Richelle Winkler

Resilience to Global Food Supply Catastrophes

Many global catastrophic risks threaten major disruption to global food supplies, including nuclear wars, volcanic eruptions, asteroid and comet impacts, and plant disease outbreaks. This paper discusses options for increasing the resilience of food supplies to these risks. In contrast to local catastrophes, global food supply catastrophes cannot be addressed via food aid from external locations. Three options for food supply resilience are identified: food stockpiles, agriculture, and foods produced from alternative (non-sunlight) energy sources including biomass and fossil fuels. Each of these three options has certain advantages and disadvantages. Stockpiles are versatile but expensive. Agriculture is efficient but less viable in certain catastrophe scenarios. Alternative foods are inexpensive pre-catastrophe but need to be scaled up post-catastrophe and may face issues of social acceptability. The optimal portfolio of food options will typically include some of each and will additionally vary by location as regions vary in population and access to food input resources. Furthermore, if the catastrophe shuts down transportation, then resilience requires local self-sufficiency in food. Food supply resilience requires not just the food itself, but also the accompanying systems of food production and distribution. Overall, increasing food supply resilience can play an important role in global catastrophic risk reduction. However, it is unwise to attempt maximizing food supply resilience, because doing so comes at the expense of other important objectives, including catastrophe prevention. Taking all these issues into account, the paper proposes a research agenda for analysis of specific food supply resilience decisions.

Boom or Bust? Population Dynamics in Natural Resource-Dependent Counties

This chapter evaluates how migration streams by age, educational attainment, household income, and labor force status shape population composition and community assets in rural natural-resource-dependent US counties. Rural areas (and especially those dependent on natural resources) have long experienced out-migration of young adults, more educated people, and higher income households with serious implications for community sustainability. However, amenity destination places represent a different kind of natural resource dependence with correspondingly distinct migration patterns that have become more common around the world. In contrast to farming and mining dependent counties, counties dependent on serving as an amenity destination experience in-migration and attract high-income households, highly educated individuals, and older adults. Yet, we find that even amenity destinations experience net out-migration of young adults, remarkable levels of population turnover, and little gain in the employed population. These conditions could jeopardize the efficacy of local institutions (especially schools), curtail economic development, increase community ambivalence, and strain community services. In sum, migration flows in amenity destinations increase local financial capital but yield mixed outcomes for human and social capitals, bringing potential for community capital accumulation but introducing challenges as well.

Living on Lakes Segregated Communities and Inequality in a Natural Amenity Destination

Scenic beauty and outdoor recreation are drivers of population and economic growth in places with environmental goods that attract people, such as mountains, beaches, rivers, and lakes (natural amenities). Using a case study of the Brainerd, Minnesota lakes area, this article draws on urban political economy theory to investigate place stratification and its role in spreading inequality in the context of natural amenity growth. The research demonstrates how amenity growth can segregate the area population by social class and age into distinct communities of people who share similar interests, and ultimately perpetuate disadvantage among lower-income people and younger adults.

Amenity Migration in the New Global Economy: Current Issues and Research Priorities

Drawing from a panel session held in June 2013 at the 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management in Estes Park, CO, this article offers a review of the current state of research on amenity migration and calls for future research to more comprehensively address critical gaps in the literature. We highlight five promising avenues for future research on amenity migration: international patterns—both domestic outside the Global North and across national borders, inequality, interdisciplinary investigations, the importance of policy contexts, and the effects of contemporary social, economic, and demographic factors.

Residential segregation by age in the United States

This map analyzes geographic variation in residential segregation by age in the contiguous United States at Census 2010. We evaluate segregation at the micro-scale between blocks within counties and then examine spatial patterns of segregation by county across the United States using local indicators of spatial autocorrelation. This approach emphasizes local levels of segregation analyzing the extent to which older adults and younger adults reside in the same immediate neighborhood, and it assesses more regional levels of segregation by evaluating spatial clustering. Findings show that the extent of age segregation varies significantly across the contiguous United States. Counties in the Great Plains, in other areas of the Rural West and the Upper Midwest, and in Florida tend to exhibit high segregation, while Appalachia and other areas of the Rural South are generally more integrated.

Moving Toward Integration? Effects of Migration on Ethnoracial Segregation Across the Rural-Urban Continuum

This study analyzes the impact of migration on ethnoracial segregation among U.S. counties. Using county-level net migration estimates by age, race, and Hispanic origin from 1990–2000 and 2000–2010, we estimate migration’s impact on segregation by age and across space. Overall, migration served to integrate ethnoracial groups in both decades, whereas differences in natural population change (increase/decrease) would have increased segregation. Age differences, however, are stark. Net migration of the population under age 40 reduced segregation, while net migration of people over age 60 further segregated people. Migration up and down the rural-urban continuum (including suburbanization among people of color) did most to decrease segregation, while interregional migration had only a small impact. People of color tended to move toward more predominantly white counties and regions at all ages. Migration among white young adults (aged 20–39) also decreased segregation. Whites aged 40 and older, however, showed tendencies toward white flight. Moderate spatial variation suggests that segregation is diminishing the most in suburban and fringe areas of several metropolitan areas in the Northeast and Midwest, while parts of the South, Southwest, and Appalachia show little evidence of integration.

Migration signatures across the decades: Net migration by age in U.S. counties, 1950−2010

Background Migration is the primary population redistribution process in the United States. Selective migration by age, race/ethnic group, and spatial location governs population integration, affects community and economic development, contributes to land use change, and structures service needs. Objective Delineate historical net migration patterns by age, race/ethnic, and rural-urban dimensions for United States counties. Methods Net migration rates by age for all US counties are aggregated from 1950-2010, summarized by rural-urban location and compared to explore differential race/ethnic patterns of age-specific net migration over time. Results We identify distinct age-specific net migration ‘signatures’ that are consistent over time within county types, but different by rural-urban location and race/ethnic group. There is evidence of moderate population deconcentration and diminished racial segregation between 1990 and 2010. This includes a net outflow of Blacks from large urban core counties to suburban and smaller metropolitan counties, continued Hispanic deconcentration, and a slowdown in White counterurbanization. Conclusions This paper contributes to a fuller understanding of the complex patterns of migration that have redistributed the U.S. population over the past six decades. It documents the variability in county age-specific net migration patterns both temporally and spatially, as well as the longitudinal consistency in migration signatures among county types and race/ethnic groups.

Lakes and Community: The Importance of Natural Landscapes in Social Research

Natural resource sociology emphasizes the importance of analyzing society–environment interactions through the lens of community. Social communities develop structure, character, and culture based in large part on the natural resources present in the proximate geographic area and how they are used. This way of thinking about the world dates back to the origins of natural resource sociology and Kolb’s (1933) study demonstrating that hills and valleys (physical environmental features) affect social relationships (summarized by Field et al. 2002). Following this tradition, the focus of this essay is on the ways in which a biophysical feature (a lake) shapes social interaction. The research in this essay draws much of its context and insight from research, mentorship, professional associations, and data collection initiated by Don Field. Two of the authors were Field’s students and the third benefitted directly from the professional associations, relationships, and research traditions Field fostered. Field’s scholarship focuses on relationships between social and ecological landscapes and how they play out in rural communities. Among his contributions, Field has

Recreational fishing participation trends in Upper Great Lakes States: an age-period-cohort analysis

ABSTRACT This findings abstract summarizes the results of a demographic study of recreational anglers in five Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin). Using annual fishing license sales data (2000-2016), we employed an age-period-cohort regression model to estimate the independent effects of age, time period, and birth year on likelihood to fish for males and females in each state. Generations of men born prior to 1970 were more likely to fish than more recent generations. For women, more recent generations (born since 1980) were more likely to fish than their mothers or grandmothers. Projections suggest that the future number of male anglers will continue to decline, while the number of women will grow. Females should be expected to make up an increasing share of anglers. Accordingly, fisheries managers and policy makers should engage women as active stakeholders in decision-making. Analytical reports, maps, and data are available at https://www.mtu.edu/greatlakes/fishery.