Environmental risk perceptions of shale gas development in Oklahoma and Colorado: A quantitative and spatial examination

Shale gas development is a dominant economic force in the United States, with most crude oil production occurring in just five states—each of which has experienced environmental hazards associated with the extractive industry. Colorado and Oklahoma, adjacent states among the top producers of crude oil in the U.S., have accounted for similar oil and gas production and experienced similar hazards, including induced seismicity, fracturing fluid spills and leaks, and landscape degradation (among others). Even so, policy and public responses to shale gas development in Colorado and Oklahoma have varied, in line with findings across the literature on shale gas development that indicate divergent responses to shale gas development in the United States. Informed by the literature and insights provided by a synthesis of relevant theoretical frameworks, this dissertation addresses a single, guiding research question ‘what shapes environmental risk perceptions of shale gas development in Oklahoma and Colorado.’ Using quantitative (structural equation modeling) and spatial inquiry (geographically weighted regression and Getis-Ord Gi* analysis) this dissertation identifies key factors that shape environmental risk perceptions across surveyed counties in Colorado and Oklahoma

Measuring User Satisfaction for the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure Consortium

The User Forum is a Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI)-wide group focused on providing the NHERI Council with independent advice on community user satisfaction, priorities, and needs relating to the use and capabilities of NHERI. The User Forum has representation across NHERI activities, including representatives working directly with the Network Coordination Office (NCO), Education and Community Outreach (ECO), Facilities Scheduling, and Technology Transfer efforts. The User forum also provides feedback on the NHERI Science Plan. As the community voice within the governance of NHERI, the User Forum is composed of members nominated and elected by the NHERI community for a specified term of 1–2 years. User Forum membership spans academia and industry, the full breadth of civil engineering and social science disciplines, and widespread hazard expertise including earthquakes, windstorms, and water events. One of the primary responsibilities of the User Forum is to conduct an annual community user satisfaction survey for NHERI users, and publish a subsequent Annual Community Report. Measuring user satisfaction and providing this feedback to the NHERI Council is critical to supporting the long-term sustainability of NHERI and its mission as a multidisciplinary and multi-hazard network. In this paper, the role and key activities of the User Forum are described, including User Forum member election procedures, User Forum member representation and roles across NHERI activities, and the processes for measuring and reporting user satisfaction. This paper shares the user satisfaction survey distributed to NHERI users, and discusses the challenges to measuring community user satisfaction based on the definition of user. Finally, this paper discusses the evolving approaches of measuring user satisfaction using other methods, including engaging with the twelve NHERI research infrastructures

Effective stakeholder engagement in environmental problem-solving though group model building: An Oklahoma case study

Stakeholder engagement is a vital, yet under-accessed and under-studied, resource for tackling wicked environmental problems. This paper examines mental models – cognitive representations of “real” systems – refined through group model building (GMB) with stakeholders concerned with environmental issues in the US state of Oklahoma. During GMB, a diverse group of high-level decision makers met with a variety of physical and social scientists to collaborate on mental models concerning three environmental focus areas in Oklahoma: encroachment of eastern red cedar, grid and infrastructure resilience, and marginal water use and re-use. We ask: how do individuals from diverse stakeholder groups describe causes and consequences of key environmental problems in Oklahoma? Results from this analysis advance efforts toward developing socially sustainable solutions for environmental problems in Oklahoma and beyond