Donald R. Field

Exploring the Spatial Relationship Between Census and Land-Cover Data

Landscapes are shaped by complex relationships between human population, social structure, and environmental conditions. Traditionally, these factors have been studied separately within their respective disciplines. Few studies explore the relationship between indicators of social structure and ecological factors. Our objective was to examine the relationship between housing density, as recorded in the U.S. Census data, and a satellite land-cover classification in the northwest Wisconsin Pine Barrens region. We used a geographical information system (GIS) to integrate these two data sets. Our results revealed strong patterns. For example, housing densities were higher where water is more abundant, a possible case where land cover influences housing density. In other cases, housing density appears to influence land cover. These complex relationships are discussed. Our approach represents an initial methodology to integrate social and ecological data, a task needed to improve our understanding of rural societies and to facilitate broad-scale ecosystem management.L andscapes are shaped by complex relationships between human population, social structure, and environmental conditions. T raditionally, these factors have been studied separately within their respective disciplines. Few studies explore the relationship between indicators of social structure and ecological factors. Our objective was to examine the relationship between housing density, as recorded in the U.S. Census data, and a satellite land-cover classi‐cation in the northwest W isconsin Pine Barrens region. W e used a geographical information system (GIS) to integrate these two data sets. Our results revealed strong patterns. For example, housing densities were higher where water is more abundant, a possible case where land cover inNuences housing density. In other cases, housing density appears to inNuence land cover. T hese complex relationships are discussed. Our approach represents an initial methodology to integrate social and ecological data, a task needed to improve our understanding of rural societies and to facilitate broad-scale ecosystem management.

Reaffirming Social Landscape Analysis in Landscape Ecology: A Conceptual Framework

Landscape ecology continues to mature as its theoretical grounding is strengthened, its precepts and principles become increasingly accepted in other disciplines, and its broad multidisciplinary perspective becomes adopted as a framework for a growing body of empirical work. The same may be said about a social landscape analysis that draws upon its theoretical foundations in applied demography, human ecology, and rural community studies. In this article, we highlight the theoretical parallels between concepts, principles, and theories in landscape ecology and those in demography. The objective is to expand the scope of landscape ecology by including a more coherent characterization of people, social organizational structure and social relations on the land. We believe an enhanced landscape framework that fully embraces social and demographic processes is essential for obtaining a truly comprehensive understanding of landscape patterns and processes.

Community Participation in Rapidly Growing Communities in Southern Utah

Amenity-rich locations attract individuals searching for places to recreate, live, or retire. As a result, such areas, many of which are in the Western United States, experience changes related to population in-migration. Past research shows how the extensive in-migration of people with different values and perspectives can contribute to social conflict in affected communities. This study focuses on the relationship of community level indicators with community participation in a five-county rapidly growing amenity-rich area in southern Utah. The research team studied two main types of community members—seasonal and permanent residents. Differences among such residents can contribute to shifts in community social interaction and affect overall participation in community affairs. Because participation in community is a central aspect of fostering local community development, it is important to understand how these processes occur. This study found structural and interactional differences between permanent and seasonal residents. Both factors were stronger predictors of community participation for permanent compared to seasonal residents. This study adds to the literature on newcomers and long-term residents and their structural and interactional differences.

A Comparison of Seasonal Homeowners and Permanent Residents on their Attitudes Toward Wildlife Management on Public Lands

With the widespread migration of urban residents to rural areas, the rural rebound of the past three decades has created dramatic demographic changes throughout rural America. This is particularly true in rural regions rich in natural amenities such as lakes, rivers, mountains, and forests. To date, the literature on the rural rebound and amenities has largely ignored one aspect of the rebound—the growth in seasonal and recreational homes in amenity regions. This article compares seasonal and permanent residential landowners on their attitudes toward wildlife management goals for public lands in amenity-rich northwestern Wisconsin. Although rural–urban differences in attitudes toward hunting persist, views of preservationist-oriented wildlife management goals are nearly identical. Support for this research project was provided by United States Department of Agriculture McIntire-Stennis grant number 142-4682, National Science Foundation IGERT grant number 9870703, University of Wisconsin Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin Extension, and University of Wisconsin School of Natural Resources.

Humans, Fire, and Forests: Expanding the Domain of Wildfire Research

ABSTRACT Human residential settlements in the woods and on the borders of public lands are increasing in number and expanding in size. This is particularly true in amenity-rich rural regions hosting public lands like national parks and forests. Wildfire and its associated management have drawn considerable research attention in the past several years because one of the consequences of wildfires has been the loss of homes and communities on the borders of these same public lands. Social science research has begun to address the interaction of humans, fire, and forests, but the majority of studies currently underway focus on individual human behavior. In this essay, we suggest an expansion of the domain of studies on fire to include research at a community/landscape scale is warranted if indeed we want to inform resource managers on the interplay of humans, fire, and biophysical systems.

Revisiting the Origins of and Distinctions Between Natural Resource Sociology and Environmental Sociology

A forum focusing on similarities and differences in environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources is healthy. Attempts to more adequately understand the relationships between social organization and the natural world need to be informed by reviews and critiques of past and current work by resource/environmental social scientists and the array of theoretical frameworks, research designs, and problem-solving capabilities that are represented in the literature. In this article, we provide a perspective on the paths that natural resource sociology and environmental sociology have taken. We draw distinctions based on their origins, conceptual orientations, theoretical perspectives, and problem-solving focuses. Clarifying the differences between natural resource sociology and environmental sociology will not only help in tracing the intellectual foundations for these subfields of inquiry and bring to light lost literature, but also point to areas where synthesis and convergence in these subfields are possible. This article originally published in Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 15, Issue 3, pages 213–227, 2002. DOI: 10.1080/089419202753445052

A Survey of Seasonal and Permanent Landowners in Wisconsin's Northwoods: Following Dillman and Then Some

This article demonstrates the importance of obtaining high response rates for surveys of the general population while illustrating that survey design and procedures that adopt and modify factors known to positively affect survey returns can lead to high response rates, even for a lengthy survey of the general population. Using an expanded version of Dillmans “tailored design method,” we achieved an 82.8% response rate for a general population survey of landowners. When comparing early respondents to late respondents we found significant differences on several sociodemographic variables as well as a number of attitudinal measures central to the research project. In addition, costs are compared between this methodology and a more typical four-wave mailing. Our survey further highlights the importance of improving our understanding of the social changes taking place in rural communities and the implications these changes can have on natural resources management. This article originally published in Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 17, Issue 5, pages 431–442, 2004. DOI: 10.1080/08941920490430223

Environmental and Resource Sociology: Introducing a Debate and Dialogue

Society & Natural Resources was originally conceived as a general social science journal devoted to research on natural resources issues. SNR subsequently became the ̄ agship journal in the ® eldÐ not only nationally, but we like to think internationally as well. The founding coeditors, Don Field and Rabel Burdge, originally had in mind that Society and Natural Resources would mainly publish social scienti® c work involving resource issues such as social impact assessment of natural resources projects, social scienti® c analyses of resource management phenomena, and social scienti® c perspectives on biodiversity, conservation, recreation resources, multiple-use con ̄ icts, community=natural resource relationships, and related issues. The target audience of authors and researchers was conceived of as essentially consisting of rural sociologist members of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS) Natural Resources Research Group (NRRG); social scientists and policymakers in local, state, federal, and international resource management agencies; and scholars who attend meetings such as the International Symposia on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM), which Field established in 1986. But while SNR became something of a national and international ̄ agship in social scienti® c research on natural resources, SNR experienced simultaneous narrowing and broadening of its scope. While the current coeditors of SNR, as well as Rabel Burdge during his 11 years as coeditor, have placed considerable emphasis on making the disciplinary scope of SNR as broad as possible, the journal’ s center of gravity has remained that of sociology and rural sociology. Despite the fact that SNR has become increasingly identi® ed as a sociology journal, SNR has experienced considerable diversi® cation of its sociology content. SNR not only publishes considerable material in natural resources sociology, but over the last half dozen or

Introduction: Humans, Fire, and Forests—Part III

This volume represents the third and final set of articles in Society & Natural Resources special issues on humans, fire, and forests. Previous articles appeared in issue 17(6) and issue 17(8). The articles in this issue represent two areas of fire research that have received considerable attention in the past few years— community, and public perceptions and attitudes toward fuels management and defensible space. Fires impact communities, but communities also shape fire events. Carroll, Cohn, and Seesholtz examine the complex ways that fire can reveal conflicts and tensions as well as pull communities together. The histories of communities have a great deal to do with how fire interacts with communities, and even one fire event can play out differently in different communities. As the authors’ work demonstrates, large-scale fire events require an understanding of the dynamics that exist within communities, and between communities and the myriad other organizations and institutions that together shape the scope and character of fire impacts. By better structural and landscape design, homeowners can reduce, although not eliminate, fire risk, as well as maximize chances that during a fire event firefighters will be able to access and defend property without jeopardizing crew safety. However, it cannot be automatically assumed that homeowners will take actions to create defensible space around their property. Two articles in this issue address homeowner perceptions of, and attitudes toward, defensible space options and activities. Nelson, Monroe, Johnson, and Bowers conducted interviews with homeowners in Minnesota and Florida, and illustrate why it is important that managers understand what homeowners value in the landscapes that surround them. Unless defensible space programs account for the high value residents place on ‘‘naturalnesss,’’ for example, the increased understanding of risk may not translate into on-the-ground behavior. The article by Vogt, Winter, and Fried explores interface homeowners’ approval of three fuel management approaches—prescribed burning, mechanical fuel reduction, and defensible space ordinances—in California, Florida, and Michigan. The authors used the theory of reasoned action to examine the effect of beliefs and attitudes on homeowners’ intention to support these approaches, discussing the relationship of factors such as, for example, personal importance, trust, and past experiences with wildland fires. By integrating the results from studies such as these into the design of fuel reduction and defensible space programs, managers have opportunities to enhance homeowner acceptance. As we indicated previously, we are encouraged by both the quantity and quality of social science research submitted for consideration in this special issue series. We have no doubt that the interest in the social science aspects of fire management will continue, and that many articles on the varied aspects of fire will continue to be represented in future journal volumes.

Social Science and Forestry

This article originally published in Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 3, Issue 2, pages 187–191, 1990. DOI: 10.1080/08941929009380717