Recipient Organization
RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
3 RUTGERS PLZA
NEW BRUNSWICK,NJ 08901-8559
Performing Department
Human Ecology
Non Technical Summary
While many studies have investigated public opinion on climate change and some studies have been undertaken about the public's perceptions and valuation of forests, this will be the first study that investigates specifically how the public sees the issue of forests and climate change. Climate change is expected to directly impact forests by altering forest ecosystem processes and biodiversity. Climate change is also expected to increase the frequency and strength of forest disturbances via fire, drought, introduced species, insect and pathogen outbreaks, hurricanes, wind storms, and ice storms.Foresters are expected to adapt their management of forests based on these changes. In addition, maintaining and increasing forest area and density can be part of a strategy to mitigate the causes of climate change by sequestering carbon. Public uses of forests (both consumptive and non-consumptive) will be altered by climate change impacts and by the mitigation and adaptation measures implemented. We theorize that residents of areas where increased forest fires or other disruptions have already been experienced will be more aware of the threats posed by climate change than others. This research project will document how the public currently uses forests, their awareness of climate change-induced threats to the forests and forests role in mitigating climate change, and the level of support for a variety of mitigation and adaptive measures. We will produce these answers by conducting and analyzinga high quality national survey with an oversample of rural populations in four large (public or at least mixed) forested areas in each U.S. region.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
50%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
The major goals of this project areto 1)understandthe levels of support for a range of forest adaptation and mitigation measures andwhat variables influence support and 2) identify whether there are differences in risk perception and support for forest adaption and mitigation measures in the four selected forested regions of the U.S. To accomplish these goals, we will:1) Develop a high quality national survey that has reliable measures of our variables of interest2) Field the first national level investigation (with an oversample in forested areas in the four census regions) of the public views on climate change. This survey will collect data to answer the questions:a. What do American's value about their forests? What do they use local or national forests for? b. What (if any) threats do Americans perceive climate change poses to their forests?c. What is the level of public acceptance of forest adaptation and mitigation management policies and what factors influence these levels ofpublicacceptance?3) Analyze this data and disseminate the results of this project to researchers and stakeholder groups like educators and foresters.
Project Methods
ProcedureThis research will proceed over the course of three years. In general, year one will focus on survey measure and questionnaire development. Year two will focus on fielding the survey and cleaning data. Year three will focus on analyzing and writing up the results and disseminating them through scientific publications, on-line summaries, and in-person discussions.The first year will be used to meet our first objective of developing reliable measures and an implementable questionnaire. First, a more exhaustive literature review will be undertaken by a post-doc trained in climate change and forest science to identify any potentially significant independent or dependent variables that should be included that aren't yet. The current literature review has identified several well-established measures (particularly for many independent variables discussed) that we will utilize where appropriate. We will also want to customize some questions as needed along with developing new measures where gaps have been identified. The dependent mitigation and adaptation measures will be developed in conjunction with forest and climate change experts and a range of forest users to identify those most likely to be considered by managers in a range of regions and those likely to be salient to a range of forest users in different regions. After receiving Institutional Review Board approval for human subjects we will carefully pre-test the questionnaire using cognitive methods to ensure that respondents can understand the question in a consistent way that is aligned with our intended research question.In year two we will execute our second objective of fielding the survey. The survey sample will be a generally representation sample of the U.S. public (n=500) with an oversample of 250 in a selected heavily forested location in each of the four statistical census areas (the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, and the West). This provides a total sample of 1500. Mail surveys are high cost and the information being asked in this survey is not highly sensitive (which is when self-administered mail surveys are useful) and so it is unlikely mail surveys would be used. Depending on the resulting length of the survey and budget available, the survey would be conducted on-line, by telephone, or a mix of both. The PI has experience managing surveys and relationships with several survey research firms. Once the year 2 budget is decided, the research team would write a request for proposals detailing the goals of the survey, sample requirements, and statement of work detailing the tasks we expect the firm to execute. The PI would manage the competitive bid process and oversee the work for quality assurance (i.e. checking data for response bias, etc.)The third year will be dedicated to our third objective of analyzing and disseminating the findings of our research to relevant researchers and stakeholders. This will include analyzing the data, writing up the results for publication, and disseminating these results. The current version of SPSS will be used to conduct multivariate regression analyses. We foresee two likely papers emerging from the dataset. The first would focus on the sample of the general public and investigate what variables are correlated with support for various forest adaptation and mitigation measures. The second paper would investigate differences in risk perception and policy support and what variables account for these differences across the four forested regions oversampled. We will submit the articles to peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Forestry, Society and Natural Resources, and Rural Sociology. The summary of these findings would be written up in a 2-sided pamphlet that focuses on key findings and implications for foresters and educators working to engage the public. The pamphlet will be distributed electronically and distributed at any conferences or workshops (such as American Forests, Communities Committee for the 7th American Forest Conference, or Society of American Foresters) the researchers get funding to attend.