Nicola Ulibarri

Biographic Data

ID1487987
NAMENicola Ulibarri
GIVEN NAMESNicola
FAMILY NAMEUlibarri
SIGNATUREULIBARRI N
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of California, Irvine
ORCID0000-0001-6238-9056
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS35
TOTAL CITATIONS225
AUTHOR COUNT35
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2015
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX8

  • Climate Risk, Governance, and Institutional Adaptation Challenges in Liberia

    Mohammed W Bah, Nicola UlibarriARTICLECase Studies in the Environment2026

    Sea-level rise, intensifying floods, and deforestation pose urgent risks to low-income coastal countries, yet climate adaptation remains constrained by governance and resource gaps. Despite Liberia’s prominence in global vulnerability rankings, little research has examined the country’s adaptation processes and barriers. This case study addresses that gap by analyzing Liberia’s environmental vulnerabilities and institutional responses. The study …

  • Shaping Collaborative Actions in Self‐Initiated Versus Mandated Collaborations

    Open AccessJie Wang, Nicola UlibarriARTICLEPolicy Studies Journal2026

    As public problems are becoming more complex and uncertain, understanding how and why collaborative governance changes over time can provide insight into the ways it can be sustained and adapted to fulfill the responsibilities of the actors involved and address the policy problems of interest. This paper uses the case of China's River Chief System to investigate whether and how mandated versus self‐initiated collaborations differ in their adoptio…

  • Dichotomy or continuum? A global review of the interaction between autonomous and planned adaptations

    Open AccessGina Maskell, Roopam Shukla et al.ARTICLEConservation Ecology2025

    Adaptation to climate change is often conceptualized as a dichotomy, with responses being either planned (formal and structured) or autonomous (organic and self-organized, often known as “everyday adaptation”). Recent literature on adaptation responses has highlighted the existence and importance of the interplay between autonomous and planned adaptation, but examination of this interaction has been limited to date. We use a global database of 16…

  • Interrogating “scale” in strategic management-at-scale: Lessons from collaborative governance

    Open AccessEdoardo Ongaro, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEPerspectives on Public Management…2025

    While the field of strategic planning and management has mostly focused on single organizations, a new strand of literature on “strategy management at scale” (SMAS) is exploring the way strategic management can address large-scale, cross-organizational, cross-level, often cross-boundary challenges. The appearance of this new strand has coincided with renewed emphasis on concepts such as public value governance, whole-of-government approaches, and…

  • State-level regulation of disinfection byproducts in the United States

    Open AccessJie Wang, Max G McNally et al.ARTICLEWater Policy2024

    Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), residual compounds formed from the chemical disinfection of drinking water, can cause a host of damaging public health and environmental impacts. This study evaluates the landscape of regulations designed to reduce the occurrence and/or impact of DBPs, focusing on regulations issued by the US states. Drawing on a systematic search of state administrative codes and agency websites, we first identify the presence, ab…

  • Operationalizing the social capital of collaborative environmental governance with network metrics

    Open AccessHolly K Nesbitt, M Hamilton et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2024

    Social capital is frequently invoked as a reason for engaging in collaborative environmental governance. Yet we have a limited understanding of how collaborative environmental governance mobilizes different types of social capital and how the advantages and costs of social capital accrue for different groups of people. Explicit measures of social capital, such as through social network methods, will help build an understanding of how social capit…

  • A content analysis of social media discourse during Hurricane María: Filling a void when traditional media are silent

    Open AccessOmar Perez Figueroa, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEJournal of Environmental Studies…2024References: 5

  • Agency consultation networks in environmental impact assessment

    Open AccessJie Wang, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEJournal of Public Administration…2024References: 30

    Government agencies practice interagency consultation to ensure that broader governmental activities align with their missions and objectives. Consultation allows agencies not only to express their preferences and interests, but also may create administrative burden and procedural delay. To explore the conditions under which agencies choose to review activities proposed by fellow government actors, this research focuses on the California Environm…

  • Navigating justice: Examining the intersection of procedural and distributive justice in environmental impact assessment in Puerto Rico

    Open AccessOmar Perez Figueroa, Nicola UlibarriARTICLEEnvironmental Impact Assessment…2024References: 34

    Recognizing that centuries of mistreatment of low-income and minority communities by governments and corporations have resulted in widespread exposure to environmental harms, academics and policymakers are seeking ways to improve environmental justice. While it is commonly assumed that improved procedural justice (meaningful participation in decision making) should improve distributive justice (equitable distribution of environmental harms and be…

  • An Analysis of Micro-scale Conflict in Collaborative Governance

    Open AccessNicola UlibarriARTICLEJournal of Public Administration…2024Cited by: 11References: 63

    Conflict is the forgotten sibling of collaborative governance. Variably framed as an alternative to collaboration, a contextual feature shaping interpersonal interactions, or an obstacle to be overcome via deliberation, conflict lurks in the background of discourse about collaboration. However, few theories of collaboration directly address the role of conflict, and those that do focus on conflict as a macro-scale phenomenon, characteristic of a …

  • Framing the Problem of Flood Risk and Flood Management in Metropolitan Los Angeles

    Open AccessNicola Ulibarri, Claudia Valencia-Uribe et al.ARTICLEWeather, Climate, and Society2023

    This paper develops the concept of flood problem framing to understand decision-makers’ priorities in flood risk management in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Region in California (LA Metro). Problem frames shape an individual’s preferences for particular management strategies and their future behaviors. While flooding is a complex, multifaceted problem, with multiple causes and multiple impacts, a decision-maker is most likely to manage only those …

  • A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation

    Open AccessJan Petzold, Tom Hawxwell et al.ARTICLENature Climate Change2023

    An assessment of the global progress in climate change adaptation is urgently needed. Despite a rising awareness that adaptation should involve diverse societal actors and a shared sense of responsibility, little is known about the types of actors, such as state and non-state, and their roles in different types of adaptation responses as well as in different regions. Based on a large n -structured analysis of case studies, we show that, although …

  • Planning for effective water management: An evaluation of water management plans in California

    Nataly Escobedo Garcia, Nicola UlibarriARTICLEJournal of Environmental Planning…2023

    Facing pressures to contend with continual changes in physical availability, to balance water supply with environmental and social impacts, and to build resilience to environmental hazards such as droughts and climate change, water managers increasingly use management plans as a blueprint for managing water. We apply qualitative content analysis to evaluate water management plans from diverse water and land use organizations in California’s Centr…

  • Environmental justice, infrastructure provisioning, and environmental impact assessment: Evidence from the California Environmental Quality Act

    Open AccessJie Wang, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Science & Policy2023Cited by: 4References: 8

    Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a decision support tool that analyzes the environmental and social impacts of infrastructure projects. This paper focuses on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a law requiring EIA use in California, to examine where new infrastructure is proposed and whether EIA can shape infrastructure distribution and environmental justice through the review process. We analyze the temporal and spatial dist…

  • Large and inequitable flood risks in Los Angeles, California

    Open AccessBrett F Sanders, Jochen E Schubert et al.ARTICLENature Sustainability2022Cited by: 4References: 5

  • Plan writing as a policy tool: Instrumental, conceptual, and tactical uses of water management plans in California

    Open AccessNataly Escobedo Garcia, Nicola UlibarriARTICLEJournal of Environmental Studies…2022References: 16

    Numerous environmental regulations require organizations to codify prospective activities in a written plan. However, evidence suggests that many plans are never implemented, raising questions about why public agencies continually require plans, whether mandating plans allows agencies to meet their policy aims, and what additional purposes plans serve. Adopting concepts from literature on research utilization, we develop a plan use typology, defi…

  • Barriers and opportunities to incorporating environmental justice in the National Environmental Policy act

    Open AccessNicola Ulibarri, Omar Perez Figueroa et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Impact Assessment…2022Cited by: 10References: 46

    Environmental justice, which seeks to achieve equity in the process and outcomes of environmental policy and decision-making, is a broadly recognized policy objective. As a foundational environmental regulation and opportunity for public engagement with federal decision-making, the United States' National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is frequently considered a promising venue for addressing environmental justice. While environmental justice ha…

  • Use of Boilerplate Language in Regulatory Documents: Evidence from Environmental Impact Statements

    Open AccessTyler Andrew Scott, Nicholas Marantz et al.ARTICLEJournal of Public Administration…2022Cited by: 5References: 45

    Administrative procedures are intended to increase transparency and help agencies make better decisions. However, these requirements also increase agency workload. Understanding how public agencies satisfy procedural requirements is a critical facet of agency performance. This analysis focuses on the language used in Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) required by the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—specifically, the reuse of simil…

  • A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change

    Open AccessLea Berrang-Ford, A R Siders et al.ARTICLENature Climate Change2021

  • Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review

    Open AccessMalcolm Araos, Kripa Jagannathan et al.ARTICLEOne Earth2021

  • Coalitions in climate mitigation policy re-design processes: The case of the regional greenhouse gas initiative

    Open AccessMaxwell T Dorman, Aaron L Strong et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Science & Policy2021References: 24

  • How does collaborative governance evolve? Insights from a medium-n case comparison

    Open AccessNicola Ulibarri, Kirk Emerson et al.ARTICLEPolicy and Society2020Cited by: 26References: 17

    Understanding the performance of collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) necessitates an understanding of how stakeholders and their interactions evolve over time. However, few studies assess the evolution of the structure or process dynamics of CGRs over time. This paper contributes to our understanding of the longitudinal dynamics of CGRs. We apply a modified grounded theory approach to a dataset of collaboration case studies to develop empiric…

  • Stakeholder involvement in collaborative regulatory processes: Using automated coding to track attendance and actions

    Open AccessTyler Andrew Scott, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLERegulation & Governance2020Cited by: 17References: 56

    Regulation increasingly mandates collaborative approaches to increase stakeholder input and streamline approval processes. However, understanding how to maintain stakeholder involvement over the course of a long collaborative process is vital to optimize effectiveness. This paper observes more than 700 stakeholders involved in developing and implementing a dam operating license over 16 years. We use text mining and Bayesian hierarchical modeling …

  • Patterns of Participation and Representation in a Regional Water Collaboration

    Open AccessIris Hui, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEPolicy Studies Journal2020Cited by: 25References: 50

    Regional collaboration has become a popular means to manage shared resources and address cross‐jurisdictional boundary issues. The question of who participates in the process, who directly affects decisions, and who benefits from those decisions is critical for understanding the broader value created by regional collaborations. We apply a variety of text mining techniques to meeting minutes to measure how stakeholder participation evolved over ni…

  • Nepa and National Trends in Federal Infrastructure Siting in the United States

    Open AccessTyler Andrew Scott, Nicola Ulibarri et al.ARTICLEReview of Policy Research2020Cited by: 5References: 73

    The United States' National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to use environmental impact assessment tools to aggregate scientific information, garner stakeholder input, and weigh alternatives for infrastructure siting and operations decisions.Thus, NEPA plays a sweeping role in federal infrastructure provisioning. Using a comprehensive dataset of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) prepared under NEPA from 2013 to 2019…