Transboundary Policy Challenges in the Pacific Border Regions of North America

Emma Spenner Norman and Jean O. Melious

This study investigates the ability of organizations, at different geopolitical scales, to reduce pollution inputs across a political border. Based on a study of the Abbotsford-Sumas aquifer, the nature of shared resource management problems within two divergent cultural regions are investigated in western Washington and southern British Columbia, bisected by the Canada-U.S. border. Coordinated management of a number of organizations is quantified through the development of an index system that ranks the groups according to their “institutional capacity.” Groups with the least geographic representation such as the Abbotsford Sumas Stakeholder Group and the Industry Stewardship Group had the greatest ability to reduce pollution. The groups’ success relied on their ability to receive political

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