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

在全国范围内，城市面临着巨大的财政压力，原因是对关键城市服务--包括饮用水、教育、交通、消防和住房--的需求增加，以及支持这些增长的需求所需的收入急剧下降。在财政紧张的情况下作出的决定可能会削弱这些关键城市服务的复原力，因为这会阻碍水管理者应对当今的挑战和规划不确定的未来，同时保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，但人们对财政压力对城市政府决策的影响以及地方政治、制度和自然环境对决策的影响知之甚少。该奖项支持解决这一根本知识鸿沟的基础研究。具体地说，这项研究促进了对财政压力影响饮用水系统决策和弹性的方式的理解，产生了改善饮用水系统公平和弹性的可行知识，生成了一个新的可公开访问的数据库，并就财政压力、风险和弹性以及市政决策中的公平的交集对学生和水专业人员进行了教育和培训。本研究采用一种新的混合方法对财务压力、财政行为和韧性之间的关系进行了实证和理论上的理解。这项研究还促进了人们对财政压力如何影响市政饮用水系统的决策和恢复能力的实际理解，并生成了一个新的、综合的、可公开访问的数据库，其中包括市政府支出和收入、政治和机构背景、饮用水系统状况和人口统计数据。这项研究的结果为学者理解财政压力、行为和韧性之间的关系及其对公共服务公平的影响提供了新的理论见解，并为支持当前和未来提高公平韧性的有效干预提供了可操作的见解。这项研究培训博士后、研究生和本科生，包括那些来自代表不足的群体的学生，包括女性、有色人种学生和第一代学生，进行严格的、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。

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.