1 / 13

Katie Dickinson Working with Hannah Brenkert -Smith, Patricia Champ, and Nicholas Flores

Wildfire in Colorado: Understanding the role of social interactions and risk perceptions in shaping households’ mitigation behaviors. Katie Dickinson Working with Hannah Brenkert -Smith, Patricia Champ, and Nicholas Flores. Katie Dickinson , environmental economist.

bryga
Download Presentation

Katie Dickinson Working with Hannah Brenkert -Smith, Patricia Champ, and Nicholas Flores

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Wildfire in Colorado: Understanding the role of social interactions and risk perceptions in shaping households’ mitigation behaviors Katie Dickinson Working with Hannah Brenkert-Smith, Patricia Champ, and Nicholas Flores

  2. Katie Dickinson, environmental economist Research interest: What motivates individual actions that affect environmental, health, and economic outcomes? • Past projects: • Sanitation choices in India • Malaria prevention and treatment behaviors in Tanzania • Mosquito control in Wisconsin • Current projects at NCAR: • Wildfire mitigation behaviors in Colorado • Cookstove use and meningitis in Ghana • Urban vulnerability to climate change • Hurricane warning information and evacuation decisions in Miami Overarching questions: What benefits and costs do people consider when making decisions in the face of risk? How do social networks shape behaviors? How can a better understanding of human behaviors inform more effective policies and programs? Relevance to NCAR: Understanding the societal impacts of weather and climate requires an understanding of behavioral responses to risk

  3. Background on Wildfire • Wildfire as part of the natural regime in CO, but combination of factors affecting frequency and impacts • Centralized policies & government action can’t fix the problem… homeowners’ behaviors on private property are key • What drives these behaviors?

  4. A Simple Economic Model • If the perceived probability of having a fire on your property is pf, you will choose to mitigate if: • Cm< pf(D – Dm) • Cost of mitigation < Prob of fire * ∆ in damages • We can get more people to mitigate by: • Decreasing mitigation costs (cm) • Increasing perceived probability of fire (pf) • Increasing perceived damages from fire (D) and/or perceived effectiveness of mitigation (D – Dm)

  5. The Role of Social Interactions Cm < pf (D – Dm) • Mitigation choices of neighbors and social contacts can affect risk perceptions: • How likely is it that a fire will occur? (pf) • How bad will it be if it does? (D – Dm) • How much will my actions decrease damages in the event of a fire? (D, D – Dm) • But social interactions can also affect costs: • What kinds of mitigation options are available? • How do I go about mitigating? • How much will mitigation decrease the quality of my landscape? • Will I face social costs if I do/don’t mitigate? • Will you help me?

  6. R Risk Perceptions The Role of Social Interactions M Fire Mitigation Behaviors S Social Interactions effects operating through other social pathways, e.g., learning, norms effects operating through risk perceptions

  7. Wildfire Study Overview • Phase 1: Analysis of 2007 and 2010 Boulder & Larimer County datasets (now – Spring 2012) • What relationships between S, R, and M do we observe in a sample of 700 homeowners? • Phase 2: Experimental studies in 3-4 Western Slope communities (site selection and initial interviews Summer 2011, NSF proposal Nov ’11) • If we change S, R , or M for some people, how do others’ behaviors change?

  8. Boulder/Larimer County Analysis Variables: M Structural Defensive space (30 ft) Defensive space (30-100 ft) R Fire probability Fire impacts S Physical proximity “Generic” social interactions (participation in community groups) Fire-related interactions (talking about fire, attending fire events) Perceptions of neighbors’ behaviors X County, Age, Gender, • Analyses: • Social amplification of risk? • R=f(S, X) • Determinants of mitigation? • M=f(S, X) • M=f(R, X) • M=f(S, R, X)

  9. Results: Social Amplification of Risk • Both formal and informal interactions associated with risk perceptions • Fire-related interactions matter more than generic interactions • What neighbors do may matter more than what we talk about… actions speak louder than words?

  10. Results: Mitigation Behaviors • Results depend on how mitigation is measured: • Neither S nor R strongly associated with structural • Both S and R associated with dspace30 • Only S associated with dspace100 • Evidence for substitution? As neighbors do more, I do less?

  11. R Boulder/Larimer Limitations and Opportunities M S • Cross sectional data makes causality very hard to determine • Possible solution: 2010 data… Looking at changes in behavior over time • An alternative direction… cluster analysis • Are there different types of individuals that show different S-R-M patterns?

  12. Experiments • Computer-based experiments: • Participants choose mitigation on parcel • Fire simulated & respondents observe results • Experimental conditions: • Collaboration between participants? • Decisions simultaneous or in sequence? • Aid of wildfire expert? • Field experiments • Baseline data includes full census with all social linkages • Incentives randomly provided to community members, then observe how incentives affect own & contacts’ behaviors

  13. Questions or suggestions welcome!

More Related