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Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning
Watershed planning can lead to policy innovation and action toward environmental protection. However, groups often suffer from low engagement with communities that experience disparate impacts from flooding and water pollution. This can limit the capacity of watershed efforts to dismantle pernicious...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5929536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29715285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196416 |
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author | Cutts, Bethany B. Greenlee, Andrew J. Prochaska, Natalie K. Chantrill, Carolina V. Contractor, Annie B. Wilhoit, Juliana M. Abts, Nancy Hornik, Kaitlyn |
author_facet | Cutts, Bethany B. Greenlee, Andrew J. Prochaska, Natalie K. Chantrill, Carolina V. Contractor, Annie B. Wilhoit, Juliana M. Abts, Nancy Hornik, Kaitlyn |
author_sort | Cutts, Bethany B. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Watershed planning can lead to policy innovation and action toward environmental protection. However, groups often suffer from low engagement with communities that experience disparate impacts from flooding and water pollution. This can limit the capacity of watershed efforts to dismantle pernicious forms of social inequality. As a result, the benefits of environmental changes often flow to more empowered residents, short-changing the power of watershed-based planning as a tool to transform ecological, economic, and social relationships. The objectives of this paper are to assess whether the worldview of watershed planning actors are sufficiently attuned to local patterns of social vulnerability and whether locally significant patterns of social vulnerability can be adequately differentiated using conventional data sources. Drawing from 35 in-depth interviews with watershed planners and community stakeholders in the Milwaukee River Basin (WI, USA), we identify five unique definitions of social vulnerability. Watershed planners in our sample articulate a narrower range of social vulnerability definitions than other participants. All five definitions emphasize spatial and demographic characteristics consistent with existing ways of measuring social vulnerability. However, existing measures do not adequately differentiate among the spatio-temporal dynamics used to distinguish definitions. In response, we develop two new social vulnerability measures. The combination of interviews and demographic analyses in this study provides an assessment technique that can help watershed planners (a) understand the limits of their own conceptualization of social vulnerability and (b) acknowledge the importance of place-based vulnerabilities that may otherwise be obscured. We conclude by discussing how our methods can be a useful tool for identifying opportunities to disrupt social vulnerability in a watershed by evaluating how issue frames, outreach messages, and engagement tactics. The approach allows watershed planners to shift their own culture in order to consider socially vulnerable populations comprehensively. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5929536 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59295362018-05-11 Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning Cutts, Bethany B. Greenlee, Andrew J. Prochaska, Natalie K. Chantrill, Carolina V. Contractor, Annie B. Wilhoit, Juliana M. Abts, Nancy Hornik, Kaitlyn PLoS One Research Article Watershed planning can lead to policy innovation and action toward environmental protection. However, groups often suffer from low engagement with communities that experience disparate impacts from flooding and water pollution. This can limit the capacity of watershed efforts to dismantle pernicious forms of social inequality. As a result, the benefits of environmental changes often flow to more empowered residents, short-changing the power of watershed-based planning as a tool to transform ecological, economic, and social relationships. The objectives of this paper are to assess whether the worldview of watershed planning actors are sufficiently attuned to local patterns of social vulnerability and whether locally significant patterns of social vulnerability can be adequately differentiated using conventional data sources. Drawing from 35 in-depth interviews with watershed planners and community stakeholders in the Milwaukee River Basin (WI, USA), we identify five unique definitions of social vulnerability. Watershed planners in our sample articulate a narrower range of social vulnerability definitions than other participants. All five definitions emphasize spatial and demographic characteristics consistent with existing ways of measuring social vulnerability. However, existing measures do not adequately differentiate among the spatio-temporal dynamics used to distinguish definitions. In response, we develop two new social vulnerability measures. The combination of interviews and demographic analyses in this study provides an assessment technique that can help watershed planners (a) understand the limits of their own conceptualization of social vulnerability and (b) acknowledge the importance of place-based vulnerabilities that may otherwise be obscured. We conclude by discussing how our methods can be a useful tool for identifying opportunities to disrupt social vulnerability in a watershed by evaluating how issue frames, outreach messages, and engagement tactics. The approach allows watershed planners to shift their own culture in order to consider socially vulnerable populations comprehensively. Public Library of Science 2018-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5929536/ /pubmed/29715285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196416 Text en © 2018 Cutts et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Cutts, Bethany B. Greenlee, Andrew J. Prochaska, Natalie K. Chantrill, Carolina V. Contractor, Annie B. Wilhoit, Juliana M. Abts, Nancy Hornik, Kaitlyn Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title | Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title_full | Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title_fullStr | Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title_full_unstemmed | Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title_short | Is a clean river fun for all? Recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
title_sort | is a clean river fun for all? recognizing social vulnerability in watershed planning |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5929536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29715285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196416 |
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