"It never rains in California": constructions of drought as a natural and social phenomenon

In response to suggestions that, in the West, inaction on climate change is due to climate change’s perceived temporal and spatial distance, we examine how people in California responded to the local influence of climate change in relation to the California drought in 2015. Between 2012 and 2016 California experienced an exceptionally severe drought resulting in a variety of social impacts. In this paper, we focus on how people experienced and understood drought (rather than on their views on the connection between anthropogenic climate change and drought). Seventy-one interviews were conducted during ten weeks of fieldwork in late 2015 with people in urban and rural areas of California. Five emerging themes are discussed: (i) conceptions of normality, (ii) location (inside versus outside urban areas), (iii) emotional responses, (iv) understanding the drought as a social and political phenomenon, and (v) marginalised experiences of the drought. Examining perceptions of drought can enhance our understanding of how people react to climate change and the construction of proximity and personal relevance

Underutilized resources for studying the evolution of invasive species during their introduction, establishment, and lag phases

The early phases of biological invasions are poorly understood. In particular, during the introduction, establishment, and possible lag phases, it is unclear to what extent evolution must take place for an introduced species to transition from established to expanding. In this study, we highlight three disparate data sources that can provide insights into evolutionary processes associated with invasion success: biological control organisms, horticultural introductions, and natural history collections. All three data sources potentially provide introduction dates, information about source populations, and genetic and morphological samples at different time points along the invasion trajectory that can be used to investigate preadaptation and evolution during the invasion process, including immediately after introduction and before invasive expansion. For all three data sources, we explore where the data are held, their quality, and their accessibility. We argue that these sources could find widespread use with a few additional pieces of data, such as voucher specimens collected at certain critical time points during biocontrol agent quarantine, rearing, and release and also for horticultural imports, neither of which are currently done consistently. In addition, public access to collected information must become available on centralized databases to increase its utility in ecological and evolutionary research

The Boundaries of Justice: The Challenges of Environmental Justice Assessments for Transportation Projects

Over recent decades, federal guidelines for transportation projects have required increasing attention to impacts on communities. Executive Order 12898 requires federal agencies to conduct environmental justice (EJ) assessments to determine if negative effects from projects will fall disproportionately on minority or low-income populations. Yet transportation agencies have not given specific guidance on the method for conducting such assessments. Therefore practitioners and researchers apply a variety of analytical techniques. This paper uses a case study of a planned road widening project in Daytona Beach, Florida, to compare the various methods currently used in EJ assessments. The choice of reference area and of method for determining the decision threshold for a finding of disproportionality are shown to have important implications for the outcome of an assessment. Because the spatial distribution of racial/ethnic and low-income groups will vary widely from place to place, practitioners and transportation agencies should not decide on the precise method, but carefully consider the characteristics and distribution of the data being used and select the method that most fairly represents the data distribution. Conducting genuine EJ assessments is not only required by federal regulations, but can head off conflicts, better reveal the true costs of projects, and allow for more equitable distribution of costs and benefits by better targeting mitigation efforts. Thus rather than shying away from EJ assessments, transportation agencies and practitioners should continue to explore methods and approaches.Master of City and Regional Plannin