Our goal is to develop a framework of best practices for mitigating water pollutants that pose serious risks to human health and environmental quality in China, other developing economies, and the U.S by drawing on comparable experiences and lessons. Initial framework development via one year of funding will focus on the problem of managing disinfection byproducts. We will expand the framework – if funded over two additional years – by codifying best practices for managing regional collaboration and water transfers to ensure water quality and secure water supply. The initial problem we will examine is regulation of disinfection byproducts. These chemicals are present in U.S. and Chinese drinking water supplies and are carcinogenic at low concentrations. They are produced during the water treatment process via reactions between disinfectants and anthropogenic pollutants derived from industry, agriculture, and consumer products. This is a ubiquitous, difficult to manage issue that requires changes in how we manage rural landscapes, cities and the regulatory process itself. Our proposed solution, a handbook of best practices, will be developed through examining lessons from adaptive water governance: practices that emerge when rules, regulations, and laws are developed through broad stakeholder participation and cooperation between governments and formal non-governmental entities. We will glean these lessons through extensive literature reviews, stakeholder interviews, and workshops comprised of carefully-vetted case study participants in China and the U.S.