Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Opportunity and Decisions about Environmental Change

该项目调查人们获得资源的机会、对风险的看法、信仰和价值观以及与地方的联系如何影响他们对环境变化的决定。 具体来说，这项研究使用人种学研究来研究两个城市的居民如何在洪水风险相似但人口差异很大的情况下做出关于洪水和更广泛的环境变化的决定。 这项研究将有助于了解这些住宅决策如何重塑沿海城市的地理位置。这项研究的结果将与有兴趣提高对环境变化的认识，特别是宣传其风险的利益攸关方有关。 他们也将是有用的设计适应变化，这可以通过考虑这些微观层面的决定accounted.This研究需要比较，纵向人种学研究跨越两年。 它涉及参与观察和采访来自不同社会经济背景的居民在两个洪水易发区。两个决策问题进行了探讨：第一，居民如何看待生活在低洼地区，洪水频繁的风险？第二，居民如何做出关于适应、迁移和留下的决定，这些过程需要什么？通过对这两个城市的比较，可以研究在两个不同的制度下如何应对气候变化。 特别关注三个可变的方面：国家和其他对居民的支持，住房存量的耐久性，以及居民对环境变化的意识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates how people's access to resources, perceptions of risk, beliefs and values, and ties to localities affect their decisions in response to change in their environment. Specifically, this study uses ethnographic research to look at how residents of two cities with similar heightened risks of flooding but very different populations make decisions about flooding and more broadly about environmental change. This research will contribute to understanding how these residential decisions may reshape geographies in coastal cities. Findings of this study will be relevant to stakeholders interested in increasing awareness of environmental change and in particular in communicating its risks. They will be useful also for designing adaptations to change, which can be enriched by taking these micro-level decisions into account.This study entails comparative, longitudinal ethnographic research spanning two years. It involves participant observation and interviews with residents from various socioeconomic backgrounds in two flood-prone neighborhoods. Two decision-making questions are explored: First, how do residents perceive the risks of living in low-lying neighborhoods that flood frequently? Second, how do residents make decisions about adaptation, moving, and staying, and what do these processes entail? Comparison of the two cities allows investigation of how coping with climate change varies greatly in two distinctive regimes. Attention is paid to three variable dimensions in particular: state and other support for residents, the durability of housing stock, and residents' awareness of environmental change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.