摘要：Broad-scale, multi-governance level, participatory water management processes intended toaid collective decision making and learning are rarely initiated, designed, implemented, and managed byone person. These processes mostly emerge from some form of collective planning and organizationactivities because of the stakes, time, and budgets involved in their implementation. Despite the potentialimportance of these collective processes for managing complex water-related social–ecological systems,little research focusing on the project teams that design and organize participatory water managementprocesses has ever been undertaken. We have begun to fill this gap by introducing and outlining the conceptof a co-engineering process and examining how it impacts the processes and outcomes of participatorywater management. We used a hybrid form of intervention research in two broad-scale, multi-governancelevel, participatory water management processes in Australia and Bulgaria to build insights into these co-engineering processes. We examined how divergent objectives and conflict in the project teams werenegotiated, and the impacts of this co-engineering on the participatory water management processes. Theseinvestigations showed: (1) that language barriers may aid, rather than hinder, the process of stakeholderappropriation, collective learning and skills transferal related to the design and implementation ofparticipatory water management processes; and (2) that diversity in co-engineering groups, if managedpositively through collaborative work and integrative negotiations, can present opportunities and not justchallenges for achieving a range of desired outcomes for participatory water management processes. Anumber of areas for future research on co-engineering participatory water management processes are alsohighlighted.
