Unpacking the problem- and politically driven orientations in governmental decision-making in aquatic ecology-centered watershed governance: A case study of Nine-Plateau-Lake region in China

Aquatic ecological deterioration challenges watershed governance worldwide, requiring heightened attention. Local administrators’ policy salience —captured by Governmental Attention (GA) derived from official documents —could shift with superior-level agenda signals and/or ecological quality. These two drivers are interpreted as politically driven orientation and problem-driven orientation in Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). However, the relative contributions of these orientations to GA remain unclear. This study quantifies their contributions to aquatic ecology governance by analyzing 3110 policies from 2020–2024 in China’s Nine-Plateau-Lake (NPL) region using text mining. Results show that GA typically peaks in the 4th quarter (October–December), aligning with administrative evaluation cycles rather than natural seasons. The region exhibits more intensive yet less stable GA in 2023–2024, with the average GA doubling from 0.1 to 0.2 (maximum 1) while Coefficient of Variance (CV) increasing from 1.5 to 1.9. Considering time-lagged effects, superior agenda signals proxied by provincial-level GA (PGA) presents significant influences on GA at monthly scale, and in three out of five cities. PGA exerts higher impacts on GA in more cities than problem-driven orientation (proxied by the algae blooming area proportion), and with higher influence coefficients |β|≥0.12 v.s. |β|≤0.02. The prevalence of politically driven orientation over problem-driven orientation implies challenges in achieving the “problem-oriented governance” in aquatic ecology governance as promoted. This study develops a multidimensional, text-derived GA measure and extends MSF to quantitative analysis in watershed governance, demonstrating its potential in revealing governmental decision-making orientations and informing policy design for aquatic ecology-centered watershed governance.