Selected Research

As wildfires continue to pose a threat to communities in the Western US, it is imperative that communities in fire-prone areas become “fire-adapted” to safely manage their risk. Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) constitute an approach by the federal government to enable communities to collaboratively plan for and adapt to wildfire. How well these plans have enabled at-risk rural Colorado communities to become “fire-adapted” since their development is still debated. Through interviews with key informants, we explored the role of  CWPPs in building fire-adapted Colorado WUI communities since their development. We found that CWPPs are most effective in communities with certain characteristics that either necessitate a CWPP or create an enabling environment for plan success. Overall, our results highlight the importance of community context in adaptation planning, and that CWPPs are not a “one size fits all” solution for WUI communities. 

In Colorado, the December 2021 Marshall Fire destroyed over 1,000 suburban homes and became the most destructive fire in the state’s history and the 10th costliest in US history. Fortunately, homeowner adaptation action can play a significant role in preventing structural damage or loss that can come from a wildfire. Across the summer and fall of 2022, we distributed a household survey and conducted focus groups in the City of Boulder, which was near but not within the burn area of the Marshall Fire. Using multilevel regression analysis, we explored the role of social and cognitive factors in motivating both the number of adopted adaptation actions and the adoption of specific actions at the household scale. Our analysis points to the role of outcome efficacy and personal responsibility as correlates of homeowner adaptation action to wildfire. Our focus group data lend nuance and insight into our model results and highlight the role of extreme weather and perceptions of community inaction as drivers of low outcome efficacy beliefs and household inaction. Our findings point to the importance of collective action for wildfire as a tool to increase outcome efficacy perceptions and drive action at the household level.

Sociodemographic characteristics are known to shape and inform adaptive capacities and adaptation action. Yet, there has been little focus on the relationship between sociodemographic factors and the adoption of adaptation actions within wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. Understanding this relationship is particularly critical in light of the changing composition of the WUI as a result of the rise in seasonal homeownership, amenity migration, and outdoor tourism and recreation. As migration to the WUI is projected to continue to increase, introducing new sociodemographic complexity and diversity into fire-prone communities, there is a need for increased attention into sociodemographic characteristics of WUI communities. This study addresses this gap through the use of a large dataset of household adaptation actions in over 100 WUI communities collected via a wildfire home assessment software and paired with U.S. Census demographic data. We are currently developing statistical models to probe the relationship between household risk and adaptation action and sociodemographic factors.

As climate change continues to impact national parks across the country, park staff require guidance and resources to make management decisions amidst scientific uncertainty. The National Park Service Climate Change Response Program (CCRP) provides parks with downscaled, park-specific, forward looking climate change information – called climate futures – alongside guidance on using this information to inform planning and decision-making. We conducted semi-structured interviews with staff at five parks to learn more about manager perceptions of climate futures information, how parks are using it, and how CCRP can improve information delivery. 

Uncertainty about the future compounds challenges associated with decision-making and adaptation to climate change. Within the U.S. National Park Service, managers are responsible for navigating both changing ecological conditions and uncertainty about future trends while safeguarding unique natural and cultural resources. This research explores how both scientific uncertainties and uncertainties related to social and institutional systems and internal mental models are manifesting in broad management contexts across a range of climate change-inducted transformations at nine U.S. National Parks. Through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with managers within the National Park Service, we gained a robust understanding of what uncertainties exist for managers as they plan and make decisions to ensure their parks are adapted to climate change impacts and transformations, and how uncertainties vary across park contexts. Our findings indicate that numerous uncertainties exist within the domains of science, institutional context, social feasibility, and manager mental models, and that uncertainties vary based on park characteristics such as size, priority natural and cultural resources, and type of ecological transformation. This work lends insight into the importance of widening our view of what types of uncertainties are impacting adaptation decision-making and the differences in how uncertainties pose barriers to planning and action based on context.