Effectiveness of conservation messages to reduce households' GHG emissions: A serious-gaming experiment.

Households play a critical role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there have been few studies of household conservation from the perspective of the nexus of food, energy, and water (FEW) consumption. This study's objective is to understand the effects of different types of intervention messages for inducing conservation of FEW resources and reducing carbon emissions at the household level in the U.S. Employing a serious-gaming approach, we developed the HomeRUN (Home Role-play for Understanding the Nexus) game, which allows players to act as homeowners and take behavioral and technological upgrade actions in a computer-simulation setting. The types of messages tested include social comparisons and resource-reduction measures across FEW sectors as well as information about the health, economic, and environmental impacts of FEW consumption. A game experiment with U.S. university students finds that social-comparison messages on food and energy consumption, but not on water, lead to significant reductions in household carbon emissions. In addition, messages associated with each type of FEW resource tend to lead to an immediate action corresponding to the particular FEW domain. These insights support a prioritization of intervention messaging for coordinated FEW conservation efforts at a household level.

Green roles at home: exploring the impact of household social dynamic processes on consumption at the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus.

Capturing the social dynamic processes among household members that work to shape consumption patterns presents a complex problem for household resource conservation studies. To bridge the gap between the individual and household, we propose and test a series of quantitative measures that explore the underlying structure of household social dynamic processes through the lens of social practice theory. Based on previous qualitative research, we develop measures to test five distinct social dynamic processes that either encourage or deter pro-environmental action: enhancing, norming, preferring, constraining, and allocating. In a sample of households (n = 120) from suburban Midwestern USA, we find that positively framed social dynamic processes (enhancing and positive norming) positively predict variance in frequency of food-, energy-, and water-conserving pro-environmental actions. Pro-environmental orientation of the individual respondent, in turn, is positively associated with perception of positively framed dynamics. These findings suggest that social dynamic processes influence individual decision-making about household consumption, supporting previous research that illustrates consumption as embedded within the relationships that form residential life. We suggest ways forward for quantitative social science researchers to explore consumption through a practice-based approach that considers the influence of social institutions on emission-intensive lifestyles.

A meta-analysis of agricultural conservation intentions, behaviors, and practices: Insights from 35 years of quantitative literature in the United States.

Conservation practices (CPs) are integral to maintaining the long-term viability of agro-ecological systems. Because farming systems and farmers' values and attitudes are heterogeneous, factors that consistently predict conservation behaviors remain elusive. Moreover, heterogeneity is present among studies regarding the type of CPs examined, and whether behavioral intentions or actual behaviors were measured. This study considers the characteristics of each CP, and whether a given study measured behavioral intention or actual behavior, to better understand farmers' adoption of CPs. We reviewed and analyzed 35 years (1982-2017) of quantitative conservation adoption literature in the United States. We categorized CPs based on their primary purpose, the type of benefit they provide, and whether they are operational or structural. We also examined the following five CPs: conservation tillage, buffers or borders, soil testing, grassed waterways, and cover crops. In our behavioral intention and actual behavior analysis, we found that attitudinal factors predicted both conservation intention and action (actual behavior), whereas current or previous use of practices only influenced actions, not stated conservation intentions. In our analysis focusing on CP characteristics, we found that having specific knowledge about and positive attitudes toward the CP, adoption of other CPs, seeking and using information, larger farm size, and vulnerable land predicted actual adoption across nearly all CP categorizations. Nuances emerge when comparing predictors of CPs that share a particular characteristic. For example, we found farm characteristics to be comparatively more important in predicting adoption of soil management CPs than nutrient and livestock management CPs, and farmers' stewardship identity to be more important for permanent practices than operational practices.

Factors Influencing Family Forest Owners' Interest in Community-led Collective Invasive Plant Management.

Effective invasive plant management requires collective action. However, little is known about what motivates individuals to work collectively. We conducted a mail survey of 2,600 randomly selected family forest owners in Indiana, USA to examine factors associated with community-led collective action. Specifically, we examined the role of perceived self-efficacy, perceived collective efficacy, concerns about invasive plants, and social norms associated with invasive plant management in shaping family forest owners' self-reported likelihood to work with their neighbors to remove invasive plants. We found that past experience talking to others or working with neighbors to remove invasive plants were important predictors of landowners' intention to work collectively, as were perceived self-efficacy in their own ability to manage invasive plants, perceived need for collective action, social norms, and concerns about invasive plants on neighboring or nearby properties. However, most socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level, income) and land ownership characteristics (e.g., residence status, having a written forest management plan) were not statisically significant predictors of family forest owners' likelihood to work with their neighbors. Our findings suggest that building individual sense of competence, facilitating neighbor interactions, and strengthening shared concerns may facilitate community-led collective action to manage invasive plants.

Implementing Landscape Scale Conservation across Organizational Boundaries: Lessons from the Central Appalachian Region, United States.

Natural resources across the United States are increasingly managed at the landscape scale through cooperation among multiple organizations and landowners. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USFS) agency leaders have widely promoted this approach since 2009 when Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack called for "all lands" management. Landscape scale projects have been undertaken to address multiple goals such as single species conservation, resilience to fire, invasive species eradication, and others. The West Virginia Restoration Venture (WVRV)-one of five landscape scale conservation projects funded 2014-2016 across the Northeast and Midwest and known as "Joint Chiefs'" projects-was evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of USFS employees to gain insight into how cross-boundary landscape scale conservation projects are implemented in the region. In this paper, the team used qualitative interview data from project participants to explore processes related to developing a shared vision for the landscape, implementation priorities, and methods to work across institutional and property ownership boundaries. Grounded in the landscape and collaborative resource management literatures, the report shows how established inter-organizational networks, flexible approaches to management, and a "shelf-stock" of ready-to-implement projects led to on-the-ground success. The authors provide insight about factors that constrain and facilitate the implementation of landscape scale conservation projects that have multiple goals, landowners, and organizational partners.

Why farmers adopt best management practice in the United States: a meta-analysis of the adoption literature.

This meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies assesses factors believed to influence adoption of agricultural Best Management Practices in the United States. Using an established statistical technique to summarize the adoption literature in the United States, we identified the following variables as having the largest impact on adoption: access to and quality of information, financial capacity, and being connected to agency or local networks of farmers or watershed groups. This study shows that various approaches to data collection affect the results and comparability of adoption studies. In particular, environmental awareness and farmer attitudes have been inconsistently used and measured across the literature. This meta-analysis concludes with suggestions regarding the future direction of adoption studies, along with guidelines for how data should be presented to enhance the adoption of conservation practices and guide research.

Who's in charge: role clarity in a Midwestern watershed group.

Studies of collaborative watershed groups show that effective leadership is an important factor for success. This research uses data from in-depth interviews and meeting observation to qualitatively examine leadership in a Midwestern collaborative watershed group operating with government funding. One major finding was a lack of role definition for volunteer steering-committee members. Lack of role clarity and decision-making processes led to confusion regarding project management authority among the group, paid project staff members, and agency personnel. Given the important role of government grants for funding projects to protect water quality, this study offers insight into leadership issues that groups with Clean Water Act Section 319 (h) funds may face and suggestions on how to resolve them.