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Incorporating stakeholder engagement into environmental management may help in the pursuit of novel approaches for addressing complex water resource problems. However, evidence about how and under what circumstances stakeholder engagement enables desirable changes remains elusive. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for studying social and environmental changes possible through stakeholder engagement in water resource management, from inception to outcomes. We synthesize concepts from multiple literatures to provide a framework for tracing linkages from contextual conditions, through engagement process design features, to social learning, community capacity building, and behavioral change at individual, group, and group network levels, and ultimately to environmental change. We discuss opportunities to enhance the framework including through empirical applications to delineate scalar and temporal dimensions of social, behavioral, and environmental changes resulting from stakeholder engagement, and the potential for negative outcomes thus far glossed over in research on change through engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past three decades, a paradigm shift has elevated stakeholder engagement in natural resource governance, emphasizing collaborative approaches for effective decision-making. While academic literature increasingly endorses engagement methods, a gap persists in our knowledge of the methods and outcomes of such processes. To address this disparity, we systematically reviewed 261 peer-reviewed studies on stakeholder engagement in water resource management from 2000 to 2019. Analyses find that data-driven studies of engagement processes and outcomes from engagement processes are limited in the peer-reviewed literature. Our findings underscore the need for consistent vocabulary and theoretical frameworks and increased empirical evaluation to enhance our understanding of stakeholder engagement processes and outcomes in water resource management. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings and synthesizing the methods suggested by the general literature for creating more inclusive, replicable, and impactful engagement-related research and practice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]