneDrive as a requirement of ethics approval. Further, we exported all the raw data, i.e., transcripts, into NVivo, i.e., the data analysis software we used to analyse the data.

2.3. Data Analysis

Interview data were analysed using NVivo, a software program for analysing qualitative data. All interview data were coded through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding [33,52,53] through the lens of the VRK framework, answering the research questions.

In the analysis, we created initial codes to identify intentions, implementation, and factors affecting community engagement. The initial codes were separated into discrete parts, e.g., themes associated with factors often mentioned in the data. This coding allowed us to identify the patterns and characteristics that emerged from the data unique to each factor. This helped us understand each factor and theme more clearly and concisely.

In the analysis, we used the grey literature data and interview data to analyse the intention–implementation gap and used interview data to derive factors. Specifically, to provide a scale of engagement levels and to confirm or reject the intention–implementation gap, we ranked each action according to the level of participation by using the IAP2 tool [44].

Findings were grouped into two parts to address the research questions: evidence of the intention and/or implementation of CCUWM and factors that restrict or support effective CCUWM in practice. Finally, we discuss the main findings by examining the interconnections between Values–Rules–Knowledge. For example, we discussed how Rules and Knowledge impact Values; how Values and Rules constrain the use of Knowledge.

Here, personal/disciplinary/contextual biases (from interviewees and/or researchers) could affect the findings and analysis. For example, we considered experiences such as frustrations and biases, described as having strong connections with findings. Moreover, there can be confirmation biases that may influence coding because of the choice of coding and final (potentially subjective) categorisation by researchers.

3. Context of the Case Studies

3.1. Case 1: Moonee Ponds Creek Catchment Management

The Moonee Ponds Creek (MPC) is part of the Maribyrnong catchment, crossing the Melbourne metropolitan region (see Figure 2). It is a natural waterway comprising a river, wetlands, and floodplain characteristics, stretching approximately 25 kilometres from the northern fringe of Melbourne’s urban growth area to Melbourne’s inner city, where it merges with the Yarra River at the Melbourne Docklands. The creek drains an area of approximately 145 square kilometres [11]. The lower Moonee Ponds Creek catchment is located in one of Melbourne’s most urbanised areas [11]. MPC mainly comprises a mix of commercial and residential land use in the lower part, while the upper part has more rural land uses.

Until the end of the 1980s, MPC deteriorated significantly and was used as an industrial drain and transport corridor [54]. In 1989, the Moonee Ponds Creek Association (now the Friends of the Moonee Ponds Creek) was formulated by the local communities to raise their voices against the adverse impacts of urbanisation and infrastructure development [55]. After 2018, Moonee Ponds Creek has been managed by “The Chain of Ponds”, a collaborative group including major community groups [14,56] (see Supplementary Material Table S1).

The diverse actors that collaborate in the Chain of Ponds group have a common goal: “to transform the Moonee Ponds Creek into an iconic Melbourne waterway that provides high social, cultural and environmental benefits” [55]. Although every organisation contributes to achieving this common goal, individual organisations provide a cohesive contribution according to their legislative and institutional or social capacities.

3.2. Case 2: Merri Creek Catchment Management

The Merri Creek (MC) is located in the Yarra catchment crossing the Melbourne metropolitan region, Australia (see Figure 2). It is a natural waterway comprising a river, wetlands, and a floodplain, stretching approximately 60 km from the northern fringe of the State of Victoria to Melbourne’s inner city, merging with the Yarra River in inner-city Melbourne. Before this, it also flows through dense industrial areas. The MC catchment is spread around an area of approximately 390 km² [57]. Almost half of the MC catchment is rural (upper catchment), and the lower catchment has urban land uses. Further, the lower catchment comprises a mix of commercial, residential, and industrial land uses.

In the 1970s, local residents demanded the restoration of the ecological health of the creek to provide more aesthetic and recreational values while enhancing the water quality and biodiversity [19]. As a result, the Merri Creek Management Committee was formulated in 1989. Currently, the Merri Creek Management Committee includes eight partnering organisations, and stakeholders, including a few community groups [57] (see Supplementary Material Table S2).

4. Findings

4.1. Expectations and Practices of Community Engagement in Urban Waterways Management

Here, we provide evidence from interviews and the grey literature to understand what type of community involvement in the governance and/or management of urban waterways was being sought and what type of community involvement was achieved.

Table 1. Outline of the purposes, intentions of engagement, and engagement in practice across the two case studies.

Purpose	(In)	(Im)	Example of Community Practice
Collect and share knowledge and ideas
Elicit contextual expertise and knowledge	➍➃	➌➃	“We have the knowledge, which institutions don’t. We have been involved with Merri Creek for 20–25 years. We have historical data, which they do not have” (Community leader, MC).
Identify unknown issues and needs	➍➃	➍➃	“Community involved in areas like identifying issues, opportunities, processes need to be changed, projects need to be actioning […] they help in identifying and prioritising these [inputs] […] it is a more consultation level of engagement.” (local government areas (LGA) officer, MPC).
Source feedback on proposed outcomes	➍➂	➍➂	“I can’t say much about our involvement in decisions, Merri Creek Management Committee noted our feedback, but still, I have not seen anything on the ground” (Community leader, MC).
Get support in hands-on activities
Restoration activities	➍➃	➍➄	“We are undertaking different spots of creek maintenance as a core part of the Friends’ work” (Member, Friends of MC).
Litter management	➍➃	➍➄	“Community engage in working groups to tackle each issue, e.g., litter management working group: activities like identifying source points of litter/waste, and gaps in litter management” (LGA officer, MPC).
Decision Making
Involvement in the development of common visions and targets	➍➃	➌➂	“In the first stage [of the 2018 program], we had open discussions with all the stakeholders including community, government agencies on what could be the final vision for western waterways management in future” (Regional urban waterways manager).
Involvement in the development of a master plan and strategy	➍➃	➋➁	“We collaborate in different groups, and each group have a topic. My one was safety. We finalised 3 or 4 points. It was a very low level of participation” (Community leader, MC).
Make final decisions/outcomes	➍➃	➋➁	“Involved in planning applications and approvals, strategic planning or precinct planning and design activities by providing our concerns, issues and solutions” (Community Leader, MC).
To develop solutions	➍➃	➋➂	“They liked to have native birds coming back. So, we discuss and plan how to achieve that” (LGA officer, MC).
Provide consent for land developments	➎➄	➍➃	“Merri Creek Management Committee was engaged in providing consents on land use approvals which impact on social, ecological values, and benefits, which are quite significant. e.g., multi-story housing project along narrowed creek open space” (Community Leader, MC).
Involvement in policy development	➍➃	➋➃	“The community were involved many times in developing and revising Merri Creek environment strategy development” (Community leader from MC).
Social change
Engagement in education and awareness actions	➍➃	➍➄	“Culturally and linguistically diverse community groups bringing them down to the Creek to have a walk and talk, […], bring school kids with their parents for different awareness programs makes it easy to tackle these limitations” (Community leader, MC).
To build relationships	➍➃	➋➂	“Having sustainable relationships with community groups and government agencies is key to fostering continuous collaboration. And investing in maintaining those relationships is important, which is lack” (Community Leader, MPC).
Change attitude/behaviour	➎➃	➋➁	“Most Kensington residents do not consider the creek to be as important as other things. Most people who are buying these properties are not living [dwelling] here, so they do not care or know about the significance of the creek” (LGA officer, MC).
Other
Monitoring	➎➄	➍➃	“The community is actively involved in the monitoring stage.” (Researcher). “Merri Creek Management Committee and Friends of Merri Creek Catchment Management are involved in monitoring water quality, bird counts, and more” (LGA officer, MC).

Note: (In) = intentions; (Im) = implementation. Level of engagement: 1 = Inform; 2 = Consult; 3 = Involve; 4 = Collaborate; 5 = Empower. Circles that are black with white text, i.e., ➎, refer to the MPC. Circles that are white with black text, i.e., ➄ refer to the MC.

demonstrates a comparative analysis to help our understanding of the intention and implementation gap that is discussed here.

4.1.1. What Were the Expectations of Engaging the Community?

Here, we report on the findings from interviews and the grey literature about how actors (governments, researchers and communities) ideally would like the community to engage in the governance and management of urban waterways in the two case studies.

Firstly, there was a widespread intention from institutional actors to involve community groups either collaboratively or as empowered actors in urban waterways management and governance for a number of purposes, including for data collection, inputs into decision-making, support for maintenance work, as a requirement of law, and for social change.

Further, before the participatory process (the Healthy Waterways Strategy) was introduced in 2018, interviews and the grey literature [14] indicate that:

• In the MPC catchment, communities generally engaged at a lower level of participation, which comprise the inform or consult modes of engagement as per the IAP2 [44].
• In the MC catchment, communities engaged more actively (consult or involve) in management and governance activities.

For the purpose of drawing on the community’s knowledge, it was found that the greatest gap between intention and implementation related to bringing contextual knowledge to decision contexts. There was a negligible gap in terms of obtaining support for hands-on activities or monitoring the condition of the waterways. There was a relatively limited role of the community in decision-making, except in the area of developing visions and targets. The community was also under-utilised in terms of the potential for enabling social change, except for their relatively strong role in education and raising awareness.

The high-level pattern is that for most (about two-thirds) of the purposes described in Table 1, there was a gap between the intention to engage the community in either a collaborative or empowering mode and the implementation in practice.

4.1.2. How Did the Community Engage?

Based on interview data, we estimated the mode of participation of the community within governance and management activities (see column 1 in Table 1) in the two case studies. This information is shown in a combined manner for both cases.

According to this data, the community successfully engaged in hands-on and monitoring activities and fulfilled expectations in this domain, which ranges from collaborative to empowered (as per the IAP2 framework [44]). The data show that community participants were generally empowered to make independent decisions or innovate solutions when it comes to hands-on activities based on a bottom-up engagement approach rather than waiting for governments to organise or collaborate themselves in these activities.

In the area of decision-making, perhaps as can be expected, this was not replicated, but the community was primarily involved more collaboratively in the development of common visions and targets. There was also the intention to give the community a greater role in other types of decision-making, but this aim was not achieved.

In the area of promoting social change, the community was quite closely involved with education and awareness actions but not so much in terms of building networks or behavioural changes. This was despite a stated intention to get the community more closely involved with those types of activities also.

4.2. Factors That Impact the Chances of Achieving Effective Community Participation

Here, we report on the factors and characteristics derived from interview data that have influenced, enabled, or hindered the practice of community engagement in urban waterways management and governance across the two case studies. Specifically, we report on factors and key themes relating to each factor, derived based on data coding that is common (see

Table 2. Common factors and characteristics derived from both cases that impact effective community engagement.

Themes/Factors	Characteristics	Examples
Theme 1: Bureaucratic, top-down governance systems
Power imbalances	Institutional actors decide how, when, and for what purposes community members can be involved. The final say in decisions is based on managers, executives, political leaders, or councillors’ inputs. Traditional economic issues are given priority over ecological or community benefits.	“We had many consultation discussions, but after all, they prioritised the actions based on voting. Voting is power. Voting is not collaboration” (Community member, MPC). “We involve community whenever we need their input. […] The audience is pre-determined by the council and we keep updating them as an evolving process. […] We do engage more with some communities because they have more interest and more with new groups to keep them inboard and engaged in many activities” (LGA officer, MC).
Technocratic dominance	Disciplinary biases and silos influence how communities’ inputs are integrated into decision-making. Knowledge of practitioners and academics tends to be prioritised over local-contextual and community knowledge. The use of technical tools that restrict the integration and accounting for context-specific knowledge, values, and norms.	“Beveridge North West Precinct Structure Plan preparation, at first, they prepared the plan without visiting the site. […] Most of the decision-makers rely on secondary data and work on maps rather than on the ground, which is one of a biggest problem in managing urban waterways” (Community leader, MC).
Theme 2: Challenge of practising inclusive community engagement
Challenge of representing the full diversity of the community	Failure to recognise the full spectrum of social–economic issues and benefits amongst diverse communities.	“There is less interest [not engaged effectively] in some community groups related to these restoration and conservation actions, e.g., golf courses, sporting groups, racecourse, Melbourne Airport, and large industrial users. [..] because their relationships in urban waterways management are not to their benefit or objectives, and how well they can be collaborated with or benefited from the creek. […] So, there is a need to work on bringing them on board and how they could participate in the system, although they do not get direct benefits from their angle” (LGA officer MPC)
Challenges of complexity	Difficulties in keeping up with and engaging with a socio-technical system with many interacting and moving parts.	“They need to really look into bigger context, they need to look into all the plans produced, they need to look at the community impacts and come to the ground” (Community member, MPC).
Theme 3: Inadequate resource mobilisation
Inadequacy in community knowledge and capabilities	Lack of (community members’) technical knowledge and understanding of broader contexts of issues, causes, and solutions.	“We’re not educating the Community enough in the first place. Some are passionate, but often they may be passionate about just certain areas or have a certain knowledge space” (LGA officer, MC).
Not enough skilled staff to facilitate broader community engagement	Not enough skilled professionals are available and paid for to facilitate broader community engagement. Staff sometimes do not have the skills and capabilities to facilitate the process adequately.	“We have staff shortage in biodiversity, community engagement and urban waterways management. […] There is no designated waterway manager for Merri Creek, like Melbourne Water act as a manager for other waterways. There is no one organisation with legislative powers to manage the Merri Creek, a number of organisations working together through Moonee Ponds Creek, but they do not have legislative power, and very fragile in terms of their governing body and its works continue. […] I am juggling business as usual work” L(GA officer, MC).
Inadequate financial resource allocation	There were not enough funds for waterways management. Risks and possible benefits are not reflected in the collaborative funding mechanisms but are based on the limited financial capabilities of local government or water management agencies.	“Funding does not reflect the importance of collaboration compared with revenue generated in organisations. Some organisations can financially contribute more than others, e.g., Melbourne Water” (LGA officer MPC).
Theme 4: Ad hoc governance structures
Limited dialogue between diverse actor groups.	Not enough informal networking between diverse groups, i.e., cross-cultural, cross-interest, and cross-geographic groups.	“Networks and [personal] connections allow ground level actors to share their concerns and inputs about anything with local agencies. Community voice, power and agency are at the local level rather than at state or national level” (Regional urban waterways manager).

) or unique to each case study (see

Table 3. Factors and characteristics derived exclusively from the Moonee Ponds Creek case study.

Themes/Factors	Characteristics	Examples
Theme 1: Uncertain political support
Instability of political context	Change of political support.	“Councillors change every 4 years, and the support we get can be stopped because a new councillor does not have the same interest [in the ecological significance of the creek]” (Community leader, MPC).
Top-down political objectives promoted through funding	State government interference, e.g., in funding, prioritisation of issues.	“Interference from [political] level for problem definitions, […] projects prioritisation, funding and facilitating community consultations” (Regional policy officer).
Theme 2: Challenge of practising inclusive community engagement
Long-term and inclusive collaboration is practically challenging	Inequitable weighting of inputs into final decisions. Not enough community-led methods that are used in practice. Not enough fit-for-purpose approaches available for engagement tasks. “One size fit for all” approaches tend to reduce the capacity of empowered communities to engage.	“It was difficult to ensure that every stakeholder felt that they were on equal footing […] We need different tools/methods for different community groups, [plurality in methods], and use the right tools/methods with the right groups. […] We really need community driven approaches to understand their senses and emotions attached to waterways in deciding what and how they experience and connect to the place we will create in future, beyond just providing solutions” (Regional urban waterways manager).
Theme 3: Inadequate resource mobilisation
Inadequacy in community knowledge and capabilities	Lack of community knowledge on significance of creeks. Lack of leadership roles in representing collaborative groups.	“We saw that whoever campaigns or is willing to take action in favour of creeks’ health, he or she will lose in the election. Because most of the residents in Kensington are not considering the creek [to be] as important as other things. Most of the people that buy properties here are not living here, so they do not care or know about the significance of this” (Community member MPC).
Ineffective financial resource allocation	Not enough financial resources to support the implementation of processes. Insufficient funds within councils for waterways management. Risk of financing administrative costs.	“Funding models need to change for more operational budgets and priorities. Same as in our organisation Good capital budgets, but low operation budgets” (LGA officer, MPC)
Theme 4: Ad hoc governance structure
Unclear or ad hoc governance processes	No clear process to guide when and how to participate.	“Whenever the government agencies are organising some projects or programs we participate. there is not a set kind of program when to participate” (Community leader, MPC).
Slow administrative processes	Slow implementation. Slow/late engagement of the community. Slow resolution of emerging issues.	“Risk of slow organisational’ processes, institutional slowness in collaboration activities” (LGA officer, MPC).
Administrative burdens	Inappropriate voting mechanisms when making choices. Rigid or not cohesive organisational boundaries. Important decisions made with ineffective/non-transparent institutional legislations or policies to account for urban waterways.	“Risk of taking decisions beyond institutional/organisational legal boundaries. that could may have to be revised or reversed. This means that the decision/s may take longer time to make it happen” (Regional urban waterways manager). “Often, I found, the zoning is secretive, it is very hard to see and know. The development activities take place without the community or even councils knowing. This is a big mistake that should be change urgently” (Community leader, MPC).

and

Table 4. Factors and characteristics derived exclusively from the Merri Creek case study.

Themes/Factors	Characteristics	Examples
Theme 1: Bureaucratic, traditional governance influences
Power imbalances	Institutional power and egos push individual agendas rather than common ones. The community has less agency in defining the issues and developing final decisions. The community has not been enabled (legitimised) to act independently and make decisions or implement solutions.	“Community won’t’ engage in every step and level as we engaged in decision-making, because it is not practical” (LGA officer, MC). A local resident observed a fox eat black swans’ eggs continuously in Janefield Wetland, Bundoora, Melbourne […], and she realised it is because there are not enough long grass islands or places to securely lay their eggs. [..] so she investigated the need for floating wetlands. […] and the council funded with AUD$10,000. […] and she’s been advocating for other changes as well at the park” (LGA officer, MC).
Technocratic interferences or dominancy	Rigid technocratic thinking and knowledge biases. Final decisions are evaluated based on technical and bureaucratic tools and methods, with no transparency and accountability.	“Most planning authorities work on maps rather than on the ground, and they normally don’t talk to each other” (Community leader, MC). “Irrelevant and relevant community inputs have been identified through extensive process, like cost-benefit analysis [...] There is no transparent method or framework to evaluate every option unless going through the bureaucratic process” (LGA officer, MC).
Theme 2: Challenge of practising inclusive community engagement
Challenge of achieving a wide representation of community	The number of participants as a proportion of total local residents is very low. Limited interactions with geographically and linguistically marginalised and less interested community groups. Ad hoc ways/methods of reaching different communities.	“We do not represent large or considerable amount of people is a big question in representing all the community needs and perceptions, inclusion and reciprocity in engaging decisions” (Community leader, MC). “Elder members of the community are mostly involved and there is less engagement of the younger communities as they are not happy with conventional methods like meetings, workshops, so there should be more future-oriented and inclusive methods used” (Community leader MC).
Theme 3: Inadequate resource mobilisation
Political advocacy in connecting political will	Strong success in political advocacy to achieve politicians’ will and interest in waterways.	“We had a strong success in political advocacy to get politicians’ will and interest in waterways protection from development activities and restoration” (Community leader, MC).
Not enough financial resources	Risk of short-termism rather than long-term financial allocations. The cost of volunteering was not adequately valued or accounted for. The availability of funds determines what can be implemented.	“I don’t have extra time, capacity to engage with more activities. Community engagement isn’t costly to them, that’s because labour is free, but it involves costs that is not considered” (Community leader, MC). “Community propose diverse things to be done. We do consider whatever could be handled by us. Their requirements need more funding, and resource allocation. […] Ultimately, my decisions rely on my budget. I’d like to do a lot more than I can, but I’ve got a budget that I have to work with” (LGA officer, MC).
Insufficient community behaviour change	Need fit-for-purpose improvements in empowering community and providing a sense of ownership and belonging.	“We need education, more frequent community engagement and an increase in the sense of ownership and sense of power in taking care of their local environment” (Resident, MC).
Collaborations are time-consuming	Fostering collaboration takes time.	“It’s all about resourcing. It is a time thing and it is quite time-consuming” (LGA officer, MC).
Theme 4: Ad hoc governance structure
Ad hoc governance arrangements	Absence of local-level collaborative decision-making body (form or association), e.g., citizens’ jury.	“They (the subgroups) sometimes involve the councils as well. They are not directly involved in decision-making or represent the Merri Creek Management Committee. The strategic plan creates some kind of cohesion among those subgroups in representing the final decisions on creek restoration” (Resident, MC).
Unclear or ad hoc governance processes	Absence of clear goals and roles for each actor group. No statutory binding in complementing roles and responsibilities. Absence of clear and transparent procedure to guide community engagement.	“Sometimes the level of work that the community do is a little bit beyond their level of expertise, e.g., weed control that they can’t do. 11. There is no transparent method or framework to evaluate every option unless going through the bureaucratic process” (LGA officer, MC).

).

4.2.1. Common Factors Derived from Both Case Studies

By coding and categorising the interview data into themes, we identified eight common factors in both case studies, as shown in Table 2.

Key factors that limited the effective CCUWM included: power imbalances; challenges of representing the full diversity of the community; inadequacy in community knowledge and capabilities; inadequate financial resource allocation; and finally, limited dialogue between diverse actor groups. These are all closely linked to power imbalances, impacting adequate resource allocation, and limiting the capacity for practising inclusive community engagement. Underneath, these factors are also common threads, such as the different organisational, personal, or disciplinary biases that shape implementation. When combined with legislative rules about who has a right to make decisions, such biases mean that community participation can become problematic and/or disingenuous. It is also worth noting that the factors associated with Theme 2 (Challenges of practising inclusive community engagement) were not as strongly expressed as the factors in Themes 1 and 3.

4.2.2. Expression of Factors for Case Study 1: Moonee Ponds Creek

Within each case, there were some unique dynamics and factors identified. Specifically, for the MPC, the interview informants highlighted the power imbalances more strongly and sometimes lacked political support.

For Theme 1, informants reported that uncertainty in political support, combined with inconsistent national or regional policies on managing urban waterways, impacted the community’s agency in managing the waterways. Further, the informants highlighted that what they perceived as state government interference in prioritising projects, issues, and funding could have the impact of a more formalised decision-making process, thereby undermining the community’s opportunity to collaborate.

For Theme 2, informants highlighted the challenge of achieving inclusivity in engagement, primarily characterised by a lack of equitable inputs into final decisions; a lack of diverse fit-for-purpose approaches, i.e., specific to the intentions of community engagement and waterways management; and a lack of community-sensitive mechanisms that would allow for broadening the inclusivity in governance.

For Theme 3, informants stressed the inadequate human and financial resources, especially the limitations in community knowledge and leadership, which were also highlighted as particular factors in this case study. Moreover, the disparities in financial allocations for planning, administrative, and implementation activities were noted.

Finally, for Theme 4, case study 2 informants stressed that the ad hoc governance processes and structure drastically impact the enablement of effective community engagement, as expected. For example, there are no clear processes as to when and how to participate, and administrative burdens such as inappropriate and non-transparent voting systems used to choose final decisions impact frustrations and are ineffective in practising meaningful community engagement.

4.2.3. Factors Unique to Case Study 2: Merri Creek

In the MC case study, we found certain factors that relate to power disparities, which are organisational egos and power pushing their agendas in prioritising projects and decisions, and the community has no legislative powers to act independently or to be represented directly in final decisions.

Compared to the MPC case study, the challenge of practising inclusivity was not given much attention. Here, instead, the “challenge of achieving a broader spectrum of community inclusion” was a key aspect reported by informants. Further, there was a stronger focus on the limited interactions with geographically and linguistically marginalised and (perhaps) less interested community groups and the relatively ad hoc/ineffective ways of reaching out to such communities.

Inadequate human and financial resource mobilisation was a key topic noted strongly by informants in this case study. Relating to this factor, we found that the capacity of communities in political advocacy help to attract political will and sustain broader actions effectively and efficiently, which is an enabling factor derived from the data.

Moreover, informants commented on the ineffective financial allocations due to what they perceived as the tendency to allocate money for short-term needs rather than long-term plans. It was noted that this may have contributed to not adequately accounting for the cost of volunteering, which was an issue highlighted in the data.

Further, participants in this case study highlighted the administrative instability in resource mobilisation, in terms of continuous and steady job appointments and ongoing rotations of leaders or champions.

Significantly, in this case study, informants highlighted the absence of a local-level collaborative decision-making body, such as a citizens’ jury, and the unclear and legitimised roles and responsibilities of the community strongly impact the capacity to sustain or align to expectations.

5. Discussion

From the case study data, we analysed the factors that shape community involvement in governance and/or management actions. Here, we discuss how these factors shape community engagement, i.e., enable or hinder, based on Values–Knowledge–Rules interactions.

5.1. There Is a Gap between Intention and Implementation

In both case studies, institutional decision-makers decided to implement a collaborative governance approach integrating the community as a co-partner in management actions, which is imposed through the Healthy Waterways policy that was initiated by the local State Government [11]. From this Healthy Waterways Strategy, policymakers and bureaucrats decided to involve the community more collaboratively, with a set of expectations or targets to enhance the capacity of the decision-making context [11,14,58] (see Findings).

Our findings revealed that although the expectations, i.e., intentions, have been recognised because of a series of interacting institutional, legal, legislative, social, and personal factors, community engagement in practice is, unfortunately, still limited in both case studies. Specifically, the findings revealed that the community was less engaged in decision-making and social change management actions.

5.2. Resolving Power Dynamics

In both case studies, there was an expression of power imbalances between community actors and institutional actors. This is not unusual in environmental governance [59,60], with strategies to deal with the issue ranging from institutional design, training, and capacity building to facilitative leadership [59]. There is also extensive research on how to design polycentric governance for environmental systems that has relevant insights into this problem [61,62,63].

Here, collaborative arrangements are embedded with a principle of sharing management powers and responsibilities between the government and other partners or stakeholders [64,65]. Implementing such principles (Rules) requires time and resources to allow it to evolve as expected [64]. Both case studies provide evidence that the current systems are evolving, albeit also highly affected by power disparities and technocratic influences in making decisions. For example, the decisions are still made and prioritised by bureaucrats or organisations with higher degrees of power and interest. However, in the case of the MPC, there are claims that this has also been influenced by political interference that, if this is the case, would impact the independence of decision-making.

Similarly, the current catchment-scale governance arrangements have not successfully achieved a participatory mode of governance with the community to the extent that they had hoped. In the case of MC, we found evidence stressing the issue of losing community agency in final decisions. Although formal rules such as the Healthy Waterways strategy and Local Government Act 2020 [66] provide the policy background to enable effective community engagement, these power asymmetries likely undermine the trust, and therefore the effectiveness, of co-management [67].

We suggest an urgent need to innovate a systemic mechanism collaboratively to realign community power and agency in decision-making. The current practices need to evolve beyond using community engagement as a “buzzword” or a “motivational” factor to obtain community input and knowledge as hidden agendas of governments.

5.3. Participation for a Purpose and with Agency

There is a need for clear and comprehensive reform that outlines and resources the community’s roles and responsibilities with a clear and transparent purpose, i.e., intention to implement. This also involves being more selective in exactly what types of activity to involve the community in because there are legislative, practical, and knowledge barriers that limit their inclusive and effective participation in some activities. These hurdles can be overcome by using the appropriate participatory/co-design methods but would require more considerable cost and expense than is currently available.

To achieve this, current rules need to be changed, i.e., legislation to enact sharing powers in managing urban waterways that are fit for purpose. For example, in the MC case study, “The Yarra River Protection Act 2017” [3] was implemented in order to integrate and share agency in decision-making partnering with the traditional owners of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of this land and water, which is a positive move towards effective collaboration in this case.

Without action, there is a sense that this could lead to “community-washing” becoming the next “green-washing”, which will lead to wasting time and other resources invested in managing urban waterways. Further, this could lead to frustrations, scepticism in community contribution, and the collapse of the collaborative governance approach in practice.

5.4. Recognise the Limits of Knowledge and Resources

The practicality of effective community participation largely depends on communities’ and experts’ knowledge and other capacities such as funds and budgets [68,69]. Diverse knowledge, including community knowledge systems, is a key but currently under-valued element when innovating adaptive solutions to complex issues in the long term [70].

We found that some community segments are already trying to overcome these challenges, such as friend groups and nature conservation groups. However, other community segments are largely unaware or not connected effectively to CCUWM, mainly due to the absence of focus on broader inclusivity or a failure to define the roles and responsibilities of these communities in management actions.

In addition, the conflicts, such as broad thinking vs specificity and technicality vs practicality, were the common issues of synthesising communities’ and bureaucrats’ knowledge in practice. As discussed above, institutional and personal power differences and bureaucratic and technocratic factors make this issue worse. In most cases, the community was frustrated, as their inputs, perceptions, ideas, or knowledge were not reflected in key decisions.

5.5. Resolve the Funding Model

Further, the evidence shows that the current funding model or system is insufficient or ineffective in implementing broader community engagement. Simply put, funding capability is the key enabler for practising effective and inclusive community engagement [71]. However, participants of both cases stressed that the risk of uncertainty, timing, and disruptions in government funding systems made it challenging to implement comprehensive long-term partnerships and programs essential for effective community engagement.

Thus, we suggest reforming institutional settings to align with clear purposes to empower the community in managing urban waterways and enhancing more durable and flexible resource mobilisation. For example, such reforms need to legally empower collaborative bodies such as the Chain of Ponds in terms of their collaborative decision-making power (Rules) and skills and expertise in management actions (Knowledge), as well as clear roles and responsibilities (Values) to be sustainable as an independent body under the collaborative umbrella. Further, the governance arrangements should innovate new funding sources independently to increase their adaptability in the long term. Thus, such institutional and legislative changes have the potential to minimise the bureaucratic and technocratic impediments limiting effective collaborations and could lead to broader collective actions.

5.6. Embrace More Engaging Approaches and Informality

Finally, the analysis revealed that the community collaboration methods practised usually represented formal methods, especially for collecting information from the community, such as surveys, workshops, and meetings. Those methods represent a lower level of participation, i.e., being either the Involve or Consultative levels of engagement that fails to include wider community groups adequately. Such methods tend to be used when institutional preferences and priorities (Rules) dictate what governing agencies think the solution should be. For example, professionals select methods based on technical evaluation (community engagement tools) but do not adequately consider questions about why the community should engage (Values) and what ways can broaden the inclusivity and are convenient for diverse community groups (Knowledge). Further, the findings revealed that the inconsistency and narrowed focus in innovating community collaboration methods restrict the inclusivity and community agency in decision-making. For example, communities such as businesses communities and culturally and linguistically diverse communities tend to ignore or less consider active engagement in many management actions.

In order to achieve broader governance principles, such as inclusivity, fairness, and capability, there is a critical need to innovate effective and inclusive community collaboration methodologies [72], i.e., fit for purpose as well as fit for community. Here, we mean fit for purpose in two forms, which are clear and value-based [73] objectives or purposes of managing urban waterways and clear roles and responsibilities of the community to engage with management actions. We see that both of these essentials are still unclear and not legitimised to innovate the mix of methodologies needed. These methods speak to broader communities and help broaden their responsibilities concerning lifestyle actions and a sense of ownership of urban waterways. Further, the methodologies like fit-for-community methods, i.e., methods that help to generate open and reciprocal decision-making, enhance community interest, knowledge, leadership, responsibility, and ownership in managing urban waterways. However, such methods have not been successfully innovated and formally integrated into the decision-making process or institutionalised.

6. Research Limitations

From a collaborative perspective, the main limitation of this research is a lack of interviews with wider community groups, including Indigenous communities, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This was due to the inaccessibility of such communities due to the absence of stakeholder details in the projects.

Further, the two cases illustrate and represent collaborative community practices, institutional capabilities and processes, and social relations in their respective unique social–ecological settings. Thus, the findings of this study may not be universally generalised to whole waterways governance arrangements or different social–ecological systems. However, the outcomes of this research give a comprehensive understanding of the intention–implementation gap and factors that impact sustaining and limiting effective CCUWM.

Moreover, the research questions could be further investigated using multiple methods, such as surveys and ethnographic methods. Due to the nature of this study context, it could be further investigated by applying diverse methods to further triangulate and strengthen the findings and evidence to have a more comprehensive understanding.

7. Conclusions

The novelty of the collaborative approach introduced in the two case studies has promoted benefits, including providing a common platform to collaborate with diverse actors, including the community. However, we observed many difficulties that could reduce its effectiveness or limit the capacity to sustain this approach in the long term. Further, the evidence supports that the implementation of community participation processes does not sufficiently align with the decision-makers’ expectations about how the community should ideally be engaging in managing urban waterways and with the common purpose of a Healthy Waterways vision.

The findings suggest the need to resolve power differences between community and government actors while fostering community agency in decision-making. Before resolving power imbalances, we see that it is necessary for clear and comprehensive reform that outlines and resources the community’s roles and responsibilities with a clear and transparent purpose, i.e., intention to implement. This step helps to define the clear purpose of CCUWM.

Consequently, the analysis revealed that establishing a clear purpose and defining the roles and responsibilities of the community help realign the decision-making context as intended. Further, these prerequisites could resolve issues such as community washing, free labour, and financial constraints. For example, the actors can efficiently and efficiently mobilise their human, social, and financial resources with a clear purpose. On top of resolving them, such limitations can be used as enablers to foster effective and meaningful CCUWM. Finally, in order to achieve broader governance principles, such as inclusivity, fairness, and capability, there is a critical need to adopt more effective and inclusive community collaboration methodologies, i.e., fit for purpose as well as fit for community.

These methods need to speak to broader and more diverse communities and to help broaden their responsibilities concerning lifestyle actions and a sense of ownership of urban waterways—help to generate open and reciprocal decision-making, enhancing community interest, knowledge, leadership, and responsibility in managing urban waterways in the long term.

Finally, drawing on the data, we synthesised and discuss five key guiding points that should be adopted for increasing the effectiveness of community participation in CCUWM: (1) resolve power dynamics, (2) only involve the community for a clear purpose and when they have agency, (3) recognise the limits of knowledge and resources, (4) resolve the funding model, and (5) embrace more engaging approaches.