Forty-two water decision makers in cities in Utah were identified representing elected official positions as well as staff (e.g., public utilities, public works, etc.). Three valleys in the rapidly growing Northern Utah Wasatch Range Metropolitan Area (WRMA) are represented. In smaller cities where staff play multiple roles, those who performed some operations in water management were selected. Those selected for interviews were identified through city websites and, in a few cases, phone calls to city hall. Participants were contacted by email first and followed up telephone as needed.
All of the interviews were conducted in-person between November 2015 and July 2016. During this time, city elections complicated contact and identifying key informants. When able, we interviewed the incumbents. Only one potential respondent who had initially agreed to an interview canceled without follow-up, for a response rate of 97.6%. Interviews were audio-recorded and tended to last between 20 and 90 minutes each. Each interview was transcribed with the help of two transcribers and deductively coded for themes by a team of three using NVIVO 11 Pro. The team started with an a priori coding matrix based on the interview guide and allowed for additional themes to emerge through the revision of categories and the coding agenda, reaching inter-coder reliability (<80% kappa coefficient). The database in NVIVO titled CKI_project_TEAM contains 40 transcribed interviews. One interview was not coded due to irrelevance and the pilot interview was not coded. Interview 013 does not exist because the respondent canceled. Overall, coders maintained a range of kappa coefficients with % minimum agreement. The final agreement measurements were calculated on Interview 38 which was coded by all three coders. High dual-coder agreement was also attained on the following interviews: 001, 003, 004, and 011. Coders met weekly to retain alignment in nodes and definitions (qualitative agreement). Coders were instructed to code every respondent sentence to the period (quantitative agreement). If the respondent's answer was short (e.g., Yes/No), the coder coded the interview question along with the answer to retain context. Respondents were asked the following: 1) the one key water issue facing their city today; 2) if their city had an adequate water supply to meet their city’s needs today, and 3) did they think their city had an adequate water supply to meet their city’s needs in the future.