Risk Perceptions of Natural Hazards: Community Water System Managers in Pennsylvania and South Carolina

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. O'Connor ◽  
Richard J. Bord ◽  
Kirstin Dow ◽  
Brent Yarnal
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Water System ◽  
Community Water

Agricultural human-water systems: challenges, advances, and knowledge gaps

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Medeiros ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Thushara Gunda ◽  
Pieter van Oel ◽  
Giulia Vico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Water System ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Agricultural Water ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales

<p>Dynamic interactions between humans and water have produced unanticipated feedbacks, leading to unsustainability. Current water management practices are unable to capture the relevant spatial and temporal detail of the processes that drive the coupled human-water system. Whereas natural and socioeconomic processes occur slowly, local communities and individuals rapidly respond to ensure supply-demand balance. In this context, agricultural human-water systems stand out, as roughly 70% of global water demand is for agricultural uses. Additionally, interactions between humans and agricultural water systems involve many actors and occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales. For example, farmers are influenced by risk perceptions, and decisions made at the farm level influence regional hydrologic and socioeconomic systems, such as degradation and depletion of water sources as well as prices of crops. Regional behaviors, in turn, affect national and international dynamics associated with crop production and trade of associated investments. On the other hand, global and national priorities can also percolate down to the regional and local levels, influencing farmer decision-making through policies and programs supporting production of certain crops and local investments. Over the last decade, relevant phenomena in the coupled agricultural human-water systems have been described, as the irrigation efficiency paradox, reservoir effect, and river basin closure. Along with the globalization in the food market, attempts have been taken to developing and applying benchmarks for water-efficient food production, focusing on water productivities, water footprints and yield gaps for agricultural products. Furthermore, significant advancements have been achieved by incorporating social dimensions of agricultural human-water systems behavior. Fusion of quantitative datasets via observations, remote sensing retrieval, and physically-based models has been explored. Advancements have also been made to capture qualitative or relatively intangible concepts of community values, norms, and behaviors, by interacting with stakeholders, identifying the most important elements of their environments, and incorporating these insights into socio-hydrological models. Based on what has been done during the IAHS Panta Rhei decade and what we have learned, and despite recent efforts towards a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of human interventions in agricultural systems, several challenges persist, of which we highlight: 1) Identification of the cross-scale causal effect on agricultural water uses; 2) Quantification of human behavior uncertainties shaped by social norms and cultural values; 3) Development of a high spatial and temporal resolution global dataset.</p>

scholarly journals If They Like You, They Learn from You: How a Brief Weathercaster-Delivered Climate Education Segment Is Moderated by Viewer Evaluations of the Weathercaster

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley A. Anderson ◽  
Teresa A. Myers ◽  
Edward W. Maibach ◽  
Heidi Cullen ◽  
Jim Gandy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Heat Wave ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Tv Viewing ◽  
Significant Interaction Effect ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
Local Manifestation ◽  
Promising Source

Abstract Local television (TV) weathercasters are a potentially promising source of climate education, in that weather is the primary reason viewers watch local TV news, large segments of the public trust TV weathercasters as a source of information about global warming, and extreme weather events are increasingly common (Leiserowitz et al.; U.S. Global Change Research Program). In an online experiment conducted in two South Carolina cities (Greenville, n = 394; Columbia, n = 352) during and immediately after a summer heat wave, the effects on global warming risk perceptions were examined following exposure to a TV weathercast in which a weathercaster explained the heat wave as a local manifestation of global warming versus exposure to a 72-h forecast of extreme heat. No main effect of the global warming video on learning was found. However, a significant interaction effect was found: subjects who evaluated the TV weathercaster more positively were positively influenced by the global warming video, and viewers who evaluated the weathercaster less positively were negatively influenced by the video. This effect was strongest among politically conservative viewers. These results suggest that weathercaster-delivered climate change education can have positive, albeit nuanced, effects on TV-viewing audiences.

scholarly journals Climate change adaptation: the case of coastal communities in the Philippines

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-133
Author(s):  
Ericson Peñalba ◽  
Albert David ◽  
Michael Mabanta ◽  
Chaddlyn Samaniego ◽  
Sheryl Ellamil
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Community Setting ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Coastal Community ◽  
Combination Of Methods ◽  
Adaptation Practices

Climate change poses challenges and risks to coastal communities, and the adaptation of local residents is a critically relevant issue that needs to be addressed in the policymaking process. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the perceptions and experiences of climate change among coastal community residents in the Philippines. This study used a combination of methods, such as participatory mapping exercises, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and document analyses. The data, which were primarily collected from three coastal villages in the province of Bulacan, were subjected to a thematic network analysis. The findings revealed four dominant themes pertaining to climate change adaptation in a coastal community setting: vulnerability conditions, risk awareness, risk perceptions, and climate change awareness and perceptions. In particular, it was found out that the communities were exposed to the threats of natural hazards like flood and storm surge. Such exposure highlighted the residents' concerns over the risks of hazards on their livelihoods and properties. The residents also observed the unpredictability and the worsening effects of climate change. With their direct experiences of the natural hazards' impacts and awareness of the presence of risks, residents had undertaken actions to build their adaptive capacity. This study then highlights the value of integrating local knowledge into the mapping exercises, revealing crucial information regarding vulnerabilities, risks, and adaptation practices.

scholarly journals Approximating Community Water System Service Areas to Explore the Demographics of SDWA Compliance in Virginia

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 13254
Author(s):  
Cristina Marcillo ◽  
Leigh-Anne Krometis ◽  
Justin Krometis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Water System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drinking Water Quality ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Community Water ◽  
Service Areas

Although the United States Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) theoretically ensures drinking water quality, recent studies have questioned the reliability and equity associated with community water system (CWS) service. This study aimed to identify SDWA violation differences (i.e., monitoring and reporting (MR) and health-based (HB)) between Virginia CWSs given associated service demographics, rurality, and system characteristics. A novel geospatial methodology delineated CWS service areas at the zip code scale to connect 2000 US Census demographics with 2006–2016 SDWA violations, with significant associations determined via negative binomial regression. The proportion of Black Americans within a service area was positively associated with the likelihood of HB violations. This effort supports the need for further investigation of racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to safe drinking water within the United States in particular and offers a geospatial strategy to explore demographics in other settings where data on infrastructure extents are limited. Further interdisciplinary efforts at multiple scales are necessary to identify the entwined causes for differential risks in adverse drinking water quality exposures and would be substantially strengthened by the mapping of official CWS service boundaries.

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