Cost Shared Wildfire Risk Mitigation in Log Hill Mesa, Colorado: Survey Evidence on Participation and Willingness to Pay

Wildland–urban interface (WUI) homeowners who do not mitigate the wildfire risk on their properties impose a negative externality on society. To reduce the social costs of wildfire and incentivise homeowners to take action, cost sharing programs seek to reduce the barriers that impede wildfire risk mitigation. Using survey data from a WUI community in western Colorado and a two-stage decision framework, we examine residents’ willingness to participate in a cost sharing program for removing vegetation on their properties and the amount they are willing to contribute to the cost of that removal. Wefind that different factors motivate decisions about participation and about how much to pay. Willingness to participate correlates with both financial and non-monetary considerations, including informational barriers and wildfire risk perceptions, but not with concerns about effectiveness or visual impacts. Residents of properties with higher wildfire risk levels are less likely to participate in the cost sharing than those with lower levels of wildfire risk. We find widespread, positive willingness to pay for vegetation removal, with the amount associated negatively with property size and positively with respondent income. These results can inform the development of cost sharing programs to encourage wildfire risk mitigation on private property

Methods for Evaluating Social Vulnerability to Drought

Social vulnerability to drought is complex and it is reflected by society’s capacity to anticipate, cope with and respond. Here we estimate these aspects of social vulnerability, evaluating the natural resource structure, the economic capacity, the human and civic resources, and aspects of agricultural innovation. These factors are components of a vulnerability index and they can be weighted appropriately in computing the final value of the index. In this chapter we present the results of the index under two valuation scenarios. For Scenario 1 all components are valued equally. For Scenario 2 the human resources component is given 50% of the weight, the economic and natural resource components are given 20% of the weight each, and the agricultural technology is given 10% of the weight. This reflects the assumption that a society with institutional capacity and coordination and mechanisms for public participation is less vulnerable to drought and that agriculture is only one of the sectors affected by drought. The vulnerability index establishes robust conclusions since the range of values across countries does not change with the assumptions under the two scenarios

Uncertainty in future global energy use and fossil fuel CO{sub 2} emissions 1975 to 2075: Appendices A--B

Appendix A contains the Monte Carlo Data Set. The data sheets give the distribution for input variables used in Monte Carlo analysis of the IEA/ORAU Global Energy, CO{sub 2} Model. The data sheets include a discussion of data sources, bibliographic sources, and other considerations used in developing the particular data format and values for distributions. As much detail as possible about how distributions are related to published estimates is given but in most cases it was necessary to make a significant leap from available data to the quantified distribution. The distributions are meant to be roughly accurate and to the degree that uncertainty exists about the form and value of distributions, the authors have tended to opt for wider bounds. Appendix B contains The IEA/ORAU Long-Term Global Energy-CO{sub 2} Model, Version A.84 -- Model Improvements. The model was originally developed in 1982 in support of work conducted for the US Department of Energy Carbon Dioxide Research Division in the area of future global fossil fuel related CO emissions research. The uncertainty analysis, documented in this report, made demands on the model that had not previously been made, and in the process of operating the model much was learned about areas in which simplification or elaboration was justified, or in which a different approach was warranted. As a consequence of these criticisms, demands, and learning numerous model modifications were undertaken. Since two versions of the model now exist, version specifications have been adopted. The 1984 version is designated A.84, while the version completed in 1982 is designated B.82. Model changes fall into three categories: those which affect the theoretical structure of the model, those which affect the computational processes of the model, and those which affect only the model by which model inputs are entered

Stress related epigenetic changes may explain opportunistic success in biological invasions in Antipode mussels

Different environmental factors could induce epigenetic changes, which are likely involved in the biological invasion process. Some of these factors are driven by humans as, for example, the pollution and deliberate or accidental introductions and others are due to natural conditions such as salinity. In this study, we have analysed the relationship between different stress factors: time in the new location, pollution and salinity with the methylation changes that could be involved in the invasive species tolerance to new environments. For this purpose, we have analysed two different mussels’ species, reciprocally introduced in antipode areas: the Mediterranean blue mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the New Zealand pygmy mussel Xenostrobus securis, widely recognized invaders outside their native distribution ranges. The demetylathion was higher in more stressed population, supporting the idea of epigenetic is involved in plasticity process. These results can open a new management protocols, using the epigenetic signals as potential pollution monitoring tool. We could use these epigenetic marks to recognise the invasive status in a population and determine potential biopollutants

Behavioral adaptation to climate change in wildfireâ prone forests

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146375/1/wcc553.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146375/2/wcc553_am.pd

How can health care organisations make and justify decisions about risk reduction? Lessons from a cross-industry review and a health care stakeholder consensus development process

Interventions to reduce risk often have an associated cost. In UK industries decisions about risk reduction are made and justified within a shared regulatory framework that requires that risk be reduced as low as reasonably practicable. In health care no such regulatory framework exists, and the practice of making decisions about risk reduction is varied and lacks transparency. Can health care organisations learn from relevant industry experiences about making and justifying risk reduction decisions? This paper presents lessons from a qualitative study undertaken with 21 participants from five industries about how such decisions are made and justified in UK industry. Recommendations were developed based on a consensus development exercise undertaken with 20 health care stakeholders. The paper argues that there is a need in health care to develop a regulatory framework and an agreed process for managing explicitly the trade-off between risk reduction and cost. The framework should include guidance about a health care specific notion of acceptable levels of risk, guidance about standardised risk reduction interventions, it should include regulatory incentives for health care organisations to reduce risk, and it should encourage the adoption of an approach for documenting explicitly an organisation’s risk position

The Vulnverability Cube: A Multi-Dimensional Framework for Assessing Relative Vulnerability

The diversity and abundance of information available for vulnerability assessments can present a challenge to decision-makers. Here we propose a framework to aggregate and present socioeconomic and environmental data in a visual vulnerability assessment that will help prioritize management options for communities vulnerable to environmental change. Socioeconomic and environmental data are aggregated into distinct categorical indices across three dimensions and arranged in a cube, so that individual communities can be plotted in a three-dimensional space to assess the type and relative magnitude of the communities’ vulnerabilities based on their position in the cube. We present an example assessment using a subset of the USEPA National Estuary Program (NEP) estuaries: coastal communities vulnerable to the effects of environmental change on ecosystem health and water quality. Using three categorical indices created from a pool of publicly available data (socioeconomic index, land use index, estuary condition index), the estuaries were ranked based on their normalized averaged scores and then plotted along the three axes to form a vulnerability cube. The position of each community within the three-dimensional space communicates both the types of vulnerability endemic to each estuary and allows for the clustering of estuaries with like-vulnerabilities to be classified into typologies. The typologies highlight specific vulnerability descriptions that may be helpful in creating specific management strategies. The data used to create the categorical indices are flexible depending on the goals of the decision makers, as different data should be chosen based on availability or importance to the system. Therefore, the analysis can be tailored to specific types of communities, allowing a data rich process to inform decision-making

Resistance and change in a depleted community: personal, pragmatic and paradoxical.

In this chapter, the authors explore entrepreneurial change in Stanton, a rural small town in New Zealand. This once-prosperous place has suffered economically and socially as its past core industries have vanished, and it can now be considered as a depleted community. Yet in recent years, the town has seen a rejuvenation, in part due to the endeavours of Sue, a high-profile entrepreneur from outside the town who has set up several businesses in the town and indeed in other small towns in the region. Theoretically, the authors take an entrepreneurial identity perspective in examining how Sue’s arrival has changed the town; the authors examine how her entrepreneurship was perceived as legitimate. The authors use a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews. The authors contribute in demonstrating how an ascribed entrepreneurial identity can not only enable but also hinder change in this community, generating confidence and emotional contagion around entrepreneurship, and also uncertainty and resentment. In doing so, the authors challenge the universality of entrepreneurship benefits