COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Feeling the Squeeze: How Financial Stress Shapes Decision Making and Risk for Drinking Water Systems in U.S. Cities

合作研究：感受到压力：财务压力如何影响美国城市饮用水系统的决策和风险

• 批准号: 2048505
• 负责人: Sara Hughes
• 金额: $ 21.81万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-03-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2048505&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: COLLABORATIVE; RESEARCH; Feeling; Squeeze; How

Across the nation, cities face immense fiscal stress brought about by the confluence of increased demands for critical city services – including drinking water, education, transportation, fire protection, and housing – and precipitous declines in revenues needed to support those increased demands. Decisions made under conditions of fiscal stress may erode and undermine the resilience of these critical city services by impeding the ability of water managers to respond to today’s challenges and plan for an uncertain future, while maintaining affordable and equitable service delivery. Financial stress therefore presents a significant risk to the resilience of the services upon which millions of people depend. Despite these risks, the effects of financial stress on decision making by city governments and the influence of local political, institutional, and physical contexts on decision making is poorly understood. This award supports fundamental research that addresses this fundamental gap in knowledge. Specifically, this research advances understanding of the ways that financial stress affects decision making and resilience of drinking water systems, produces actionable knowledge that improves equity and resilience of drinking water systems, generates a new, publicly accessible database, and educates and trains students and water professionals about the intersection of fiscal stress, risk and resilience, and equity in municipal decision making. This research advances empirical and theoretical understanding of the relationship between financial stress, fiscal behavior, and resilience using a novel mixed methods approach. This research also advances practical understanding of how financial stress affects decision making and resilience in municipal drinking water systems and generates a novel, integrative, publicly accessible database of municipal government spending and revenue, political and institutional context, drinking water system conditions, and demographics. Results from this research provide scholars with new theoretical insights for understanding the relationship between fiscal stress, behavior, and resilience and its implications for equity in public services, and provide actionable insights to support effective interventions to improve equitable resilience now and in the future. This research trains a postdoc and graduate and undergraduate students including those from underrepresented groups including women, students of color, and first-generation students in rigorous, interdisciplinary research and engagement.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.

在全国范围内，城市面临着巨大的财政压力，这是由于对关键城市服务（包括饮用水、教育、交通、消防和住房）的需求增加以及支持这些需求所需的收入急剧下降所带来的。在财政紧张的情况下作出的决定可能会削弱和破坏这些重要城市服务的复原力，因为这会阻碍水管理人员应对当今挑战和规划不确定未来的能力，同时维持负担得起和公平的服务提供。因此，财政压力对数百万人所依赖的服务的复原力构成重大风险。尽管存在这些风险，财政压力对城市政府决策的影响以及当地政治、制度和物理环境对决策的影响仍知之甚少。该奖项支持基础研究，解决知识的这一根本差距。具体而言，这项研究促进了对财政压力影响饮用水系统决策和恢复力的方式的理解，产生了可操作的知识，提高了饮用水系统的公平性和恢复力，生成了一个新的，可公开访问的数据库，并教育和培训学生和水专业人员关于财政压力，风险和恢复力以及市政决策公平性的交叉点。本研究使用一种新的混合方法，推进了对金融压力、财政行为和弹性之间关系的实证和理论理解。这项研究还推动了对财政压力如何影响市政饮用水系统决策和恢复力的实际理解，并产生了一个新颖的，综合的，公开访问的市政府支出和收入，政治和体制背景，饮用水系统条件和人口统计数据库。这项研究的结果为学者提供了新的理论见解，以了解财政压力，行为和弹性之间的关系及其对公共服务公平性的影响，并提供可操作的见解，以支持有效的干预措施，以提高现在和未来的公平弹性。该研究培训博士后和研究生和本科生，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体，包括妇女，有色人种学生和第一代学生在严格的，跨学科的研究和参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

项目成果

The Municipal Drinking Water Database

市政饮用水数据库

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000081
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: PLOS Water
• 作者: Hughes, Sara;Kirchhoff, Christine J.;Conedera, Katelynn;Friedman, Mirit
• 通讯作者: Friedman, Mirit