Tag: Social science

Voices Unbound: New perspectives on environmental challenges

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A group of researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma asked more than a thousand people in Pierce County what they viewed as their most important environmental challenges. Nursing professor Robin Evans-Agnew will present some of the findings from the Voices Unbound project on Monday, March 22nd. Most of the people who wandered by the Voices Unbound booth at the Washington State Fair were not policymakers or scientists. They had never been to a meeting of the governor’s Orca Task Force nor had they publicly debated the best policies for […]

Social scientists analyze public reactions to orca crisis

Orca report cover
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Social scientists at Oregon State University have been analyzing a trove of more than 17,000 public comments sent to the Washington state governor’s southern resident orca recovery task force. The researchers have added the comments to a keyword database to look at public emotions and perceptions around the issue of orca declines. The orca task force was created in March 2018 after media reports of sick and dying whales prompted widespread public concern and led to a groundswell of activity to try to save the endangered whales from extinction. Since […]

Survey shows Puget Sound residents prefer natural shorelines to armored ones

Report cover
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By Jeff Rice, Puget Sound Institute Shoreline armoring not only damages the ecosystem, it may also impact our ‘sense of place’ and enjoyment of the environment, according to a 2019 report from Oregon State University. The report is based on surveys of both property owners and non-property owners in Puget Sound. More than 66% of survey respondents indicated that natural attributes were a strong part of their connection to Puget Sound’s shorelines. The report’s author, Dr. David Trimbach of Oregon State University’s Human Dimensions Lab, argues that environmentally damaging shoreline […]

Do financial incentives motivate farmers to conserve land?

Riparian buffers are strips of trees and shrubs along stream sides. They filter nutrients and chemicals, shade and protect the stream, and provide habitat for birds, insects and fish. Photo courtesy of USDA.
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Occasionally, this space includes reports and essays from guest writers on the subject of Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. Today’s guest blog is from Mollie Chapman, who received funding from the Puget Sound Institute in 2013 to study how financial incentives influence decisions by farmers to conserve ecologically important land. By Mollie Chapman Would you undertake conservation practices on your land when offered financial incentives? New research shows that financial incentives facilitate, but rarely motivate farmers. Instead, their values and relationships were key. Sustainable food systems require the involvement of those […]

Dispatches: Ancient DNA reveals ecological history

Tsleil-Waututh canoe travel in Indian Arm at DiRr-6, a massive outcrop of intrusive granodioritic rock marked with a single painting, 2014. Most rock paintings were meant to be seen in this context. Photo by Jesse Morin
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Occasionally, this space includes reports and essays from guest writers on the subject of Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. Social scientist Whitney Fleming has this dispatch on new findings that are being revealed by ancient sources. Archaeologists are looking at ancient DNA combined with oral histories to determine ecological conditions from the past.  By Whitney Fleming People have inhabited the waters around the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. It is only in recently that humans have destroyed ecosystems in the Salish Sea to the point where they need fixing. Scientists […]

Equity and social science integration at the 2018 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

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A new study looks at social science and equity integration within the proceedings of the 2018 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. The study was produced by David Trimbach on behalf of the Puget Sound Partnership for the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound and the Puget Sound Institute. From the report’s Introduction: Social science and equity are increasingly considered integral aspects of ecosystem restoration and reflect an expanding recognition that diverse approaches, tools, and voices matter in recovery efforts. For the past 30 years, the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (SSEC 2018) has been […]

PSI social scientist receives EPA early career award

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PSI visiting scholar and lead social scientist Kelly Biedenweg has received a $400,000 EPA early career award to study the connection between human wellbeing and ecosystem health in Puget Sound. Biedenweg is currently an assistant professor at Oregon State University and the award continues some of the work she began at PSI to establish Human Wellbeing indicators for the Puget Sound Partnership. In addition to her early career award, Biedenweg is a partner in a collaborative grant with PSI to support an improved understanding of how humans interact and engage with […]

PSI study links happiness to interactions with nature

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Can nature make you happy? Science weighs in. A recent study by PSI social scientist Kelly Biedenweg found that Puget Sound residents reported being happier when they engaged with the natural environment. “We (in the Pacific Northwest) are pretty much the leaders in trying to understand how happiness and integration with the environment relate to each other,” Biedenweg told The News Tribune, which featured the study in its April 7th edition. Biedenweg has been working with the state of Washington to identify indicators of human well-being such as happiness, physical and psychological health and economic prosperity […]

Clam hunger: environmental impacts on food and well-being

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A story this week in Salish Sea Currents delves into the connection between environmental change and culturally important foods. Writer Sarah DeWeerdt interviewed social scientists at the 2016 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference about how this affects the spiritual and physical health of Salish Sea tribes and first nations. “The loss of subsistence and cultural identity cannot be estimated,” Joe Schumacker of the Quinault Department of Fisheries told her. In some cases, the yearning to eat culturally important foods can even override health when foods may be hazardous due to toxins from pollution. […]

A comparative study of human well-being indicators across three Puget Sound regions

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Puget Sound Institute social scientist Kelly Biedenweg has published a comparative study of three well-being indicators in the Puget Sound region. The article appears in the August issue of the journal Society & Natural Resources. Abstract: Simple frameworks that generalize the best metrics of human well- being related to the natural environment have rarely been empirically tested for their representativeness across diverse regions. This study tested the hypothesis that metrics of human well-being related to environmental change are context specific by identifying priority human well-being indicators in distinct regions. The research […]

Paper looks at social–ecological approaches to herring management

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A new paper co-authored by PSI’s Tessa Francis connects social and ecological factors influencing herring management in the Salish Sea. The paper, published in the journal Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, grew out of a three-day workshop held last year in British Columbia. The workshop was sponsored by The Ocean Modeling Forum, a collaboration between the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and NOAA Fisheries. It brought together a variety of herring experts, from commercial fishermen to scientists, regulators and members of regional tribes. NOAA’s Phillip Levin was the paper’s […]

Ocean Modeling Forum to hold Pacific Herring Summit June 8-10

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Puget Sound Institute lead ecologist Tessa Francis is co-chair of an upcoming summit to examine the human dimensions of Pacific herring fisheries in the Salish Sea. The forum brings together “social and natural scientists, tribes and First Nations, and federal and state managers” to identify new approaches to ecosystem-based management, including the use of traditional ecologic knowledge and social networks. The summit will be held from June 8-10 in British Columbia.  Read more at the Ocean Modeling Forum website.  Related article (UW Today): Ocean Modeling Forum to bring human element to herring fishery, others