Influence of wildfire risk perception on agricultural land management decisions

一些类型的农业环境保护计划被称为环境服务付费(PES)，为农场和牧场主提供财政激励，以促进减少土壤侵蚀、保护野生动物栖息地和改善流域。然而，在过去的三十年里，农业草原上的干旱和野火显著增加。来自保护储备计划(CRP)的资金鼓励农民休耕，然而，有一种看法是，休耕土地允许生物量的积累，这些生物量可以作为野火的燃料，从而导致更大、更频繁的火灾。这个项目调查了土地所有者对野火风险的感知如何影响他们的土地管理决策，以参与受激励的保护计划。记录和分析农村保护工作和土地所有者对激励计划的反应，以及他们对野火风险的看法，可以提供关于这些极端事件如何影响激励保护计划的效力的关键信息。该项目利用当地农民的利益攸关方参与，将促进管理和保护农业环境的最佳做法。这一知识有助于政策制定者和土地所有者就保护计划做出有效的决策。研究生和本科生在跨学科STEM研究和方法方面受到指导。虽然促进健康农地的激励计划是管理土地所有者决策的新环境法的热门替代方案，但人们对这些激励计划在缓解野火方面的有效性知之甚少。利用与调查和半结构化访谈相结合的地理空间分析，农村土地管理者、农民和牧场主提供了他们对CRP土地和邻近财产(包括牧场、农田和农村住宅)上野火的经验、看法和应对措施。这项研究提供了有关土地所有者对野火风险的认知如何影响保护土地管理决策的数据，并评估了保护计划和实践在减轻野火发生和规模方面的后续影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Some types of agri-environmental conservation programs, known as Payments for Environmental Services (PES), provide financial incentives to owners of farms and ranchers that promote the reduction of soil erosion, the protection of wildlife habitat, and improved watersheds. However, droughts and wildfires in agricultural grasslands have increased significantly over the last three decades. Funds from one such program, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), encourages farmers to let fields lie fallow, however there is a perception that fallow lands allow for buildup of biomass that can serve as fuel for wildfires that cause larger and more frequent fires. This project investigates how landowner perceptions of wildfire risk inform their land management decisions to participate in incentivized conservation programs. Documenting and analyzing rural conservation efforts and responses of landowners to incentive programs coupled with their perceptions of wildfire risk provides critical information on how these extreme events impact the efficacy of incentivized conservation programs. This project employs stakeholder engagement of local farmers that will promote best-practices for managing and conserving agricultural environments. This knowledge assists both policy makers and landowners to make effective decisions about conservation programs. Graduate and undergraduate students are mentored in interdisciplinary STEM research and methods. While incentive programs that promote healthy agricultural land are popular alternatives to new environmental laws that govern landowner decisions, little is known about the effectiveness of these incentive programs to mitigate wildfires. Using a mix of geospatial analysis integrated with a survey and semi-structured interviews, rural land managers, farmers and ranchers provide their experiences with, perceptions of, and responses to wildfire on CRP lands and adjacent properties that include rangeland, agricultural fields, and rural residences. This research provides data on how landowner perceptions of wildfire risk influence conservation land management decisions and assesses the subsequent impact that conservation programs and practices have on mitigating the occurrence and size of wildfire.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.