Humans and the Water Environment: The Need for Coordinated Data Collection
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Data Congruence
2.1. Wadeable Streams Assessment
- WSAchemical = [Phos, NO3, SDO]
- WSAhabitat = [RHA, Turb]
- WSAbiotic = [EPT]
2.2. General Social Survey
2.3. National Survey on Recreation and the Environment
Variables a | Description and [Hypothesized effect on dependent variables b] | Source | |
---|---|---|---|
Behavioral | h2oless | “How often do you choose to save or re-use water for environmental reasons? (1) Never, (2) Sometimes, (3) Often, (4) Always.” | [19] |
Attitudinal | prcvdanger | “In general, do you think that pollution of America’s rivers, lakes, and streams is (1) not dangerous at all for the environment, (2) not very dangerous, (3) somewhat dangerous, (4) very dangerous, (5) extremely dangerous for environment?” [+] | [19] |
grntaxes | “How willing would you be to pay much higher taxes in order to protect the environment? (1) Not at all willing, (2) Not very willing, (3) Neither willing nor unwilling, (4) Fairly willing, (5) Very willing” [+] | [19] | |
Demographic | age | Age of respondent [+/−] | [19] |
children | “How many children have you ever had? Please count all that were born alive at any time (including any you had from a previous marriage).” [+/−] | [19] | |
race | What race do you consider yourself? (0) Non-Caucasian †, (1) Caucasian [+/−] | [19] | |
sex | Dummy variable: (0) Female †, (1) Male [+/−] | [19] | |
income | Middle values of 25 annual family income intervals specified in GSS variable INCOME06; highest income category is open-ended and represented here by 110% of its lower-bound. [+/− for prcvdanger and h2oless; + for grntaxes] | [19] | |
incomesq | (income)2 | ||
polviews | “We hear a lot of talk these days about liberals and conservatives. I’m going to show you a seven-point scale on which the political views… Where would you place yourself on this scale? (1) Extremely liberal †, (2) Liberal, (3) Slightly liberal, (4) Moderate, middle of the road, (5) Slightly conservative, (6) Conservative, (7) Extremely conservative” [+/−] | [19] | |
grngroup | “Are you a member of any group whose main aim is to preserve or protect the environment? (0) No †, (1) Yes” [+] | [19] | |
popdens | Population per square mile [+/−] | [34] | |
Water Quality Indicators | RHA | Rapid Habitat Assessment Score Mean [− for prcvdanger and grntaxes; +/− for h2oless] | [18] |
Turb | Turbidity, measured by Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU) [− for prcvdanger and grntaxes; +/− for h2oless] | [18] | |
Phos | Phosphorus (μg/l) [+] | [18] | |
NO3 | Nitrate (μeq/l) [+] | [18] | |
SDO | Stream Dissolved Oxygen (mg/L) [−] | [18] | |
EPT | % of individual benthic macroinvertebrates comprised of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichpetra [− for prcvdanger and grntaxes; +/− for h2oless] | [18] | |
Regional | region | Ecoregion dummy variables: region1-Northern Appalachians, region2-Southern Appalachians, region3-Coastal Plains †, region4-Upper Midwest, region5-Temperate Plains, region6-Southern Plains, region7-Northern Plains, region8-Western Mountains and region9-Xeric [+/−] | [18] |
Variable | Description and [Hypothesized Effect a] | Source | |
---|---|---|---|
Recreation b | boatd | # days canoeing and boating | [20] |
waterd | # days of waterside activities | [20] | |
swimd | # days swimming in lakes, rivers, ponds | [20] | |
fishd | # days freshwater fishing | [20] | |
dist | Distance (miles) from the centroid of NSRE zip code to the nearest WSA stream site in same zip code [−] | [18,20] | |
Water Quality | See Table 1 (RHA[+], Turb[+], NO3[−] and Phos [−], SDO[+], EPT[+]) | [18] | |
Attitudes | improtect | “It is important to conserve and protect National Forest Grasslands that support water resources such as streams, lakes and watershed areas: (1) strongly disagree †, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, (5) strongly agree” [+] | [20] |
Demography | age | Age [+/−] | [20] |
sex | Sex: (0) Female †, (1) Male [+/−] | [20] | |
race | Dummy variable: (0) Non-Caucasian †, (1) Caucasian [+/−] | [20] | |
hhsize | Household size [+/−] | [20] | |
income | Middle values of 11 annual income intervals ; highest income category is open-ended and represented here by 110% of its lower-bound [+] | [20] | |
incomesq | (income)2 [−] | [20] | |
Regional | See Table 1 | [18] |
2.4. Data Matching
Data source | Number of observations | Zip codes containing observations | Census tracts containing observations | Counties containing observations |
---|---|---|---|---|
WSA | 2,035 | 1,339 | 1,197 | 893 |
GSS | 2,044 a | -- a | 366 | 196 |
NSRE | 103,770 a | 19,959 b | -- a | 2,931 b |
WSA-GSS Overlap | -- a | -- a | 4 | 129 |
WSA-NSRE Overlap | -- a | 888 | -- a | 849 |
3. Case Study 1: Water Quality, Attitudes, and Conservation Behavior
3.1. Model
3.2. Results
Variable b | First stage: Attitude c | Second stage: Behavior |
---|---|---|
prcvdanger | H2oless | |
age | - | A+ |
sex | - | A− |
income | A+ | - |
incomesq | A− | - |
grngroup | A− | A+ |
polviews-liberal d | A− | na |
Region e | C, P | A2 |
R 2 f | 0.49 | 0.49 |
N | 97 | 97 |
4. Case Study 2: Water Quality and Recreation Activities
4.1. Model
4.2. Results
Variables c | Recreational activity b | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
fishd | swimd | boatd | waterd | |||||
Part | #days | Part | #days | Part | #days | Part | #days | |
age | A+ | - | A+ | - | A+ | - | - | - |
sex | A− | - | - | - | A- | - | - | - |
race | - | - | - | - | A- | - | -- | - |
income | - | - | A− | - | - | A+ | - | |
Improtect d,e | A | - | A | - | A,C | - | A | - |
dist | - | - | - | - | - | - | B−,P− | - |
EPT f | - | - | - | B+ | - | - | - | - |
Region d | - | - | - | A3,C,P | A | - | - | - |
region*inc d | - | - | - | A3,B,C | - | - | - | - |
region*dist d | A | - | - | - | - | - | A2 | - |
N | 888 | 839 | 864 | 371 | 888 | 864 | 888 | 801 |
Pseudo-R2 | 0.14 | 0.005–0.006 | 0.14 | 0.0001–0.005 | 0.14 | 0.005–0.006 | 0.14 | 0.005–0.006 |
Log-likelihood | −571 | −1052 | −530 | −1326 | −551 | −1135 | −244 | −1033 |
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Conflicts of Interest
References and Notes
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Braden, J.B.; Jolejole-Foreman, M.C.; Schneider, D.W. Humans and the Water Environment: The Need for Coordinated Data Collection. Water 2014, 6, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/w6010001
Braden JB, Jolejole-Foreman MC, Schneider DW. Humans and the Water Environment: The Need for Coordinated Data Collection. Water. 2014; 6(1):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/w6010001
Chicago/Turabian StyleBraden, John B., Maria Christina Jolejole-Foreman, and Daniel W. Schneider. 2014. "Humans and the Water Environment: The Need for Coordinated Data Collection" Water 6, no. 1: 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/w6010001