Information flows around agricultural best management practices in central Pennsylvania

This dataset was collected between February and April 2019, to assess the information network of agricultural Best-Management Practices (BMPs) in central Pennsylvania, a sub-region of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. It contains information flows (or "messages") relating to 16 specific BMPs, including: the BMP it relates to (e.g. riparian buffers, manure management planning, no-till, cover-cropping, etc.); the source and target of the information (actors); the kind of message (e.g. funding, regulation, technical assistance, etc.); the weight (strength) of messages (only for those received by farmers directly). Over 3900 messages/information flows were recorded, involving 57 actors. This data was used to conduct the study "Navigating agricultural nonpoint source pollution governance: A social network analysis of best management practices in central Pennsylvania".