The role of proximity in problem identification: risk of water scarcity in Texas

Abstract

This project seeks to determine whether proximity to major water sources (e.g. rivers or lakes) is associated with the public's perception of water scarcity. From a theoretical perspective, this project will aid our collective understanding of problem identification. From a practical perspective, this relationship could help inform decision makers about where support or resistance to a water policy may be concentrated and allow more targeted efforts to help inform citizens about short- and long-term water policy needs. Knowing the influence of local conditions on public support for policy action is particularly important as water policies are primarily the domain of local and state governments. We utilize Geographical Information Systems to quantify the distances between survey respondents and various water sources to attempt to determine the effect individuals' proximity to water sources has on their opinions about water scarcity. The analyses reveal that proximity is a predictor of water scarcity perceptions, and the implications of these findings are discussed.

Politics, concern for future generations, and the environment: Generativity mediates political conservatism and environmental attitudes

“…One way to address this issue is through utilizing a multidimensional approach: one that considers both social issues (e.g., abortion) and economic issues (e.g., fiscal policy; Barnett, Öz, & Marsden, ; Everett, ). Similar limitations are found in studies of environmental attitudes, which often utilize brief unidimensional measures (Kitamura, Mokhtarian, & Laidet, ) or only addressing issues relating to one specific event (Mahafza, Stoutenborough, & Vedlitz, ; Wang, Lee, & Polonsky, ). Researchers have attempted to create a valid, standardized measure of environmental attitudes (Dietz, Stern, & Guagnano, ; Dunlap & Jones, ; Milfont & Duckitt, ), as there was still a lack of consensus with operationalizing key concepts (Heberlein, ), and measuring environmentalism as a latent construct, rather than observed.…”

“…One way to address this issue is through utilizing a multidimensional approach: one that considers both social issues (e.g., abortion) and economic issues (e.g., fiscal policy; Barnett, Öz, & Marsden, 2018;Everett, 2013). Similar limitations are found in studies of environmental attitudes, which often utilize brief unidimensional measures (Kitamura, Mokhtarian, & Laidet, 1997) or only addressing issues relating to one specific event (Mahafza, Stoutenborough, & Vedlitz, 2017;Wang, Lee, & Polonsky, 2018).…”

More green, fewer problems: landcover relates to perception of environmental problems

“…2004; Mahafza et al . 2017). Similarly, we found that higher water cover was associated with a greater perception of water‐quality problems, but a lower perception of other environmental problems, suggesting water cover (and in some cases streams specifically) may also improve perceptions of one's broader environment.…”

Unpacking the Influence of Major Cities on Corporate Environmental Performance in China: A Perspective of Spatial Knowledge Spillover

“…Following DeBoer, this study utilizes Google Map software to calculate the driving distance between target firm and the central point of the major city, the driving distance could reflect the accessibility and convenience of communication between socio-economic entities (Husted et al, 2016;DeBoer et al, 2017). Based on the operational definition from Mahafzaa (Mahafza et al, 2017), we adopt the logarithm of the driving distance between the firm's location and the city center point as the measurement of proximity to major cities. Also, in case that the target firm's distance to the central point is less than 1 km, we increase all the measured distance by 1 km before taking the logarithm (Broekel and Boschma, 2011).…”