Grantee Research Project Results
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: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: July 1, 1995 through January 1, 2000
Project Amount: $31,246
RFA: STAR Graduate Fellowships (1995) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Academic Fellowships , Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration , Fellowship - Earth
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:
RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Geographic Area, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecology, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Ecosystem Protection, State, Ecological Effects - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Forestry, decision-making, Ecology and Ecosystems, Sociology, Ecological Indicators, Economics & Decision Making, Social Science, Water Protection Rules (OPFA), social acceptance of changes to OPFA, Oregon, Oregon Forest Practices Act (OPFA), responses to changes in OFPA Water Protection Rules, water protection, public issues, landowner behavior, riparian forests, public opinion polls, characterization of post-harvest riparian stand conditions, water, forests, responses to changes in OPFA Water protection rules, streamside conditions, forest protectionProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.