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Changing Public Behavior > BEPs > Community

148 Total Findings

A decision-making process that accepts the assumption that the people most involved with a particular issue are the ones best equipped to make decision is likely to lead to constructive solutions to land use concerns.

A decision-making process that is constructed based on local perceptions for how to make decisions can lead to grower acceptance of specific land use actions.

A model of the change process required for sustainability, involves 3 conditions: (1) Awareness of the agenda, scale, urgency and structure of the issues, (2) Identifying effective roles for individuals or groups, where meaningful activities can be undertaken in parallel to raising awareness, (3) Association or cooperation with others to mobilize towards empowerment.

A two-way flow of activities between college students and a watershed coalition can create a distinctive, mutually enhancing partnership that can lead to the development of new tools and resources as well as heightened awareness of needs by both students and local stakeholders.

Address farmers' perceptions of risk. Acknowledge the tendency for farmers to be "adverse to additional risk ". That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably

An effective stormwater public education program applies a multi-faceted creative advertising campaign that incorporates messaging through newspapers, bus shelters and municipal litter receptacles, radio commercials, and television advertisements. Provide door-to-door newsletters distributed to all residents. Provide funding to community groups for the implementation of projects that further the goals and objectives of the Plan while complementing city-led capital works projects.

Apply group decision analysis (including needs and opportunities of stakeholders) in the long-term watershed planning process. Steps include: develop an understanding of watershed issues, problems, constraints and capabilities; consult about management strategies and alternatives; and prioritize strategies and alternatives.

As watershed organizations develop, facilitate a form of governance that is democratic and able to generate outcomes considered legitimate by all affected parties:

Assess patterns or organizational similarities that may facilitate the linkage among organizations to coordinate their actions at the river basin or ecosystem scale.

Assess the democracy merits of collaborative public management by watershed partnerships in terms of: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment.

Assess watershed organizations to channel future research and to better approximate the organizational dynamics, issue concerns, and information needs unique to the organization.

Assure that different agencies provide consistent messages

Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems are most effectively used as part of a participatory process. It is imperative to get active involvement of stakeholders in this process for a proper construction of variables, selection of states, identification of links, etc.

Be aware of the larger political issues and contexts in which water quality outreach and education take place (such as legislative requirements). Identify and communicate potential areas for measurable change.

Be patient in your efforts to reach small businesses.

Build interorganizational leadership skills among watershed management team members that addresses the inherent tension between the nurturing and steering functions of leadership in network settings. Focus on an effective but at the same time democratic leadership style that empowers participants to respectfully engage during discussions, allowing for constructive disagreement to enrich both dialogue and action.

Build watershed council ability to:

Build watershed management team member ownership of a certain action by focusing on actions where consequences are more immediately visible, such as those that can have an impact on watershed sub-units or on communities of interest.

Capable institutions are an essential element of effective integrated water resource management.  An institutional assessment process investigating policy, organizational and operational elements, are effective tools when designed and analyzed by stakeholders.  Assessment criteria include:

Capture the social dynamics of grounds maintenance operations units including social, physical, and environmental responses to watershed management concerns to reveal key decision-making points in the system. Develop a framework of these dynamics, to illustrate activities needed to implement sustainable watershed and environmental management at large institutions.

Carefully tailor the water conservation message to address the specific circumstances of the target audience.

Carry out education outreach initiatives through community-based organizations that already have a relationship with the target audience.

Create opportunities to build landowner participation in the activities of landowner groups.

Define both technical and collaborative management targets for watershed management.

Design partnership development training to build understanding and skills for partnership success factors and themes identified through the Leach and Pelky (2001) meta-analysis of empirical literature. (see Table 2, p. 382 for detailed list of these associated with each factor).

Focus on factors influencing partnership success:

Develop collaborative advantage in watershed management by working to develop and emphasize benefits not only for the partnership as a whole, but also for every individual and organization involved (e.g. access to credible data, learning opportunities, support for individual initiatives, local relevance, etc).

Develop program design and content to adhere to guiding principles for boating, fishing, and aquatic stewardship education (Siemer, 2001). The program:

Develop program design and content to adhere to guiding principles for boating, fishing, and aquatic stewardship education. The program:

Develop program design and content to adhere to guiding principles for boating, fishing, and aquatic stewardship education. The program:

Drinking water education for citizens and the private sector can build capacity for implementing groundwater protection by increasing individual knowledge and skills for protecting groundwater, and assessing the credibility of policy and financial initiatives.

Drinking water education for managers and government officials should address proper management in 5 risk categories: technical, financial, institutional, political, and social.  These include: appropriate hydrogeological analyses required for local groundwater protection planning; allocation of adequate resources for groundwater protection; the quality of laws, regulations, policies, plans, and organizational structure that governs groundwater protection; leadership that can provide vision, direction, and partnerships with other communities; and the quantity and quality of citizen particiation in groundwater protection initiatives.

Each type of stakeholder group (e.g. customer, researcher, water utility manager) may value risks related to water management choices differently, and value who is most likely to best represent their interests differently.

Educate stakeholders to help them fully understand planning tools available to protect open space, the benefits of planning, and planning and collaborative techniques.

Educate teachers about innovations in curricula to ensure that they are implemented

Education to protect drinking water quality should focus, at least in part, on water utility managers and local government officials responsible for ensuring reliable and safe drinking water.

Emphasize "place", by creating a local Board for example, has potential for broad impacts on locally identified environmental problems.

Emphasize company commitment to pollution prevention activities and investment of adequate time and money.

Emphasize effective leadership when encouraging or facilitating watershed group formation. Watershed groups rate leadership as more important to effective group formation than support factors such as staff assistance or financial support.

Emphasize local elements of control.

Encourage businesses to take advantage of external relationships such as those offered by trade associations and courses.

Encourage community groups

Engage the "community of interest" in checking information about a local environmental condition (such as excess nutrients in water)

Establish an evaluation system for collaborative watershed management that takes into consideration not only the quality and quantity of water resources, but also the quality and quantity of interorganizational alliances, capacity and knowledge of each partner organization.

Explain the exact nature of the water quality problem.

Explicitly recognize the implications of organizational affiliation when designing policies that foster collaboration in watersheds. Organizational culture and preexisting constituent relationships may dictate definitions of the problem and the range of preferred alternatives in agency-affiliated partnerships.

Facilitate school-based watershed education programs through interactive resources and communication among groups using an interactive website

Facilitate volunteer water quality monitoring efforts through sharing success stories and communication among groups using an interactive website and listserve

Feel confident about choosing to communicate through major public media and education campaigns because, if each goal is specifically addressed they can have a demonstratable effect on attitudes, knowledge, behavior intentions, and behavior change.

Field test new education materials with a lead community-based organization.

Focus on a contextual approach to prescribing widespread stakeholder involvement in collaborative environmental management. Prescriptions calling for broad community participation in all cases are unwise; recognize which objectives are likely to be met by broader participation, and which are not.

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus the content for outreach materials on cost savings, such as when and where pollution prevention is as cheap as or cheaper than traditional techniques. Include facts and figures.

For rangeland owners and managers, evaluation surveys of training outcomes are an alternative to formal reporting about implementation of nonpoint source water programs that protects confidentiality while documenting program success.

For watershed management decison-making on tribal lands

Gauge public preference at an early stage of planning and design, or at least at the point where possible options are being considered

Generate local information and use it as the basis for local public education programs.

Generate ongoing environmental change by initiating and coordinating pollution prevention activities through regional networks or consortia.

Grassroots community-based education efforts are effective in reaching at-risk urban anglers with fish consumption advisory information, as members of this group tend not to have access to traditional government communication networks such as press releases, brochures, flyers, and legal notices.

How a watershed group is formed may influence its effectiveness.

Identify and provide additional support for group-designated water "experts"

Identify characteristics of landowners that could influence interest in conservation practices.

Identify the need for education or outreach based on audience characteristics (understanding of the problem, socio-economic characteristics) and/or details about the specific local environmental concern (Schwartz, 1998).

In facilitating development of a watershed group, encourage participation from a balance of public versus private sector stakeholders. More balanced (mixed public/private) groups are more likely to be engaged in planning and research, group development and maintenance, and watershed restoration and protection, than are citizen-based groups. Citizen-based groups may be more likely than mixed groups to achieve government pressure as a primary accomplishment.

In the long-term watershed planning process, assess and analyse different stakeholders’ preferences in order to prioritize various strategies and alternatives. For example, use an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) or a social choice function (SCF) process. The analytical hierarchy process is best used with expert groups and includes (1) the structuring of a problem into a hierarchy consisting of a goal and subordinate features, (2) pairwise comparisons between elements at each level, and (3) propagation of level-specific, local priorities to global priorities. The intensity of preference between any two elements is assessed by integers ranging from 1 to 9 (Saaty, 1980, 1990).  The social choice function is based on pairwise comparisons on the number of voters between pairs of strategies. It assumes that all assertions of preference between two strategies carry equal weight.

In water conservation programs, there is a need to communicate effectively about the necessity for, effectiveness of, and fairness of the conservation programs.

In watershed partnerships, negotiate indicators of evaluation among stakeholders. Watershed partnerships bring together multiple stakeholders with a diversity of goals, values and expectations, and each may bring different perspectives regarding what a ‘successful’ partnership entails, what type of scientific knowledge is ‘valid’, and how ‘progress’ should be measured.

Include community members, essential service operators, environmental health workers, administrators, teachers, and regional service providers in community water conservation training programs.

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices: Substantive local data to support claims that specific BMPs are environmentally effective and economically advantageous as compared to in-place practices

Industry initiated voluntary pollution control programs, supported by education, can result in implementation of BMPs when course work involves participants developing a water quality management plan for their ranch that includes
ranch description, ranch goals, ranch maps, basin water quality status, nonpoint source self-assessments, existing and planned BMPs, and monitoring procedures.

Investigate watershed council community involvement characteristics to promote effective engagement:

Involve citizens in a watershed planning group by facilitating their understanding of the problem/situation.

Involve target audience in:

Keep the purpose of an event or message similar to the local situation (e.g., documents and videotapes are most effective when clearly tailored to the local landscape).

Link conservation, stewardship, and watershed topics to a particular place on the owner's land.

Local understanding about place and identity can provide coherence and justification for the creation and function of an organization as well as for individual or policy decisions about land use.

Look to these conditions for opportunities to provide education that is more likely to be effective:

Make time for continuous evaluation in order to best determine next steps (Voege, 1998).

Participating as part of community and watershed groups is more likely to lead to learning new information and making management changes.

Participation in water management decisions can be improved by assessing stakeholder perceptions of the risk of potential problems, and the impact on other stakeholders of these perceptions.

Pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, but programs that focus on efficiency and productivity in decision-making are likely to succeed, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group

Phosphorus public information campaigns need:

Phosphorus public information campaigns need:

Phosphorus public information campaigns need:

Phosphorus public information campaigns need:

Plan for the time it takes to adopt new ideas.

Provide clear information about goals and plans for land parcels. Provide regular feedback about how well goals and plans have been achieved.

Provide groups with training to help develop leadership and organization skills.

Provide policy makers with a link to local information sources.

Provide staff training, and/or provide access to environmental experts for businesses not already engaged in pollution prevention activities. Aim to increase concern about liability.

Provide strategies and practice for differentiating objective information sources from biased information sources

Provide the following when focusing on environmentally responsible behavior:

Public participation is used most effectively when working to identify watershed plan goals

Recognize the role of economic factors in behavior change:

Rely on these outreach components for a conservation initiative (Dietz, 2004 Symposium):

Rely on these outreach components for a conservation initiative (Dietz, 2004, Env Mgmt):

Social learning refers to the growing capacity of a social network to develop and perform collective actions. In promoting social learning in watershed management, it is important to frame information in such a way that a convergence of views becomes possible through interaction and collective learning processes, e.g. maps illustrating the impacts of water releases, as perceived by the users; graphs showing flow/time relationship and details of the hydrological regime; and field trips and video sessions to allow participants to see the impact of water releases on fish reproduction. Other useful tools include, for example, tools to communicate a vision about water management such as might be accomplished with a 3D model of a hydro-electric dam, a3D chart localizing all the dams on the river, video cassettes and measuring instruments, which testify that the water management authority cares about people’s safety, and stakeholder involvement in data gathering.

Sources of information that most influenced farmer views about problems associated with groundwater and agricultural chemical use were: farm magazines and newspapers; general newspapers and news on radio and television; educational/research agency reports; personal observation

Strengthen public participation by addressing: lack of resources (time, money, staff), lack of rules of participation, lack of in-depth involvement of authorities, lack of hands-on use of Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for stakeholders, and a lack of professional supervision of the decision-support process.

Stress benefits such as efficiency or better relations with government, for businesses not primarily concerned with public image.

Support stakeholder engagement more fully by anticipating a political dimension in addition to a focus on subject matter. [This emphasizes Cervero and Wilson's (1994) democratic approach to program planning whereby adult educators talk openly about social and political aspirations of interested parties in addition to content matter objectives.]

Support stakeholder groups, especially those with similar missions and those that already have a relationship with the target audience.

Support stakeholder groups:

Support stakeholder groups:

Support watershed councils in promoting civic engagement through:

Support watershed planning groups with assistance from agencies.

Tap into indigenous knowledge of local land stewards, especially since recommended, best-bet practices may have uncertain results in local application.

Tell the story of the program and publicize impacts. Report outcomes to county commissioners, stakeholders, and partners.

Test effectiveness of education program delivery through comparison of changes in nitrate, nutrients and bacteria in runoff.

The process of learning about the community of learners is as important as the content of the learning.

The use of Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for groundwater management requires full involvement of stake holders during the inplementation phase. Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems organise the body of knowledge in any given area by mapping out cause-and-effect relationships among key variables and encoding them with numbers that represent the extent to which one variable is likely to affect another.

To assess customer satisfaction with community water conservation programs, consider evaluating: effectiveness in reducing water use; effectiveness of enforcement; fairness; overall satisfaction with the program; necessity of the water use restrictions; and necessity of the water use bans.

To assure that watershed groups can play a valuable substantive role in states’ watershed management programs, encourage active recruiting to include a variety of perspectives. As collaborative policies are developed, sponsors must strike a balance to achieve an appropriate balance of participants to address each concern.

To assure that watershed groups can play a valuable substantive role in states’ watershed management programs, encourage and maintain heterogeneous participation in watershed partnerships as they work through assessment, planning or day-to-day operations of the partnership, wrestle with internal differences, and establish new collective goals and strategies to achieve them.

To effectively engage watershed partners and major stakeholders to investigate: landowner issues, awareness of environmental management problems, business development intentions, and potential impact of incentives.

To enhance local conservation planning, facilitate development of an organized public interest group who can speak on behalf of conservation initiatives.

To enhance participatory decision-making, build commitment to research by engaging watershed partners and major stakeholders in answering questions such as: a) what information is needed?; b) how is the information to be collected and analyzed?; c) Who has access to the data and on what conditions?; d) How will the data be used to improve watershed management outcomes?

To improve integrated water resource management by addressing existing views held by various local entities and insufficient involvement of outside researchers in local decision making process, scientists need to work on two key fronts:

To increase US public acceptance of water reuse, such as high awareness of treatment technology, trust in local government; and of the challenges and opportunities of water reuse in the US:

To increase ownership and empowerment, design programs with a strong emphasis on:

To increase resident interest in water conservation, three urban case studies (Phoenix, Copenhagen, Singapore) highlight the following successful strategies:

To integrate different types of knowledge in watershed management, such as experiential knowledge with technical/scientific knowledge, provide group members and resource people (technical expert) with a forum where each can give their input on an equal basis, maximizing the depth of input from each type of expertise.

Two-way communication methods, particularly door-to-door contact where possible, are more successful in soliciting participation for watershed planning initiatives than one-way communication (information) methods.

Understand factors facilitating and constraining groundwater protection: local governmental leadership, financial resources, building linkages among key stakeholders and organizations, appropriate institutional arrangements and public support.

Understand the roots of the environmental management problem and select your target audience based on a specific need. For example, if economic activity is most closely associated with the environmental problem, outreach initiatives should relate to the needs and interests of the target audience engaged in the economic activity

Use Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for complex decision-making, including structural learning, strategic integration and breakdown of barriers between different domains.  But high level of frustration can occur when citizen input meetings lack structure and trail off into local and personal problems.

Use a "water demand" mathematical model to provide feedback to citizens and to demonstrate the effect of community water conservation outreach programs. Maintain records describing which specific outreach programs were initiated to address which specific community environmental concerns and/or audiences in order to have sufficient data to interpret evaluation results.

Use a variety of outreach methods, with each targeted at specific, desired behaviors.

Use direct surveys and interviews to gauge public opinion as opposed to relying on "representative" stakeholders (direct representation may highlight factors not previously considered or lead to unexpected interests or concerns)

Use farm assessments to identify pollution risks when the use of an assessment tool is likely to lead to cost-effective, voluntary actions to reduce those risks.

Use multiple channels of communication.

Watershed management participatory methods include, scenario workshops (develops ideas and actions based on visioning processes), mediated modeling (problem definition, conceptualization, specification, and policy analysis), and social multicriteria evaluation (compliments decision-making processes with social science techniques including institutional analysis, interviews,questionnaires, obeservation, polls, and focus groups). Scenario workshops and mediated modeling are well-suited to the early stages of the planning process (problem solving and identification of goals and alternatives) and good at educating participants and building capacity, but not as effective at resolving long-standing conflicts and achieving consensus.  Social multicriteria evaluation is better able to address the evaluation of alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and aid convergence between divergent stakeholder's views; however, implementation is heavily reliant on experts, and allows for less participation and deliberation than scenario workshops or mediated modeling  in the goal-setting stage.  A hybrid of participatory methods may be the best approach.

When applying group decision analysis processes in the long-term watershed planning process, facilitate development of/effective operation of a watershed council in order to enhance coordination among the stakeholders when choosing long-term watershed management alternatives.

When considering ecosystem outcomes from a collaborative watershed management process, develop evaluation criteria that can account for the influence of scale and better reflect the potential contributions of the watershed team to their broad, longterm vision for the watershed.

When considering social outcomes of a collaborative watershed management process, consider individual as well as organizational outcomes.

When encouraging or facilitating the activities of a watershed group, consider group purpose and needs.  Distinguish whether the group wants to focus on educational and social benefits, the ability to influence policy, or create on-the-ground improvements.

When facilitating sustainable watershed and environmental management at large institutions emphasize:

When implementing provide education programs focused on general community awareness programs (to build public support) as well as programs targeted to potential groundwater contamination contributors.

When persuading farmers to reduce chemical use:

When working on riparian issues, allow the local community to drive the process, identify the timelines, and identify the way in which they wish to manage riparian areas. Use awareness, team and tool building, community-based action, and monitoring.

When working on riparian issues, employ multiple interactions and a mix of many extension methods to offer opportunities for diverse information and ideas and methods of providing them, and to meet individualized learning needs. Methods may include presentations, field days, workshops, individual landowner visits, riparian health inventories and reports, written materials, technical advice, and web site information on riparian areas and grazing management.

When working on riparian issues, give the community the opportunity to build a relationship with extension staff, to build trust and understanding, and to allow enough time for multiple interactions to occur.

With Latino youth programs, use place-based pedagogies so that the education of citizens might have direct bearing on the well-being of the social and ecological places people actually inhabit.

Work with a collaborative to provide consistent storm water messages across neighborhoods in a large city.

Work with consultants:

Work with consultants:

Work with consultants:


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