Governance institutions are the rules and norms that guide, permit, and restrict people’s behavior. Institutions can place limits on the ability of people to act on their preferences, especially where institutions and preferences are misaligned. Across my research, I apply institutional analysis methods to understand the relationship between policy design. The lab currently has several projects that fall under this research theme, mostly with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Advancing Governance of Telecoupled Systems
Many of the world’s most pressing environmental problems are telecoupled: social and ecological processes in one place affect these same processes in another, generally across large distances. Scientists have developed tools to recognize and quantify these connections. Now, the challenge is to determine whether and how to create or strengthen governance systems that link ecological and societal outcomes in one location with management in other locations. This research addresses this need by: 1) determining the conditions under which telecoupled governance arises, 2) ascertaining if and when telecoupled governance leads to more ecologically sustainable and socially equitable outcomes, and 3) identifying actionable steps to incorporate the principles of equity and sustainability into migratory species conservation. This project is funded by an NSF Dynamics of Integrated Social Environmental Systems (DISES) grant to the University of Arizona.
Responding to Emerging Threats to Coupled Natural Human Systems
Exogenous threats, including climate change, invasive species, and exotic diseases threaten the stability and resiliency of coupled natural and human systems. These challenges are particularly vexing for resource managers because they have incomplete knowledge of existing systems will respond to these changes and because existing policies can limit adaptive responses. Invasive plants are one example of this problem: the invasive species enters a new area where land managers have no knowledge of how to mitigate its spread, no understanding of its potential impacts, and no existing capacity to coordinate to prevent impacts. I am working with a team of ecologists and social scientists to understand how managers respond to emerging threats, use agent-based modeling to predict outcomes of these responses, and co-produce adaptive responses with managers based on the results of the predictive modeling. This work is funded by an NSF Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) grant to the University of Arizona.
Adapting Governance to Manage Environmental Change
Climate change is cause rapid and sometimes unexpected changes to natural and human systems. These changes will require adaptive responses from governance institutions as all levels, from local natural resource conservation districts, to national forests, to national and international institutions. I am working with a team of climate scientists, ecologists, and social scientists to develop new knowledge about how institutions in the US can respond to impacts caused by large scale forest die-off in the western US. Forests in one place are linked to climate patterns in distant places through atmospheric circulation. This is a phenomenon called an ecoclimate teleconnection. In the US, forest die-off in some regions will impact temperature and precipitation patterns in the central US, with potential impacts on agriculture. We are studying how the US Department of Agriculture can respond to these changes with adaptive governance. This work is funded by an NSF Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) grant to the University of Arizona.