Dear Reader,

Welcome to the fourth volume of the Michigan Journal of Sustainability (MJS). Some contributions to this volume revolve around how water impacts or is impacted by human decisions, from the Great Lakes region to Bangladesh and Indonesia, while others analyze the impacts of partnership on sustainable outcomes and how sustainability is perceived in communities and professions. We solicited contributions from across the wide swath of sustainability disciplines and have curated this valuable collection of new scholarship around water, community, and sustainability to reflect the world today.

We hope that you find the content of this volume insightful and thought-provoking. Sustainability as a discipline is still a relatively young research area, and there are great opportunities for enterprising researchers and practitioners to collaborate in order to investigate issues in this growing field. Current problems are not soon to be abated, with many more likely to appear in the future. Tackling sustainability challenges will require motivated, educated, and passionate people to drive innovation and solutions.

For new readers, the aim of MJS is to offer an intellectual forum for academics, practitioners, and caring individuals to share their ideas about sustainability and how they view it. We solicit content expanding beyond traditional manuscripts and accept quality contributions that highlight education, case studies, research, and visualizations under the umbrella of sustainable practice.

Constructing volumes for this journal is a collaborative effort involving the dedicated work of doctoral students, the Graham Institute, and Michigan Publishing. We thank the Editorial Board for their contributions interfacing with authors throughout the academic year. MJS and the online forum for open sustainability research that the journal embodies would not be possible without the support of the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program, as well as Don Scavia, Andrew Horning, Elizabeth LaPorte, and David Mudie from the Graham Institute. At Michigan Publishing, we thank Allison Peters and Kelly Witchen for copyediting and formatting content, respectively, and we appreciate publishing guidance from Rebecca Welzenbach and Jason Colman.

Lastly, we thank the authors that contributed to this volume. As sustainability issues become increasingly prescient in the world, contributors from all disciplines and all walks of life will need to collaborate in order to tackle our greatest challenges of the 21st century. We hope MJS provides a forum for contributors to communicate their ideas and be better connected to others in this important field, and we hope readers feel and share the impact of this scholarship with the world.

Sincerely,

Chase Dwelle and Nick Caverly

Co-Editors-in-Chief