During the past three months, visitors to this Web site have helped populate a Smart Commons Mosaic (definition, right) focused on innovative water management solutions that embody at least one of the three components of the Smart Commons: linking upstream and downstream stakeholders, establishing a negotiating framework, and using this negotiating framework to identify and implement solutions.

In April, we presented 12 leading solutions, or vignettes. Visitors to Changemakers and SocialEdge offered more than 100 additional vignettes, from which we've selected 11 to add to the mosaic. We've used them to expand the Smart Commons Mosaic below.

At the same time, we've hosted a moderated discussion to add texture to, and gather feedback on, the Smart Commons concept. For three weeks, the discussion explored each of the three features of the Smart Commons. Most of the conversation focused on specific approaches to bring upstream and downstream stakeholders to the table and to build a workable negotiating framework.

Themes that emerged in the discussion included the need for credible data on water supply and usage, the importance of setting the right incentives for both participation and action, and the essential, though difficult task of engaging indirect consumers (residential users) who may be more difficult to organize and less sophisticated than the traditionally recognized users (farmers.) Exploring how to do community engagement well was also flagged as an area that deserves much more, and much more systematic inquiry.

Here are the 11 winning cases selected from visitors' submissions for addition to the water Smart Commons Mosaic. (The newly added cases have a red upper-right corner. Their contributors received a $50 award.): Ancient Rainwater Harvesting     Techniques, India Converting Waste into Wealth, Canada Giving the Poor Better Access to Ground     Water, India Kitui Sand Dams and Food Security,     Kenya Networked Ponds Transforms Drylands,     India Rainwater Harvesting in China Recycling Waste in Egypt Roundabout Outdoor Play Pump,     South Africa Safe Water and Sanitation Project in     San Lorenzo, Honduras Salvage Operations in the Godavari     Delta,     India Water as a Source of Cooperation     rather than Conflict in the Middle East

Overall, this has been a rich and lively discussion that underscored one of the strengths and one of the shortcomings of the Smart Commons Mosaic, as it stands. The Smart Commons successfully framed a natural resource management discussion in a way that stimulated a broad discussion on processes of how we can best go about balancing human needs in relation to the environment instead of a narrow discussion on discrete, often place-specific issues.

However, it also illuminated a weakness. For the Smart Commons Mosaic to be most valuable, it needs a critical mass of tested strategies that are accessible and organized against its axes.