Emily Sharp

Trust and trustworthiness: conceptual distinctions and their implications for natural resources management

Few natural resource management (NRM) studies discriminate between trust and trustworthiness. However, this approach, which combines the attitude of one actor with the characteristics of another actor, is common in the organisational management literature. Our case study, set in a wildfire management context in Australia, sought to explore: (1) how community members and NRM staff defined trust and described trustworthiness; (2) how these trust definitions did, or did not, reflect conceptualisations in the literature; and, (3) whether explicitly differentiating between trust and trustworthiness is useful in an NRM context. Our findings suggest that participants defined trust in three main ways: as ‘having a good relationship’; as ‘being able to rely on others’ in a one-way manner; and, as ‘a relationship where parties rely on one another’ in a reciprocal manner. Our findings also suggest that participants differentiated these trust definitions from trustworthiness, that is, from the characteristics and actions which made an individual or agency worthy of trust. These findings suggest that it is useful to differentiate trust from trustworthiness, because it allows NRM managers and researchers to better understand both the trusting intentions of community members and the characteristics of the agency which contribute to that trust.

Building community–agency trust in fire-affected communities in Australia and the United States

As a result of the increasing environmental and social costs of wildfire, fire management agencies face ever-growing complexity in their management decisions and interactions with the public. The success of these interactions with community members may be facilitated through building community-agency trust in the process of providing public input opportunities and community engagement and education activities. Without trust, the public may become frustrated in their interactions with the agency and withhold support for management decisions. This study takes a comparative case approach using interview data from communities near the King Valley fires in Victoria, Australia, and the Bear & Booth Complex fires in Oregon, USA. Several themes emerge that are common to both sites, including components of trustworthiness and actions or activities that contribute to a trusting relationship or environment. Key findings suggest trust and trustworthiness can be addressed interpersonally and institutionally and that flexible policies are important for implementation of locally appropriate outreach and management plans. Language: en

Factors affecting community-agency trust before, during and after a wildfire: an Australian case study.

Trust has been identified as a critical relationship component in contexts of high uncertainty and complexity such as wildfire management, and as a primary factor in public support for wildland fire management strategies. However, little attention has been paid to identifying and comparing factors across fire management stages (i.e. before, during, after a fire) that may influence trust between community members and fire management agencies. This paper attempts to address this gap by exploring factors affecting community-agency trusting relationships before, during and after a wildfire event. We draw upon 26 semi-structured interviews with 38 residents of a community directly impacted by fires in December 2006 and January 2007 in Victoria, Australia. Communication, cooperation, trustworthiness, and integration of local concerns and knowledge influenced trust in more than one fire management stage. Institutional structures and reduction of uncertainty were particularly strong influences during a fire. After a fire, resolving negative outcomes and immediately meeting perceived needs arising from the fire were factors unique to this stage.

Managed aquifer recharge in farming landscapes using large floods: an opportunity to improve outcomes for the Murray-Darling Basin?

Abstract Conjunctive use of surface and groundwater through managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is underway in Australia, principally to reuse urban wastewater. The opportunity for MAR in farming landscapes has received less attention, and the extent this might occur using water from large flood events or dam releases has not been examined. This paper addresses that gap by providing an overview of the potential benefits and challenges to implementing MAR using water from large floods, examining the social acceptability of MAR amongst groundwater licence holders in the Namoi Valley, and identifying future research needed to assess this opportunity. The appeal of MAR using water from large flood events is the opportunity it affords to replenish aquifers, return linkages between depleted groundwater and surface flows, and buffer the impacts of drought on irrigators and aquatic ecosystems. Most of the respondents to the Namoi survey agreed that MAR has merit. However, some research informants were concerned about the impact of recharge on groundwater quality and the possibility that MAR would be another intervention that would lead to over-exploitation of a scarce resource. A number of ways to implement MAR using large flood events are also canvassed and we identify next steps for the assessment of those options.

Can NRM agencies rely on capable and effective staff to build trust in the agency

Trust is recognised as an important component of agency–community relations, influencing the social acceptability of resource access and natural resource management (NRM). It is not clear if perceptions of the trustworthiness of agency staff members can lead to trust in an agency. This is an important question for agencies working in contentious policy arenas such as water reform in Australias Murray-Darling Basin. This research addressed that gap and developed a set of survey items that can be employed to benchmark trust and trustworthiness by exploring groundwater irrigators trust in the New South Wales Office of Water (NoW). A survey was mailed to all farming properties with a groundwater licence in the Namoi catchment. As might be expected, licence holders were more likely to trust agency staff than NoW itself. Perceptions of agency and staff trustworthiness influenced landholder trust in NoW. Agency trustworthiness partially mediated the relationship between staff trustworthiness and agency trust. These findings suggest that trust should be viewed as a multi-level phenomenon. To the extent that these findings are replicated, a key implication is that community engagement strategies attempting to build trust in an agency should set out to influence how the agency itself is perceived as an organisation.

Modelling for Managing the Complex Issue of Catchment-Scale Surface and Groundwater Allocation

Kinetic Analysis of the Coke Calcination Processes in Rotary Kilns.- Behavior of Elastomeric Seismic Isolators Varying Rubber Material and Pad Thickness: A Numerical Insights.- Numerical Simulation of Coastal Flows in Open Multiply-connected Irregular Domains.- System Dynamics and Agent-based Simulation for Prospective Health Technology Assessments.- Simple and Efficient Algorithms to get a Finer Resolution in a Stochastic Discrete Time Agent-based Simulation.- Numerical Study of Turbulent Boundary-layer Flow Induced by a Sphere above a Flat Plate.- Airflow and Particle Deposition in a Dry Powder Inhaler: An Integrated CFD Approach.Air pollution caused by small particles is a major public health problem in many cities of the world. One of the most contaminated cities is Mexico City. The fact that it is located in a volcanic crater surrounded by mountains helps thermal inversion and imply a huge pollution problem by trapping a thick layer of smog that float over the city. Modeling air pollution is a political and administrative important issue due to the fact that the prediction of critical events should guide decision making. The need for countermeasures against such episodes requires predicting with accuracy and in advance relevant indicators of air pollution, such are particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5). In this work two different fuzzy approaches for modeling PM 2.5 concentrations in Mexico City metropolitan area are compared with respect the simple persistence method.