(Introduction)

The importance of understanding environmental cognitions for effective environmental management is increasingly recognized within sustainability science. Along with advancements in theorizations about cognitions in general and perceptions in specific, analyses of environmental cognitions in particular contexts are indispensable for effective environmental planning processes.

(Objective)

In this article, environmental perceptions of fluvial water quality and its associated threats are examined for 109 land managers from 15 communities in the Savegre river watershed in Costa Rica.

(Methodology)

Perceptions were captured through face-to-face surveys and analyzed through non-parametric statistical tests and ranking techniques.

(Results)

Environmental perceptions vary significantly among watershed sectors, ranges of distances to the river, types of primary productive activities, and formal education levels. Moreover, forest cover and environmental protection regimes are perceived as key factors favoring fluvial water quality, while the disfavoring factors and priority threats were almost entirely related with productive activities within the watershed, especially the expansion of the agricultural and cattle frontiers, aquaculture and destructive fishing, and agrochemical pollution.

(Conclusions)

It is concluded that, in this watershed, environmental perceptions about fluvial water quality are determined in large part by geographical and contextual factors, and that land managers show perceptual patterns suggesting recognition of ecological impacts of the same productive activities that have been taking place in the watershed for the last decades.