Regional Environmental Governance and Social Capital: A Case Study of Mangyeong River Communities*

With a growing concern over the quality of water running downward into the Saemangeum area, the public-private-academic partnership for water quality management called "Jeollabuk-do River Restoration Association" was inaugurated in 2011 at the municipal level. On account of the fact that the water quality control as common pool resource faces a social dilemma, non-point source pollution requires cooperation particularly among river community residents supported by the public-private-academic partnership. Drawing upon a survey of the residents of Wanju-gun, Iksan-si, and Gimje-si along the Mangyeong River, we find that, firstly, residents including farmers do not consider diffuse pollution from the agricultural riverbank to be serious. Secondly, the partnership's activities are not sufficiently familiar to residents. Thirdly, residents commonly tend to perceive the current form of regional environmental governance as a managerial model that is led by the local government. Fourthly, residents of Iksan-si and Gimje-si have significantly higher levels of social capital. Lastly, norms of cooperation can be explained by civic associations and regional identity, with more cooperation from Iksansi residents. Several implications of these findings are discussed.Keywords: Water Quality Control, Non-point Source Pollution, Social Dilemma, Regional Environmental Governance, Social Capital, Cooperative NormsIntroductionSince the biggest land reclamation project in the history of South Korea called Saemangeum Seawall was launched in 1989 as a national project for farmland construction, water demand estimation was the main subject of research during the 1990s. The issue of water quality was first raised in 1996, and thereafter, the central government of South Korea implemented various tasks informed by the "Water Quality Improvement Measures Phase 1" (2001-2010). Meanwhile, the government changed the fundamental design of the Saemangeum Seawall project in October 2008 to increase the share of land for non-agricultural purposes such as industry, tourism and leisure, international affairs, science, and research, with the proportion of agricultural land down to 30%. To this end, the government upwardly adjusted the overall level of water quality to grade 4 for the agricultural sector and grade 3 for the urban sector, according to the Comprehensive Development Plan passed in March 2011 by the 6th Saemangeum Committee. Highlighting the priority of the intensive maintenance of two rivers named Mangyeong and Dongjin in the upstream regions of the Saemangeum land, "Water Quality Improvement Measures Phase 2" (2011-2020) focuses mainly on how to effectively control pollution from livestock farms, point source pollution, and non-point source pollution. Pertinently, the government began to draw new attention to various diffuse sources of water pollution (e.g., by means of combined sewer overflow facilities and low impact development-based urban planning) in contrast to the earlier approach to water quality management which is disproportionately concerned about livestock wastes and point sources of pollution.The pro-growth regime in leollabuk-do, having consistently alleged that the future of leollabuk-do depends solely on the success of the Saemangeum project, took active steps in response to the idea that a regional agency is required for more collaborative governance of water quality improvement at the provincial level immediately after the central government announced the "Water Improvement Measures Phase 2." The leollabuk-do governor took the initiative in arranging the leollabuk-do River Restoration Association in March 2011, which is an enlarged version of the Public-Private-Academic Partnership for Eco-Friendly Mangyeong River (2002-2011). This new association presumes itself as the first case of a municipal-level public-private-academic partnership regarding river restoration since the launch of Koreas local self-governing system. …