Rural Nevada and Climate Change: Vulnerability, Beliefs, and Risk Perception

Risk Analysis

Volumn 32, Issue 6, 2012, Pages 1041-1059

  Saleh Safi, Ahmad ^a   James Smith, William ^b   Liu, Zhnongwei ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA   (United States)

Author keywords

Adaptive capacity; Climate change; Drought; Nevada; Physical vulnerability; Ranchers and farmers; Risk perception; Sensitivity; Vulnerability

Indexed keywords

ADAPTIVE CAPACITY; NEVADA; PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY; RANCHERS AND FARMERS; SENSITIVITY; VULNERABILITY;

AGRICULTURE; CLIMATE CHANGE; DROUGHT; ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EFFECTS; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; WATER RESOURCES;

RISK PERCEPTION;

ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECT; CLIMATE CHANGE; DATABASE; DROUGHT; GIS; HOUSEHOLD INCOME; NATURE-SOCIETY RELATIONS; RANCHING; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; RISK PERCEPTION; SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS; SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACT; VULNERABILITY; WATER AVAILABILITY; WATER USE;

ADULT; AGED; AGRICULTURE; ARTICLE; CLIMATE CHANGE; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; DROUGHT; FEMALE; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; HUMAN; MALE; METHODOLOGY; MIDDLE AGED; PERCEPTION; POLICY; POLITICS; PUBLIC OPINION; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; RISK; RURAL POPULATION; UNITED STATES;

ADULT; AGED; AGED, 80 AND OVER; AGRICULTURE; CLIMATE CHANGE; CULTURE; DROUGHTS; FEMALE; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; HUMANS; MALE; MIDDLE AGED; NEVADA; PERCEPTION; POLITICS; PUBLIC OPINION; PUBLIC POLICY; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; RISK; RURAL POPULATION;

NEVADA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 84862605515     PISSN: 02724332     EISSN: 15396924     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01836.x     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. Blake DE. Contextual effects of environmental attitudes and behavior. Environment and Behavior, 2001; 33:708-725.
2. Messner F, Meyer V. Flood damage, vulnerability and risk perception-challenges for flood damage research. Pp. 149-167 in Schanze J, Zeman E, Marsalek J (eds). Flood Risk Management: Hazards, Vulnerability and Mitigation Measures. The Netherlands : Springer; 2006.
3. Weber EU. Climate Change Hits Home. Nature Climate Change, 2011; 1(1):25-26.
4. Satterfield TA, Mertz CK, Slovic P. Discrimination, vulnerability and justice in the face of risk. Risk Analysis, 2004; 24(1):115-129.
5. IPCC. Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [McCarthy JJ, Canziani OF, Leary NA, Dokken DJ, White KS, eds]. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.
6. IPCC. Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE, eds]. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007.
7. Cutter SL. The vulnerability of science and the science of vulnerability. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2003; 93(1):2-12.
8. Adger NW. Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 2006; 16:268-281.
9. Smith WJ, Jr. A geographic analysis of the impact of scale and isolation on coping with hazards on small islands. Technology and Society, Journal of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology, 2008; 27(3): 39-47.
10. Scheraga J, Grambsch AE. Risks, opportunities and adaptation to climate change. Climate Research, 1998; 10:85-95.
11. Kasperson RE, Kasperson JX. Climate Change Vulnerability and Social Justice. Stockholm : Stockholm Environment Institute, 2001.
12. Fussel H, Klein RJ. Climate change vulnerability assessments: An evolution of conceptual thinking. Climatic Change, 2006; 75:301-329.
13. O'Brien K, Eriksen S, Sygna L, Naess LO. Questions complacency: Climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation in Norway. Ambio, 2006; 35(2):50-56.
14. Yohe G, Tol R. Indicators for social and economic coping capacity-Moving a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change, 2002; 12:25-40.
15. Metzger, MJ, Leemans R, Schroter D. A multidisciplinary multi-scale framework for assessing vulnerabilities to global change. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 2005; 7:253-267.
16. Smit B, Wandal J. Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 2006; 16:282-292.
17. Gallopin GC. Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change, 2006; 16:293-303.
18. Barnettt J, Adger WN. Climate change, human security and violent conflict. Political Geography, 2007; 26:639-655.
19. Smith WJ, Jr., Wand YD. Conservation rates: The best 'new' source of urban water during drought. Water & Environment Journal, 2007; 22(2):100-116.
20. Cutter SL. Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in Human Geography, 1996; 20(4):529-539.
21. Eakin H, Luers AL. Assessing the vulnerability of social-environmental systems. Annual Review of Environmental Resources, 2006; 31:365-394.
22. Fussel H. Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research. Global Environmental Change, 2007; 17:155-167.
23. Janssen MA. An update of the scholarly networks on resilience vulnerability, and adaptation within the human dimensions of global environmental change. Ecology and Society, 2007; 12(2):9-27.
24. Blaikie P, Cannon T, Davis I, Wisner B. At Risk: Natural Hazards, Peoples' Vulnerability, and Disasters, 1st ed. London : Routledge, 1994.
25. Carpenter S, Walker B, Anderies JM, Abel N. From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of what to what? Ecosystems, 2001; 4:765-78.
26. Gunderson LH, Holling CS. Panarchy: Understanding Transformation in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC : Island, 2002.
27. Ribot JC., Najem A, Watson G. Climate change variation, vulnerability and sustainable development in the semiarid tropics. Pp. 13-51 in Ribot JC, Magalhaes AR, Panagides SS (eds). Climate Variability, Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the Semi-arid Tropics, Cambridge : University of Cambridge Press, 1996.
28. Adger NW. Social vulnerability to climate change and extremes in coastal Vietnam. World Development, 1999; 27(2):249-269.
29. Kelly PM, Adger NW. Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. Climatic Change, 2000; 47:325-352.
30. Hahn MB, Riederer AM, Foster SO. The livelihood vulnerability index: A pragmatic approach to assessing risks from climate variability and change-A case study in Mozambique. Global Environmental Change, 2009; 19:74-88.
31. Turner BL, Kasperson RE, Matson PA, McCarthy JJ, Corell RW, Christensen L, Eckley N, Kasperson J, Luers A, Martello ML, Polsky C, Pulsipher A, Schiller A. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2003; 100(14):8074-8079.
32. Adger NW. Social and ecological resilience: Are they related? Progress in Human Geography, 2000; 24(3):347-364.
33. Adger NW. Social capital, collective action, and adaptation to climate change. Economic Geography, 2003; 79(4):387-404.
34. Adger NW. Approaches to vulnerability to climate change. CSERGE working papers. Britain : University of East Anglia, 2005.
35. Cutter SL, Boruff BJ, Shirley WL. Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 2003; 84(2):242-261.
36. Brody SD, Zahran S, Vedlitz A, Grover H. Examining the relationship between P.V. and public perception of global climate change in the United States. Environment and Behavior, 2008; 40(1):72-95.
37. Safi AS. Climate change in rural Nevada: The influence of vulnerability on risk perception and environmental behavior [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation]. [ Las Vegas ]: University of Nevada Las Vegas, Environmental Science Program, 2011.
38. Whitmarsh L. Are flood victims more concerned about climate change than other people? The role of direct experience in risk perception and behavioral response. Journal of Risk Research, 2008; 11(3):351-374.
39. Spence A, Poortinga W, Butler C, Pidgeon NF. Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience. Nature Climate Change, 2011; 1(1):46-49.
40. Dessai S, Sims C. Public perception of drought and climate change in southern England. Environmental Hazards, 2010; 9:340-357
41. Drori I, Yuchtman-Yaar E. Environmental vulnerability in public perception and attitudes: The case of Israel urban centers. Social Science Quarterly, 2002; 83(1):53-63.
42. Elliot SJ, Cole DC, Krueger P, Voorberg N, Wakefield S. 1999. The power of perception: Health risk attributed to air pollution in an urban industrial neighborhood. Risk Analysis, 19(4):621-634.
43. Brody SD, Peck BM, Highfield WE. Examining localized patterns of air quality perception in Texas: A spatial and statistical analysis. Risk Analysis, 2004; 24(6):1561-1574.
44. Dunlap RE, McCright AM. Climate change denial: Sources, actors, and strategies. Pp. 240-259 in Lever-Tracy, C. (ed). The Routledge International Handbook of Climate Change and Society. New York : Routledge Press, 2010.
45. McCright AM, Dunlap RE. The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public's views of global warming, 2001-2010. The Sociological Quarterly, 2011; 52:155-194.
46. McCright AM, Dunlap RE. Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States. Global Environmental Change, 2011; 21(4):1163-1172.
47. Hamilton C. Requiem for a species: Why we resist the truth about climate change. London and Washington, DC : Earthscan, 2010.
48. Dunlap RE, McCright AM. A widening gap: Republican and Democratic views on climate change. Environment, 2008; 50(5):26-35.
49. Borick CP, Lachapelle E, Rabe BG. Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada. Brookings: Governance Studies at Brookings, 2011 Available at:, Accessed on February 2012.
50. O'Connor RE, Bord RJ, Fisher A. Risk perceptions, general environmental beliefs, and willingness to address climate change. Risk Analysis, 1999; 19(3):461-471.
51. Leiserowitz A. Global Warming in the American Mind: The Roles of Affect, Imagery, and the Worldviews in Risk Perception, Policy Preference and Behavior [Unpublished Ph.D dissertation]. [ Eugene ]: University of Oregon, Environmental Studies Program, 2003.
52. Leiserowitz A. American risk perceptions: Is climate change dangerous? Risk Analysis, 2005; 25(6):1433-1442.
53. Leiserowitz A. Climate change risk perception and policy preferences: The role of affect, imagery, and values. Climatic Change 2006; 77:45-72.
54. Dietz T, Dan A, Shwom R. Support for climate change policy: Social psychological and social structural influences. Rural Sociology, 2007; 72(2):185-214.
55. Slimak MW, Dietz T. Personal values, beliefs, and ecological risk perception. Risk Analysis, 2006; 26(6):1689-1705.
56. Sundblad EL, Biel A, Galing T. Cognitive and affective risk judgments related to climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2007: 27:97-106.
57. Semenza JC, Hall DE, Wilson DJ, Bontempo BD, Sailor D, George LA. Public perception of climate change voluntary mitigation and barriers to behavior change. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2008; 35(5):479-487.
58. Oloffson A, Rashid S. The white male effect and risk perception: Can equality make a difference? Risk Analysis, 2011; 31(6):1016-1032.
59. Bord RJ, O'Connor RE, Fisher A. In what sense does the public need to understand global climate change? Public Understanding of Science, 2000; 9:205-218.
60. Krosnick JA, Holbrook AL, Lowe L, Visser PS. The origins and consequences of democratic citizens' policy agenda: A study of popular concern about global warming. Climatic Change, 2006; 77:7-43.
61. Jenkins-Smith H, Goebbert K, Klockow K, Nowlin M. Seeing the world through a political lens: The connection between weather and climate change perceptions and beliefs. A paper presented at the 5th Symposium on Policy and Socio-Economic Research, AMS, Atlanta, Georgia, 2010.
62. CIER. Economic Impacts of Climate Change in Nevada. The Center of Integrative Environmental, University of Maryland, 2008. Available at:, Accessed on February 2010.
63. Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee (NCCAC). Governor Jim Gibbons' Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee Final Report, 2008. Available at:, Accessed on July 2011.
64. Piechota T, Timilsena J, Tootle G, Hidalgo H. The Western U.S. Drought: How Bad Is It? EOS, 2004; 85(2):301-308.
65. Leung LR, Qian Y, Bian X, Washnigton WM, Han J, Roads JO. 2004. Mid-century ensemble regional climate change scenarios for the Western United States. Climatic Change, 62:75-113.
66. Miller WP, Piechota T. Regional analysis of trend and step changes observed in hydroclimatic variables around the Colorado River Basin. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2004; 9:1020-1034.
67. SNWA. Drought Plan. Southern Nevada Water Authority; 2007. Available at:, Accessed on March 2008.
68. Barnettt T, Malone R, Pennell W, Stammer D, Semtner B, Washington W. The effect of climate change on water resources in the West: Introduction and overview. Climatic Change, 2004; 62:1-11.
69. Barnettt T, Pierce D. When will Lake Mead go dry? The Journal of Water Resources, 2008; 44, W03201, doi:.
70. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Secure Water Act Section 9502©-Reclamation Climate Change and Water, 2011.Available at:, Accessed on June 2011.
71. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. West-Wide Climate Risk Assessments: Bias-Corrected and Spatially Downscaled Surface Water Projections, 2011. Available at:, Accessed on June 2011.
72. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): Economic Research Services. Sate Fact Sheets: Nevada, 2010. Available at:, Accessed on February 2010.
73. Perveen S. Multi-Scale Effects on Spatial Metrics in Global Water Re source Data: Implication to Water Stress [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation]. [ Columbia ]: University of South Carolina, Geography, College of Arts and Sciences; 2008, 209 pp.
74. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Fact Sheet: LandScan Global Population Databases, 2011. Available from:, Accessed on January 2011.
75. Leiserowitz A, Maibach E, Roser-Renouf C. (Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change). Climate change in the American mind: Americans' climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and actions. Wahsignton, DC and New Haven, 2009. Available at:, Accessed on August 2011.
76. Falkenmark M, Widstrand C. (Population Reference Bureau). Population and water resources: A delicate balance. Population Bulletin, 1992; 47(3):1-36.
77. Kulshreshtha SN. A global outlook for water resources to the year 2025. Water Resources Management, 1998; 12:167-184.
78. Perveen, S, James A. Multiscale effects on spatial variability metrics in global water resources data. Water Resource Management, 2009; 24(9):1903-1924.
79. Hollingshead AB (Yale University). Four Factor Index of social Status. Unpublished manuscript. New Haven, CT, 1975.
80. Cirino PT, Chin CC, Sevcik RA, Wolf M, Lovett M, Morris RD. Measuring socioeconomic status: Reliability and preliminary validity for different approaches. Assessment, 2002; 9:145-155.
81. Foster J, Greer J, Thorbecke E. A class of decomposable poverty measures. Econometrica, 1984; 52(3):761-766.
82. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). The 2009 HHS Poverty Guidelines. One Version of the U.S. Federal Poverty Measures, 2009. Available at:, Accessed on October 2009.
83. Moore DS, McCabe GP, Craig BA. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 6th rev. NY : W.H. Freeman and Company, 2009.
84. Smith K. Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster, 3rd rev. London and New York : Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2000, 392 pp.
85. Kahan DM, Jenkins-Smith H, Braman D. Cultural cognition of scientific consensus. Journal of Risk Research, 2011; 14(2):147-174.
86. Poortinga W, Spence A, Whitmarsh L, Capstick S, Pidgeon N. Uncertain climate: An investigation into public skepticism about anthropogenic climate change. Global Environmental Change, 2011; 21:1015-1024.
87. Pielke RS, Jr. The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007, 188 pp.
88. Brewer PR, Pease A. Federal climate politics in the United States: Polarization and paralysis. Pp. 85-103 in Compston H, Bailey I (eds). Turning Down the Heat: The Politics of Climate Policy in Affluent Democracies. Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.