Sponsor
This work was supported by the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station through Joint Venture Agreement 20-JV-11221637-062. Additional support was provided by The Ohio State University, College of Food Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
Published In
Ecology and Society
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-2023
Subjects
Wildfires -- research, Wildfire risk -- United States, Community wildfire protection plans -- risk assessment
Abstract
The growing scale of natural hazards highlights the need for models of governance capable of addressing risk across administrative boundaries. However, risk governance systems are often fragmented, decentralized, and sustained by informal linkages among local-level risk mitigation planning processes. Improving resilience to the effects of environmental change requires a better understanding of factors that contribute to these linkages. Using data on the patterns of participation of 10,199 individual stakeholders in 837 community wildfire protection plans (CWPPs) within the western U.S., we document the emergence of a locally clustered but spatially extensive wildfire risk governance network. Our evaluation of factors that contribute to connectivity within this network indicates that risk interdependence (e.g., joint exposure to the same fires) between planning jurisdictions increases the prospects for linkages between planning processes, and that connectivity is also more likely among planning processes that are more proximate and similar to one another. We discuss how our results advance understanding of how changing hazard conditions prompt risk mitigation policy networks to reorganize, which in turn affects risk outcomes at multiple spatial scales.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.5751/ES-13856-280303
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40702
Citation Details
Hamilton, M., Nielsen-Pincus, M., & Evers, C. R. (2023). Wildfire risk governance from the bottom up: linking local planning processes in fragmented landscapes. Ecology and Society, 28(3).