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Response to Water Protection Rule Changes in the Oregon Forest Practices Act: Landowner/Operator Opinions and Streamside Conditions
EPA Grant Number: GF9500795Title: Response to Water Protection Rule Changes in the Oregon Forest Practices Act: Landowner/Operator Opinions and Streamside Conditions
Investigators: Hairston, Anne
Institution: Oregon State University
EPA Project Officer: Broadway, Virginia
Project Period: July 1, 1995 through January 1, 2000
Project Amount: $31,246
RFA: STAR Graduate Fellowships (1995)
Research Category: Academic Fellowships , Ecosystem Indicators , Fellowship - Earth
Description:
Objective:This project will assess the sources of satisfaction or discontent of the regulated clientele about the recent changes to the Oregon Forest Practices Act, in combination with resulting streamside stand conditions. Little detailed information on the diverse concerns of those regulated is available for policy makers to use in designing regulations or incentives. This study will target landowners and operators who have applied the new water protection rules. Written surveys will be used for more in-depth qualitative information. To link individual response with the environmental goals, the interviews will be compared to field measurements of streamside conditions.
The methodology will be to produce two major types of information about the OFPA Water protection rules: rule user opinions and post-harvest sources of future large woody debris for streams. Written surveys and personal interviews will be used to provide complementary methods to characterize perceptions and attitudes of rule users. The written surveys are intended to offer broad-scale, comprehensive information, while interviews are expected to offer in-depth understanding of reasons behind stated opinions at a more limited scale.
The project will determine factors of social acceptance of regulatory approach by rule users in two ways 1)assess attitudes towards rule changes of different types of rule users (forest industry, nonindustrial private landowners, and operators) and; 2) determine factors that most influenced these opinions. The second objective of the project will characterize the post- harvest riparian stand conditions utilizing the following two steps: 1) ascertain whether the stated purpose of the rule changes, to develop mature stand conditions that can provide future instream large woody debris, has been achieved, and 2) compare post-harvest riparian conditions and choices taken among the management options in the Water Protection Rules to rule users' attitudes towards regulations.
Supplemental Keywords:Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Geographic Area, Scientific Discipline, RFA, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Social Science, Sociology, decision-making, Ecology, Economics & Decision Making, Ecological Indicators, Ecological Effects - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecosystem Protection, Forestry, Ecology and Ecosystems, State, public issues, forest protection, responses to changes in OPFA Water protection rules, riparian forests, landowner behavior, water protection, public opinion polls, Water Protection Rules (OPFA), Oregon Forest Practices Act (OPFA), landowner/operator opinions, Oregon, responses to changes in OFPA Water Protection Rules, characterization of post-harvest riparian stand conditions, social acceptance of changes to OPFA, forests, water