The intention-implementation gap for community involvement in urban waterways governance: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Urban waterways as a subset of Nature-based solutions promote many functions, particularly in a warming climate by providing benefits for people and nature to adapt to critical social-ecological challenges. It has been widely suggested that a mechanism for unlocking those benefits is to promote active community involvement in governance. However, this practice is not widely adopted despite a common intention to do so. In this article, we review the evidence around such practices and why there is an intention-implementation gap. The review is based on analysis of 51 peer-reviewed scholarly works using a conceptual framework (Values, Rules, Knowledge) that has previously been applied to understand inertia in the adoption of climate adaptation practices. This framework provides an analytical lens to identify critical knowledge gaps by focusing firmly on factors that influence decision contexts. The review has revealed that whilst there are many academic papers outlining the hypothesised benefits of community involvement in urban waterways governance, there is much less detail about practices, risks, costs, or the lived experience of decision-makers. Nor is there much advice on the methods that can be used to implement the practice in a manner that effectively unlocks co-benefits. We argue that such evidence is urgently needed as it will allow the practice to be more widely adopted.


Introduction
This article concerns community involvement in urban waterways governance (CIUWG). Urban waterways are rivers, wetlands, streams, watersheds, estuaries and bays within the boundaries of cities (Tawfik et al. 2021;Melbourne Water 2018a;Hart, Francey, and Chesterfield 2021). They have ecological functions, including providing habitat for plants and animals, acting as natural water purification, water absorption, water retention to maintain resilience in extreme climate conditions, and other ecological services (see Table 1).
Many urban waterways have been degraded and engineered as infrastructure networks, losing their rich ecological characteristics (Brown, Keath, and Wong 2009;Hart, Francey, and Chesterfield 2021). It is expected that the form and functions of waterways have been reshaped to function as drainage systems and support stormwater management. This leads to very significant changes, which usually lead to degraded biodiversity and natural habitats (Jacqueline and Fiona 2013;management (Olazabal et al. 2021;Hart, Francey, and Chesterfield 2021;Jelks et al. 2020;Rijke et al. 2012), Further, multi-level stakeholders are seen as important contributors in the decision-making process, in the end it is institutional managers (e.g. Water Authorities) that make decisions (Cooper, Crase, and Maybery 2017;van den Brandeler et al. 2014). Research on social-ecological systems has revealed that active community involvement in decision-making and self-empowerment can produce co-designed adaptive solutions that foster flexibility in the decision context rather than following external authority-imposed rules and passive engagement (Green et al. 2013). More broadly, in relation to Nature-Based Solutions, of which urban waterways are a subset, Cohen-Shacham et al. (2019), European Commission (2016), Frantzeskaki and Kabisch (2016) have argued that local knowledge systems, i.e. place-based socio-culturally embedded, time-tested practices have considerable potential in supporting resilient and adaptive solutions.
Despite the widespread recognition of the benefits of involving community in governing urban waterways, evidence suggests the opportunities and challenges of effective community engagement are not yet sufficiently understood (Pluchinotta et al. 2021;Ramsey et al. 2019;Cooper, Crase, and Maybery 2017). The lack of progress is not surprising given that, in many cases globally, there is inertia in implementing actions that help to improve social-ecological resilience, and, in most cases, community-level assets, such as skills, knowledge and practices, have been omitted or not effectively integrated into decision making (Jelks et al. 2020;Shifflett et al. 2019). Fleeger and Becker (2008), Rijke et al. (2012) state that community involvement in decisions making or the adoption of community-designed options are not widely taken into consideration due to the imbalance in power distribution, path dependency, biased interests and perceptions of the validity of community knowledge. As such, to transform governance to start to incorporate community input to a greater extent, further understanding is required as to how community engagement is integrated and managed to produce adaptive or transformative decisions for resilient urban waterways systems.
This study aims to understand the decision context of collaborative interactions of actors in urban waterways governance, including community, exploring how effective community involvement can contribute to managing urban waterways and the constraints. We apply the Values, Rules, Knowledge Framework (Gorddard et al. 2016;Colloff, Gorddard, and Dunlop 2018) as an analytical lens to understand the decision context and role of local-level actors in the decision-making context. VRK framework helps to conceptualise the institutional, social, environmental and personal enablers and constraints in shaping decisions to enable effective community engagement (see Section 2.2 for more details). The three research questions that underpin the systematic review are: RQ1: What is the evidence of CIUWG in the literature? RQ2: What is known and not known from academic literature about the institutional, social, environmental and personal factors that shape the decision context of urban waterways governance?
RQ3: What is known in the literature about how CIUWG can enrich decision contexts and thereby help promote social-ecological resilience?
The following sections describe what we mean by community collaboration, then the research methods and results, which is followed by our discussion that concludes with the gap between intention and implementation of community collaboration in the decision-making process, and key insights and constraints of integrating community involvement, including misalignment in social-ecological values, and evidence of efficiency on community-inclusive place-based methods.

What is meant by effective community collaboration?
To provide clarity of terminology, in this study, we define the "community" as citizens, stakeholders or specific groups who have access to waterways, have a shared interest, and/or individuals or groups that have a genuine interest in waterways personally, culturally, legally, etc. (Aslin and Brown 2004;Doron et al. 2011;Angela et al. 2016). This includes civil society, industry, business and private sector actors. Put simply, the community are non-professionals who act at the grassroots level and are connected to the place by being, living with and engaging with waterways management. We define professionals as government, private sector experts and scientists who provide predominantly technical, scientific, and disciplinary knowledge and advice in urban waterways management.
Community collaboration in governance is a process of active and continuous commitments, fostering empowerment and sharing assets, i.e. skills, knowledge, labour and risks (Stringer et al. 2006). The spectrum of collaboration ranges from merely informing communities at one end of the spectrum to inclusion in decision-making with the agency or power at the other end (Biggs et al., 2012). At the most inclusive end of the spectrum, adaptive co-management is "an approach in which groups of actors intentionally use social learning in a dynamic, ongoing, self-organised process of co-learning" (Olsson, Folke, and Berkes 2004;Kattel et al. 2021).
Adaptive co-management has been suggested to improve the legitimacy of community engagement in decision-making and facilitate inclusive multi-level decision-making, i.e. including vertical and horizontal interaction between professionals and community actors (Daniell and Adrian 2017). Such approaches help with "connecting people and sense of place", "creating integrated urban systems" (Wong, Rogers, and Brown 2020, 443), and "building knowledge, networking and leadership" (Moglia, Alexander, andSharma 2011, 2334). Further, it enables the community to actively interact in the decision context with a sense of ownership and responsibility for delivering common outputs (Dillon et al. 2016;Dobbie, Brown, and Farrelly 2016).
Thus, in this study, we define effective community engagement as an active or passive engagement of the community with a clear common purpose, including feeding into decision-making, e.g. in design and planning, implementation, general management, evaluation, and/or collaboration, e.g. in implementation, research, management activities.

Research protocol
We adopt a systematic scoping review method (Arksey and O'Malley 2005;Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien 2010) that allows the framing of evidence on the research questions in a more descriptive and exploratory manner (Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien 2010) and to "identify gaps in the existing literature" (Arksey and O'Malley 2005, 21). The derived insights and knowledge gaps were identified, coded, and tabulated to produce key research findings and themes. This involves a five-step process adapted from Arksey and O'Malley (2005), which is detailed in Table 2. The steps in summary are: (1) Define research questions in relation to urban waterways governance research.
(2) Search publications that explore topics closely related to the research questions using keywords in Scopus. Searches were conducted in September 2021 and repeated in November 2021. a. Keywords covered urban waterways terminology, including waterways, governance, urban, Nature-based Solutions, stakeholders, Values-Rules-Knowledge (VRK) and decision context; see Table 2 for detailed keywords searched. b. The search was limited to English language literature and identified 316 documents, including 250 journal articles, 43 conference papers and 23 review articles. (3) Documents were screened through a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The screening process was conducted in two stages. The first screened 316 documents through reading titles and abstracts. At the first stage, there were 87 articles included. The second screening involved full-text reading in finalising the best articles for synthesising. Finally, 51 documents were included for synthesis. (4) 51 articles were transferred, themed and coded in NVivo. Documents were fully reviewed through the lens of VRK-Framework and in urban waterways, collaborative governance perspective. The VRK-Framework used to conceptualise the decision-making process and understand effective community engagement through factors that enable or hinder community engagement aligns with Values, Rules and Knowledge defined by the framework (see Section 2.2. Conceptual framework, for further detail). (5) Findings were synthesised and discussed to answer the review questions and identify propositions for future research.

Conceptual framework
The reviewed articles were analysed by first interrogating the extent to which community involvement in urban water governance has been implemented. Secondly, the Values-Rules-Knowledge (VRK) framework was used to examine the reasons for limited and /or inadequate implementation of this practice. AND "*management" OR "*governance" OR "participation" OR "stakeholder eng*" OR "citizen-based" OR "multi-stakeholder" AND "manag*" OR "govern*" OR adapt* Urban AND urban OR city* OR cities Nature-based Solutions AND nbs OR "nature based" OR flood* OR "environ*" OR "nature-based" OR wetland* OR ecolog* OR water Stakeholders AND stakeholder* OR community OR citizen OR actor* OR grassroot* VRK AND institut* OR cultur* OR societal OR value* OR knowledge* Decision-context AND "decision making*" OR "decision context" b. Final 51 articles stored in Endnotes, transferred to NVivo 12, and thematise and coding been done through NVivo 12 and Microsoft Excel. The VRK-Framework used to conceptualise the decision-making process, understand the effective community engagement, and derive factors impact in effective community engagement of decision-making 5. Reporting The themes and insights were tabulated in a descriptive forms support by maps, diagrams and tables.
Specifically, the VRK framework (Gorddard et al. 2016;Colloff, Gorddard, and Dunlop 2018) was applied to analyse the decision-making context and community involvement that shape the decisions in multi-level collaborative governance of urban waterways. The VRK framework provides broad theoretical lines of inquiry, which helps provide an understanding of how and why societal systems shape and influence the decision process within the context of unpredictable and complex systems (Colloff et al. 2017). Further, using the VRK framework can guide how to reframe the issues and solutions to define new adaptation or transformative pathways and options (Colloff et al. 2021).
In this study, Values are defined as "stated preferences, ethical systems and principles that inform those preferences" (Colloff, Gorddard, and Dunlop 2018, 3). Values, especially those that are considered most important by decision-makers, tend to provide the metric for evaluating options and prioritising choices in decision contexts.
Rules are defined as, "prescribed and proscribed actions and the associated bodies of laws (formal rules) and social norms and conventions (informal rules) for how rules are applied and interpreted" (Colloff, Gorddard, and Dunlop 2018, 3)

within decision contexts.
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", as influenced by (Colloff, Gorddard, and Dunlop 2018, 3).
The way that these dimensions of the VRK framework were evaluated in relation to the decisionmaking context is conceptualised in Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates how reciprocal interactions (as shown in arrows) of Values, Rules and Knowledge systems shape the decision contexts. The VRK framework provides a lens for answering the questions: 1. What are the rules that impact on decision-making, e.g. policies, rules, cultural norms, networks, institutional and legislative dynamics? 2. Whose and what knowledge can enable or hinder community collaboration to feed into decisionmaking? 3. Whose and which values shape decision-making?
Consequently, this conceptualisation provides a lens for understanding the key themes and factors that enable or restrict effective community engagement in urban waterways governance. As such, the VRK framework is applied to understand the holistic view of institutional, social, environmental and personal dynamics, including diverse stakeholder perceptions, regulatory environments and knowledge systems that shape the decision context, which as a way of understanding the effectiveness of community engagement in decision-making.

Geographical distribution of selected cases
The distribution of papers by country indicates a strong bias towards Western and Oceanian nations, i.e. 84% of the articles from the US, UK, European Union, New Zealand and Australia, while remainder of four articles (8%) from Latin America, two articles from Asia (4%), one article from Africa (2%).

Terminologies used
Reviewed papers cover a range of terms that represent waterways, as shown in Figure 2.

Coverage of knowledge domains and issues
The Social Science (n = 47) and Environmental Science (n = 24) disciplines were the most prominently represented in the articles, while Political/Institutional/Policy (n = 12), Urban Planning (n = 9), and Engineering (n = 12) disciplines represented the remainder, see Most Social Science articles were concerned with constraints in collaborative governance arrangements (n = 15, 32%), with a small number providing insights on ecosystem services (n = 3, 6%).
Environmental Science papers put more emphasis on ecosystem services (

Evidence of implementation of community involvement in decision-making
Within the literature, there is evidence of community involvement in the decision-context spread largely in collaborative and adaptive modes of participation, according to the ladder of citizen participation terminology (Arnstein 2019). Specifically, L3: n-16, 39%, L4: n-10, i.e. 24%, as per Figure 4. Thus, the analysis shows that 63% of articles, i.e. n-26 out of 41, discuss efforts to support effective community engagement, i.e. in collaborative/adaptive levels of community involvement, and how to implement such practice. For example, the literature revealed that innovations have been introduced to practice effective community involvement in innovative governance arrangements, such as reconnecting residents cognitively and behaviourally with urban waterways ecosystems beyond biophysical connections (Chen, Liekens, and Broekx 2017), and improving the stakeholders' relationships and cooperation towards an integrated approach (Davidson et al. 2013;Dillon et al. 2016).
It is notable that whilst 63% of the articles refer to a relatively high level of CIUWG, it is clear from the language used that the reason for publication is the novelty of the practice. For example, Bos and Brown (2013, 111) stress that these "niche innovations might not necessarily result in a regime substitution. However, the changes in behaviour, practices and routines of regime actors may contribute to mainstreaming solutions". Further, Rijke et al. (2012) more directly emphasise that countries like Australia and the Netherlands have difficulties in implementing collaborative and adaptive governance principles as outlined in urban waterways management policies. They provide evidence to prove that "embracing complexity and uncertainty, continuous learning, and ongoing reflection and adjustment of management approaches are providing practical challenges because they are not being institutionalised into planning practice-shift in rhetoric to practice-based governance arrangements" (Rijke et al. 2012, 76).    (Zehnder, Yang, and Schertenleib 2003;Tseng et al. 2021), improving community health and wellbeing (Keeney, McDaniels, and Ridge-Cooney 1996;Bos and Brown 2013;Göransson et al. 2021), and promoting disaster management (Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006;Pluchinotta et al. 2021) as shown in Table 3. Importantly, our analysis showed a common difference between the values of community groups versus those of professionals groups; with community's values often being linked to the natural environment, for example, the benefit to local biodiversity (Ticehurst et al. 2005;Tseng et al. 2021;Vall-Casas et al. 2021). Professional groups, on the other hand, tend to focus on urban waterways as providing ecosystem services for humans.

Diverse values associated with urban waterways
Specifically, in some of the articles (n = 5), it was found that local community embed a strong sense of place-based, intrinsic and symbolic values (Kati and Jari 2016;Vall-Casas et al. 2021), while (n = 12) professionals tend to be more solution-oriented and biased towards disciplinebased values, e.g. adapting to climate change, disaster management, reuse of water (Qiao, Kristoffersson, and Randrup 2018;Pluchinotta et al. 2021) (see Supplementary Materials: S-1).
It is not surprising that Kati and Jari (2016) found that single-sided professionals' knowledge could limit the widespread understanding of social-ecological values and risks increase in social-environmental conflicts. Further, Kati and Jari (2016) prove that strong place-based community values enrich and maintain the social-ecological resilience and understand mutual and disputing interests among stakeholders (see Section 3.3.3. Place-based values).

Negotiating trade-offs
Several articles discussed the complexity of prioritising values as decision-makers attempt to balance ecological, economic, technical and social benefits, and conflicts that may generate in management decisions (Pinto et al. 2014;Sanon et al. 2012;Withycombe Keeler et al. 2015). It was argued that economic and social decisions, such as ecosystem services for human needs, tend to dominate over ecological values (Pinto et al. 2014).
For example, ecological values, such as biodiversity improvement and not disturbing existing natural ecosystem, have been reported to often carry less weight in decisions (Hong and Chung 2016;Rizzo, Conte, and Masi 2021). But this is not always the case, because in other studies, it was found that decisions were prioritised based on ecological significance (Jelks et al. 2020;Kati and Jari 2016), although improvement in socio-ecological resilience came with a relatively high monetary cost (Chen, Liekens, and Broekx 2017).  (2019), Stuart (2017). See Supplementary Materials: S-2 to clarify analysis. Sanon et al. (2012) describe how floodplain management options were evaluated in the Danube river, Austria, indicating the importance of co-design as a mechanism for negotiating solutions that achieve multiple goals. These management options were designed based on maximising the ecological conditions of the terrestrial habitats while also aiming to produce drinking water. This resulted in long-term social-ecological benefits, such as maintaining ecological biodiversity for the well-being of both nature and humans (Sanon et al. 2012). This case highlighted the potential of co-producing benefits that also help provide for human needs, such as reuse of water, even if this is achieved at a relatively higher monetary cost. This aspect indicates that although collaborative innovations such as the co-design method have been implemented in practice, access to economic and financial resources and societal priorities influence the capacity to successfully manage tradeoffs in achieving social-ecological resilience (Davidson et al. 2013;Schifman et al. 2017).
Several studies (n = 6) have also shown that trade-offs in decision-making increase the risk of conflicts in urban waterways management (Kati and Jari 2016;Garcia-Cuerva, Berglund, and Rivers 2016;Sultana, Thompson, and Green 2008). Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam (2017), Garcia-Cuerva, Berglund, and Rivers (2016) highlight that these conflicts may arise mainly due to the absence of commonly agreed, e.g. "fit-for-purpose methods" for handling divergent preferences across multiple stakeholder groups (Rijke et al. 2012). This issue relates to some extent to lack of knowledge and Quality of water refers to diverse benefits, including diseasefree natural water ecosystem, recreational and sports, and even for drinking and non-drinking purposes (Kati and Jari 2016). Maintaining a balanced amount of water that does not excess leads to flooding and prolonged dry landscape due to water scarcity (Zehnder, Yang, and Schertenleib 2003) • •

Flood and disaster risk reduction
Flood and other water-related disasters range from prevention and mitigation to recovery and adaptation (Fratini et  • Ecological health Maintain the natural biodiversity and natural system without human disturbance as it is a right of nature

Restoration of waterways and biophysical environment
Restoring and conservation of ecosystem, including increasing biodiversity and protecting threatened plants and species

Economic values Cost of water extraction and purification
This refers to mainly the cost incurred in water-storing and purification both in natural and engineering methods, e.g. cost-sharing, and financing (Rizzo, Conte, and Masi 2021)

• •
Increased property values Land use planning and the property market are the main focus of this value, which was highlighted in urban planners' visions (Keeney, McDaniels, and Ridge-Cooney 1996) •

Livelihoods
Livelihoods as additional or novel ways of income sources and business opportunities that derive economic and social satisfaction, such as tourism, fishery, research and consultancy (Liquete et al. 2016) • is related to the knowledge dimension, i.e. see Section 3.5. Knowledge of urban waterways governance.
An example of where process of making trade-offs led to conflicts is when urban planners and engineers proposed water retention ponds to mitigate flood risks in the urban brook ecosystem in Helsinki, Finland. These were resisted by citizens who preferred not to disturb the ecosystem because they found the replacement of the natural brook ecosystem for constructed ponds counterproductive (Kati and Jari 2016). Further, Kati and Jari (2016) argue that these conflicts could have been resolved through collective decision-making, indicating the need for greater consideration of local perspectives when evaluating different options, side by side with professionals' perspectives (Vall-Casas et al. 2021;Withycombe Keeler et al. 2015), which revealed the significance of effective community involvement in decision-making.

Place-based values
Kati and Jari (2016) describe how and when professionals lead urban waterways governance, they tend to produce more universal value systems, leading to a loss of concern about local, and place-based values. Reflecting this bias, collaborative urban waterways governance literature generally focuses on global or regional concerns, such as adapting to climate change and protecting the environment and community well-being in adaptive decision-making processes (Kati and Jari 2016;Liquete et al. 2016;Bos and Brown 2013). While these studies are usually contextualised locally, this literature tends to lack a focus on the role of community and place-based thinking in emphasising how local ecological changes and understandings connect in defining "values" (Chen 2017; Kati and Jari 2016;Vall-Casas et al. 2021).
Whilst there is a common bias towards more universal values, several studies have recognised the increasing trend of placed-based value creation and evolution of social values embedded in land and water, which can be facilitated by local-based actors (Gober et al. 2015;Kati and Jari 2016;Göransson et al. 2021). In this vein, Keeney, McDaniels, and Ridge-Cooney (1996, 294) argue the importance of place-based values; for example, "preserve salmon spawning grounds is a specific aspect of preserving aquatic ecosystem", and in most cases, the decisions taken provide a great deal of technical information to co-create potential choices to preserve of regenerate aquatic ecosystem in general and missing detail values as mentioned. Kati and Jari (2016) analysed the range of values associated with urban waterways by highlighting the place-based values, including symbolic and moral values on urban waterways. However, Vall-Casas et al. (2021) found that there is limited evidence on the representation of place-based or place-sensitive values in final decisions or not be taken into account/prioritised as intended from community collaboration.

Multi-level governance
Several studies (n = 7) have highlighted the need for integrated water management policies at global, regional and national/state levels, noting that this helps facilitate effective community collaboration (Rijke et al. 2012;Vall-Casas et al. 2021;Wamsler and Raggers 2018). Many of the reviewed articles (n = 22) also recognised that multi-level decision-making is effective in managing waterways because it allows exploring and evolving adaptive and resilient actions and assets (social-economicecological-technical) via collaboration among multiple actors in the decision context (Rijke et al. 2012;Vall-Casas et al. 2021;Bos and Brown 2013). Further, Rijke et al. (2012) argued that although adaptive governance systems attempt to integrate multi-level actor collaboration through continuous learning and collaborative rules-making for inclusive governance, it is not mainstreamed in practice to achieve as expected in policies and guidelines. It needs to develop one step further by implementing shared rights and responsibilities, i.e. power dynamics and clear legitimacy in actions of multi-stakeholders in practice (Rijke et al. 2012).

Multiple perspectives
A set of articles (n = 7, 14% of a total 51) discusses multi-actor involvement, mainly combining professional groups including scientists, consultants and investors in managing urban waterways (Niavis, Papatheochari, and Coccossis 2019;Zahmatkesh and Karamouz 2017;Hanlon, Olivier, and Schlager 2017). In these discussions, the major decisions being discussed are based on "the predict and control paradigms" and "act as the institutional expression of reducing uncertainties" (Rijke et al. 2012, 76). For example, Zahmatkesh and Karamouz (2017, 499) explain that quantifying vulnerabilities, such as quantifying ecosystem services trade-offs (Sanon et al. 2012), are critical decisions that benefit by expanding the perspectives based on multi-level (professional) decisionmaking processes.
However, whilst multiple perspectives are important, Shifflett et al. (2019), Bos and Brown (2013) argue that, although professionals-based multi-stakeholder perspectives can help by deriving more systematic and scientific solutions, this approach could also lead to bureaucratic and technocratic biases rather than fit into inclusive decision-making (Shifflett et al. 2019;Bos and Brown 2013). Further, it may not achieve the regime of an adaptive or resilient urban waterways system (Shifflett et al. 2019).

Power relations
Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag (2019) noted that the failure to adequately define or consider power relations of impacted sectors was a key factor in limiting community involvement and achieving policy integration. Similarly, García-Nieto et al. (2015) noted that power relations might limit the scope of the primary intention of collaborative governancei.e. restricting the capacity for developing adaptive solutions based on integrating diverse knowledge and values along with just technical and scientific perspectives. Consequently, several scholars argued that the decisions and policies derived from technocratic understandings tend to enforce or impose rather than commonly accepted/consensus to practice (Rijke et al. 2012;Bos and Brown 2013;Rizzo, Conte, and Masi 2021).
Some papers (n = 13) emphasised the need for more inclusive and adaptive governance practices by legitimating community empowerment in decision-making that help to shift the power relations towards practice-based governance arrangements (Dillon et al. 2016;Ramsey et al. 2019;Jelks et al. 2020;Rijke et al. 2012). For example, a high level of communities' agency in critical decision-making, such as "no dam" solution by citizens (Dillon et al. 2016) exemplified how it possible to collaboratively evaluate trade-offs and co-develop options for protecting watershed ecosystems. This provides multiple benefits as strong practical evidence in how reflective and adaptive role of power relations could benefit in multiple dimensions.

Ownership, agency and reflexivity
A number of articles describe how the factors of ownership, and agency can enable or hinder the community's constructive involvement and reflexivity in decision-making (Dillon et al. 2016;Ramsey et al. 2019;Jelks et al. 2020;Head 2014;Hong and Chung 2016). The example of Brownhill Creek, South Australia, shows that unacknowledged community voices in the early stages of the decision-making process led to a three-year delay in the agreement between creek managers and community (Dillon et al. 2016). Thus, partnering/consensus ways of community involvement, i.e. high level of agency in decision-making, is a mechanism introduced as a way to successfully bridge the gap between professionals and community collaboration in decision-making (Dillon et al. 2016;Shifflett et al. 2019).
A few articles (n = 6) argued that close (local) interaction by the community with waterways consolidates a sense of ownership and reflexivity in decision-making (Dillon et al. 2016;Ramsey et al. 2019;Jelks et al. 2020;Head 2014;Hong and Chung 2016). Sometimes, such active participation of communities can lead to critical and perhaps surprising decisions, such as "no dam" solutions championed by citizens (Dillon et al. 2016). However, we found limited evidence to support how ownership and reflexivity in decision-making could enable community involvement in decisionmaking as intended.

Enabling policy context
A couple of the reviewed articles argued the importance of policy frameworks as enablers for guiding institutions' and people's roles in collaborating governance arrangements, such as reflective decision-making and responsible in practice (Wamsler and Raggers 2018;Bowmer 2014). For example, Bowmer (2014, 233) showed that "new policies on water interception and carbon pricing influenced the propensity to adopt strategies with co-benefits, for example, to reuse of river water for drinking and to change public perceptions". This was important for influencing community behaviour and promoting the community to take on responsibilities and ownership in practices.
We also found that water sensitive city policies and healthy waterways for healthy communities (both are examples of integrated water management approaches) in Australia were thought to be instrumental in promoting community collaboration in multi-level adaptive governance, and promoted a contribution of diverse knowledge and value systems to help shape decisions (Head 2014;Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam 2017). This in turn was thought to help achieve legitimacy, efficiency and social-ecological justice.
Such policies appear to be collaborative and inclusive. However, it was also reported that urban waterways governance policies have still not adequately facilitated cross-sectoral multi-stakeholder integration as thought, i.e. complementary roles of urban water supply planning, land-use planning, engineering and local level managing bodies (Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019;Fratini et al. 2012;Rijke et al. 2012).

A bias towards technical knowledge and methods
There was broad recognition of the importance of technical and scientific knowledge, and literature mainly discusses the validity and use of knowledge-produced technocratic processes and methods (Shifflett et al. 2019;Vall-Casas et al. 2021). Ramsey et al. (2019) further explain that technical and scientific knowledge predominantly evolved from the local contexts, i.e. land, water and people. However, indicating a potential for conflict, we find that professionals from the social and engineering domains are sometimes unwilling to accept non-scientific knowledge, i.e. largely cultural and unproven scientifically, such as customary governance practices (Ramsey et al. 2019;Rees Catalán 2015;Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006). Harrison et al. (2018), Beceiro, Brito, and Galvão (2022) further proved that local knowledge systems were often incorporated into decision-making through the application of technocratic tools, such as "ecosystem service modelling, cost-effectiveness analysis" (Harrison et al. 2018, 484, 485). Qiao, Kristoffersson, and Randrup (2018) highlighted that failure to incorporate adequate expertise and local knowledge systems into decision-making when dealing with complex and uncertain natural resources reduces the adaptive capacity of practices/actions. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate alternative sources of new knowledge to increase the adaptive capacity and resiliency of outputs (Ramsey et al. 2019). On a similar note, another study found that over-reliance on a single or a few knowledge systems, and limited integration of formal and informal knowledge recognition reduced the capacity for a holistic understanding of the system (García-Nieto et al. 2015).
A barrier to the adoption of local knowledge embedded with cultural norms and beliefs is that it has been categorised as a non-scientific source of knowledge (Dimadama and Zikos 2010). Some scholars argue that professionals have empowered themselves by ignoring local community knowledge systems, by claiming community knowledge is subjective, non-scientific and/or primitive (Kati and Jari 2016;Bowmer 2014;Bos and Brown 2013;Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006). Another reason for the tendency towards rigid thinking of professionals' and institutions' is the type of decision-making approaches that are being used, including technical tools (formal) to evaluate local knowledge (Kati and Jari 2016;Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam 2017), as well as a culture of risk aversion (Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006;Ramsey et al. 2019).

Mechanisms for enriching decisions with community knowledge
Authors of the reviewed articles have variously argued for the use of community knowledge to enrich urban waterways governance in two different ways: firstly, value-adding into expert decision-making (n = 10), and secondly, enriching adaptive management (n = 6).
Value-adding into expert decision-making: It has been argued that attempts where decisionmakers are trying to integrate local place-based knowledge systems, such debates generally aim to use community knowledge systems to enrich experts' decisions (Bowmer 2014). For example, Pluchinotta et al. (2021), Fratini et al. (2012) highlight that community knowledge is primarily used for the value-addition of experts' decisions, i.e. to gather information and community feedback on plans and decisions, see Supplementary Materials: S-2. Further, Ramsey et al. (2019), Rees Catalán (2015 support this argument by acknowledging that local knowledge is mainly used to reduce the complexity of waterways issues, legally validate decisions and minimise governance conflicts in implementation. We see this as a starting point for transforming niche knowledge systems and mainstreaming them into resilient solutions (Bos and Brown 2013).
Enriching adaptive management: Some studies explore the enabling factors that help to more holistically embed community knowledge systems into governance, including community-led co-management arrangements, such as co-learning, co-designing and the sharing of social capacities (Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019;Kapetas et al. 2019;Harrison et al. 2018;Jelks et al. 2020). Others focused on how the community can contribute to systematic understanding within an iterative learning cycle (Ramsey et al. 2019;Rees Catalán 2015;Vall-Casas et al. 2021). Such mechanisms can be supported by technologies such as public participation geographic information systems (García-Nieto et al. 2015) or deeper engagement methods, such as social learning, codesign and self-organisation of community networks (Rees Catalán 2015; Harrison et al. 2018) as a process of co-producing adaptive and resilient solutions.
Evidence of community involvement enriching decisions: Studies, including Rees Catalán (2015), Bowmer (2014), Göransson et al. (2021), explain how the community have been engaged and how community knowledge was integrated into decision-making. Rees Catalán (2015, 99) quoted a local citizen's input, saying, "I had the same problem, and I have solved it in that way". This illustrates how local knowledge can contribute as already tested solutions that can be incorporated into adaptive strategies and actions (Ramsey et al. 2019). This reinforces the notion, explored in a couple of studies, that community involvement in decision-making can support the development of adaptation options which in turn help increase the adaptivity or transformative capacity (Rees Catalán 2015;Vall-Casas et al. 2021). Göransson et al. (2021), Chen, Liekens, andBroekx (2017) also provide evidence for how the integration of ever-changing attitudes and behaviour of the local community can help enrich societal capacities and can enable the sharing of responsibilities. With these mechanisms in mind, it is not surprising that some authors argue that place-based geographical and socio-cultural knowledge is essential for co-creating new knowledge systems that can support adaptive and collaborative urban waterways governance (Göransson et al. 2021;Jelks et al. 2020). However, some of the latest articles attempt to provide place-based evidence of mainstreaming active community collaboration (n = 3), yet the community is acting as passive collaborators in practice rather than effective and inclusive partners in managing urban waterways (Ramsey et al. 2019;Jelks et al. 2020;Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019).

Discussion: knowledge gaps and proposed research topics
CIUWG has a range of well-known mechanisms and impacts, but usually hypothesised benefits, and these are relatively well-explored in academic literature. However, inclusive or effective community engagement practice has not been implemented as often as would be hoped given this evidence, and we, therefore, suggest there is an intention-implementation gap.

The intention-implementation gap
Academic literature describes mechanisms by which the benefits of CIUWG can be realised: . Involvement in urban waterways governance as an activity to gather information, co-create new knowledge systems, and/or share social capacities, responsibilities and costs in planning, management and implementation of strategies (Rees Catalán 2015;Vall-Casas et al. 2021;Clark et al. 2016;Bowmer 2014). . Involving the community in co-creation of new knowledge as a process that aims to produce options to increase the adaptivity or transformative capacity to deal with societal challenges and ecological improvements (Fratini et al. 2012;Dimadama and Zikos 2010;Hong and Chung 2016). . Involving the community in co-learning and sharing capacities and knowledge systems usually aims to strengthen the co-management arrangements, including the community's agency and reflexivity in decision-making (Dimadama and Zikos 2010;Bos and Brown 2013;Fleeger and Becker 2008).
While these methods for CIUWG are thought to support a range of benefits, this review has revealed that decision-makers' adoption of the practice is constrained by institutional, disciplinary and bureaucratic constraints, including silo mentalities. Furthermore, there is limited insight within the literature about the practicalities of CIUWG: How do you choose which method of CIUWG to use? What resources are required? This limited guidance creates uncertainty and, therefore risk, which we think creates a reluctance to adopt the practices. Furthermore, there is insufficient evidence about how the social benefits that can be realised with CIUWG are adequately considered in the decision-making processes, which instead tends to focus on narrow problem solving and rather as evidence for validating professionals' decisions.
Therefore, our position is that inertia in the adoption of CIUWG is likely caused by a combination of as yet unexplored trade-offs as well as a common misalignment of critical values, rules and knowledge systems that currently tend to constrain decisions to adopt CIUWG. In other words, current paradigms do not adequately consider the lived reality of decisions, i.e. the factors that limit the effective adoption of CIUWG.
We hypothesise that this is the key reason why such practices are yet to be fully implemented, regardless of legislative and policy directions (State of Victoria 2020). We acknowledge that this hypothesis requires further exploration.

Misalignments in the values dimension
The reviewed literature has highlighted the need for a greater understanding of the social, cultural and economic values associated with community decisions in water management (Head 2014;Vall-Casas et al. 2021;Dillon et al. 2016). We found a robust set of common community values that have been derived and applied in social-ecological applications, but less so in the economic domain.
These include values such as protecting and conserving the most vulnerable species, including platypus, frogs, fish, managing weeds and invasive plants, and water quality improvement (Melbourne Water 2018b; Kati and Jari 2016), in addition to the common value of social well-being. Additionally, reported community values within the economic domains are mainly limited to tourism (Niavis, Papatheochari, and Coccossis 2019;van den Brandeler et al. 2014), but there is untapped potential that these could expand into domains of urban agriculture and gardening, real estate, as well as water supply.
We also identified a pattern whereby values are usually derived based on human needs rather than ecosystem benefits, and this was enforced by institutional and disciplinary biases (Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006;van den Brandeler et al. 2014;Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019). For example, the "value" of the existence of the whole ecosystem trade-off by integrating green-blue infrastructure for human well-being and protecting habitat for endangered species and invasive plants in narrowing the broader system resilience. This evidence that the benefits gained from urban waterways are implemented to maximise social needs while enabling lowerlevel ecological reliance.
Finally, it is clear that beyond investing government and community resources to identify the opportunity for co-benefits, there also needs to be a clear understanding of defining values (Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006;Kati and Jari 2016) on the grounds of "for what and whom well-being is for". There is also a need for integrating "risks" when co-producing values, i.e. identifying, evaluating, understanding and defining a common ground that includes the values of institutions, the collaborating community members, future generations, as well as ecosystems (Dimadama and Zikos 2010;Fratini et al. 2012). Overall, there is a need for a clear understanding of defining social-ecological values and a tool to verify the compatibility of social-ecological values in prioritising and determining management actions in the decision context.

Factors influencing the intention-implementation gap
The current academic discourse has highlighted factors that limit the effective CIUWG and which result in slow adoption. Our review has revealed the following factors: . Limited knowledge and experience of professionals and community to support widespread understanding of social-ecological dynamics (Davidson et al. 2013;Fratini et al. 2012; Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019), . Significance of integrating community attitudes and behaviour impact effective community practices (Bowmer 2014;Chen, Liekens, and Broekx 2017). Financial costs and risks in implementing community values and knowledge constrain co-management arrangements, such as social innovation and co-learning (Bos and Brown 2013). . Bureaucratic controls or silo-mentality within key institutions could result in a culture of risk aversion (Turyahikayo 2018) that limits the opportunities for CIUWG because this culture tends to restrict the willingness to co-design governance systems that are needed for its effective implementation.
These issues complicate community collaboration in terms of being able to define shared "Values" or visions, potentially leading to a confused or misaligned project outcome and limiting the community's willingness to participate in decision-making. Furthermore, by identifying these factors that limit the adoption of CIUWG, it follows that addressing them will help overcome the intentionimplementation gap. For example, overcoming a culture of risk aversion is likely to help expand the context of decision-making (Turyahikayo 2018).
It is notable that the reviewed articles did not adequately explore other key factors that are likely to influence the decision to implement CIUWG, for example, the risks, costs and limits of budget that may undermine decisions to implement CIUWG. Drawing on literature on related topics, little attention is given to identifying and detailing costs and risks such as transaction costs (Mekala and Hatton MacDonald 2018), or the legal risks, cost of education and awareness programmes, and risks of urban communities' willingness to adapt or transform their lifestyles or behaviour in a common grounds (Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam 2017;Chen, Liekens, and Broekx 2017;Davidson et al. 2013).
Limited evidence or understanding of such risks and costs, as well as how they could be reduced or mitigated, may therefore significantly reduce actors' adaptive/transforming capacity and agency. Conversely, further evidence and understanding will help to increase their adaptive capacity, and therefore we suggest that further research explores the risks and costs of CIUWG, as well as how those costs and risks can be effectively mitigated.

Evidence on the efficacy of community-inclusive, practice-based methods
The reviewed literature has revealed several community-led methods that foster community involvement, including co-design and co-learning workshops and discussions, community research and digital engagements (Rijke et al. 2012;Janssen, Goosen, and Omtzigt 2006;Davidson et al. 2013;Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam 2017). However, these methods are commonly characterised as experts-driven approaches based on scientific and technical ways of involving and evaluating the communities' inputs, and primarily intending to increase the communication and acceptance between governing bodies and community groups (Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019). Therefore, the urban waterways managers ineffectively use these methods because they do not necessarily provide a platform for co-design or co-production, nor does it provide a link between community knowledge and scientific knowledge systems.
Further, these methods intend to support social learning, negotiation and bargaining, and cosharing knowledge (Barbosa, Mushtaq, and Alam 2017;Gharesifard, Wehn, and van der Zaag 2019;Harrison et al. 2018;Head 2014;Dimadama and Zikos 2010). However, these interventions have not addressed the issues such as collaborative methods of synthesising professionals' and community knowledge systems on common grounds, and the limitations in validating community knowledge through place-based methods. We suggest the need to combine traditional community-involving approaches with community-based practices without distorting their cultural or ecological principles and processes but improving by adding scientific knowledge. Simply put, how community could connect their place-based experiences and cultural and environmental connections to understand and strengthen decision-context alone with scientific knowledge (Fratini et al. 2012;Ramsey et al. 2019) is beneficial for their well-being. This is our second recommended research topic, i.e. there is a need for developing evidence, frameworks and/or tools that help to define and evaluate context-sensitive mechanisms for implementing CIUWG; i.e. answering questions about how to choose which method of CIUWG to achieve social-ecological resilience most effectively and in a way that is acceptable to decision makers?

Conclusion
This review has identified the widespread suggestions of the benefits, especially in terms of reduced conflict, managing for co-benefits, as well as increasing adaptive capacity and resilience, that can be gained by actively involving the community in urban waterways governance. This review has also revealed that the values held by active community participants are changeable and unpredictable, and therefore do not necessarily ensure that such public goods can be enabled. Nonetheless, there is widespread recognition of the benefits of adopting CIUWG, indicating an intention to adopt; however, implementation of the practice appears not to be widespread or adequate. Literature on this topic primarily describe niche developments that showcase how this practice can be achieved. The reflections of the results and synthesis of this review have helped identify key causes for the intention-implementation gap. Specifically, it has previously been argued that CIUWG is constrained by institutional silo-mentalities and a culture risk aversion, which is commonly criticised, yet this has not been successfully confronted by identifying in any detail the costs and risks associated with CIUWG or how those can be mitigated. We argue that there is a need to better understand the lived realities of decision-makers who want to adopt CIUWG to provide them with better evidence about risks, unintended consequences and costs, and how those can be mitigated and reduced. Similarly, there is limited evidence about the efficacy of well-defined methods that enable active community involvement implementation in urban waterways governance. We argue that such evidence does not appear to exist in academic literature, and we suggest this is an important knowledge gap that needs to be addressed if CIUWG should be effectively realised.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).