In early 1998, CLIMAS embarked on a multifaceted research agenda to "…undertake research on the nature, causes, and consequences of climate change and variability in the Southwestern United States with the goal of providing improved information to regional decision-makers and resource managers" (Bales et. al 1998). As part of the research, the CLIMAS social science team undertook a pilot stakeholder assessment. The pilot ran from February to July 1998. In keeping with the initial focus on regional assessment activities in southern Arizona, the pilot was designed to identify and characterize the climate information needs of different stakeholder groups in that area. The intent was to develop initial information needed by CLIMAS researchers that would improve their understanding of existing patterns of climate information utilization and needs. What follows is an explanation of the approach and methods used by the stakeholder assessment.

 

Theory and Approach

The central tenet of the stakeholder assessment is that both the management of climate information systems and the direction of future research should be guided and informed by those whose livelihoods depend on accurate and up-to-date climate information. Information needed from stakeholders in the Southwest includes (1) a general understanding of the topical, spatial, and temporal parameters of climate information both used and desired by respondents, (2) how climate impacts their livelihoods or operations, and (3) how well-connected they are to current climate information systems. The stakeholder assessment was also set up to begin the process of identifying potential CLIMAS users, those who should be targeted for CLIMAS outreach activities, and those who do not need or use climate information. The pilot therefore required a methodology for systematically incorporating stakeholder concerns into the formation and growth of CLIMAS.

Enhanced communication between CLIMAS and stakeholders is a prerequisite for success in attaining the goals identified for the project. This emphasis on communication is significant in two senses: on the one hand, it acknowledges that, under this type of project, stakeholders’ vulnerabilities and needs should be the principal reasons for developing better climate information and information systems. On the other hand, it addresses the desire of NOAA to create genuine partnerships between information centers and the consumers of this information.

Stakeholder Theory

The term stakeholder has been the subject of much discussion and debate across disciplines in recent years. Fields such as environmental management, international development, and business management have developed unique definitions and theories surrounding this topic (Mitchell 1997, Peelle 1995, Phillips 1997). Most of these definitions roughly encompass the same space: the term stakeholder refers to persons or groups of persons that can affect the outcome of a project or policy or that are affected by a project or policy. In the scope of a typical project, stakeholders usually represent groups, organizations, or institutions comprised of persons with some shared ideology or concern.

Stakeholder: Any person, group, or organization that could contribute to the success of CLIMAS or that has a need or capacity to use climate information.

Part of the core office mission is to incorporate climate information into private and public decision making in the Southwest. To fulfill this mission, the CLIMAS will both serve and depend on the stakeholders interviewed in the course of this study. For the purposes of this study, then, a stakeholder will represent any person, group, or organization that might contribute to or benefit from CLIMAS research initiatives and the CLIMAS climate information system.

 

Community Approach

The pilot study also incorporated the concept of community. The term geographic community represents a physical, spatially-located city, town or community. Examining geographic communities provided valuable information on how stakeholders react to climate variability, contextualized in a particular town’s climate, location, and dominant economy. For the pilot, the research team chose to focus on these geographic communities in order to easily identify key individuals who should be interviewed and to maximize use of time and funds. Through this process, the research team was able to outline some of the stakeholder communities present in the study area. The stakeholder community was defined as a group of individuals who share the same livelihood, interact in a common social network, and possess some common interest. An example of a stakeholder community would be ranchers who practice holistic ranching methods. Geographically, these ranchers may be scattered across the Southwest, but they participate in the same economic sector, share a common ideology, and may even communicate periodically. Understanding these communities ultimately provides a more accurate and complete picture of how stakeholders uniquely perceive and respond to climate variability and change.

Stakeholder community: A group of individuals who share the same livelihood, interact in a common social network, and possess some common interest.

 

Methods

The scope of the pilot stakeholder assessment was refined as our knowledge of each community and its concerns grew. In the first stages of the pilot, interviewers took a broad sample of potential core office users to get an idea of the stakeholders’ climate information needs and interests. These early respondents were selected from a group of individuals who had completed a survey at the Southwest Regional Climate Change Symposium and Workshop, held at the University of Arizona September 3-5, 1997. The criterion used for selection was representativeness within a wide variety of occupations (e.g., researchers, farmers, land managers, and pubic officials). This first round of interviews, which was open-ended in structure, provided a base of knowledge from which to build an informed and more structured interviewing strategy.

 

Matrix

We next created a matrix for identifying potential respondents. Critical variables were identified with the assistance of the CLIMAS team (the critical variables are described below). Each identified variable was used to construct categories, thereby creating a mechanism for identifying a similar group of contacts in towns of different demographic and economic character. (A sample matrix is provided in Appendix 1).

 

Critical Variables

• Ecozone: The CLIMAS team identified ecological zones as one of the primary critical variables by which the stakeholders should be divided. To reduce the scope of the study, the pilot study team focused their efforts on the Southern Deserts ecozone (Figure 1.1).

• Land Ownership/Town Size: This matrix category compounded two critical variables, land ownership and demographic stature. Participating communities were divided into one of five categories: large urban city (any city with a population above 100,000), medium urban city (10,000 - 100,000), rural public town (less than 10,000 and dominated by public lands), rural private town (less than 10,000 and dominated by private lands), and Native American. Although this last classification of land is extremely significant in the Southwest, time was not sufficient to establish the necessary relationships with the various Southwestern tribal administrations. The CLIMAS research team has identified Native American issues as a topic for research in year two.

• Dominant Economy: The CLIMAS team devised a typology of towns in the Southwest using four economic bases, including agriculture, manufacturing, service/tourism, and mining/other. With the help of the Arizona Department of Commerce’s web page at http://www.commerce.state.az.us/, the pilot study team categorized all towns with according to one of the four dominant economies. Although not all towns conform to once economic type, researchers determined, based on number employees and gross earnings, which sector comprises the driving component of the economy. With this matrix category in place, towns were selected to fit the matrix cells. Note that all cells were not filled (for example, Tucson is the only large urban city in the southern deserts ecozone).

• Occupation: The final matrix category consisted of six occupational types determined to broadly represent potential stakeholders; public officials, water providers, land managers, utility managers, emergency response managers, and miscellaneous stakeholders. Pilot team members sought a representative of each occupational type in each selected city or town.

 

Figure 1.1 Ecozones in Arizona

 

Sampling, Contacts and Scheduling

        Selection of participants was directed by the matrix categories described above. In terms of sampling, the category Land Ownership/Management created the first stratification in the selection of towns. Assigning each city or town to a category of dominant economy created yet another stratification and usually reduced the number of possible towns to three or less. Towns were then selected based on their representativeness or convenience.

        Once researchers had selected a city or town, a member of the team began to locate potential respondents using a variety of methods. We often began searching by contacting individuals within the CLIMAS research group who are familiar with a particular city or town. When possible, we checked the local web page which often gave the names and phone numbers of city officials. Snow-ball sampling was also a critical component of the process. Researchers contacted the town clerk or another knowledgeable individual at the town’s city hall or chamber of commerce to gain information about residents and potential respondents. Also, while conducting interviews, researchers asked respondents to identify other people to interview. This snowball sampling method increased our knowledge of the localized administrative networks as well as the initial outlines of the stakeholder communities in the Southwest.

        Certain matrix occupations, like emergency response personnel or water providers, were easily identified because generally only one individual in a community filled that role. Other matrix occupations such as land managers or miscellaneous stakeholders, however, provided a wide array of possible respondents from which to choose. Informed contacts were invaluable for identifying potential respondents in these categories.

        Identifying individuals in occupations that would best represent local land ownership and the economy proved particularly difficult in some areas. It should also be mentioned that, in the case of large cities, the team often interviewed more than one representative for each occupational category in order to better capture the administrative and infrastructural complexity of the urban context. For the other cities and towns in the sample, the pilot study team identified a single respondent for each matrix cell.

        Nearly everyone we contacted agreed to be interviewed, provided they had time available. If an interview could not be arranged because of schedule conflicts, our contacts often identified other members of the community we might approach. Each set of interviews was concentrated to one day in order to maximize researchers’ time and project funding (see Figure 1.2 for the location of the cities and towns covered in the pilot survey).

        Over the course of five months, a total of 71 interviews were conducted. Of these, 58 filled matrix categories. Tables 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 report the number of stakeholders interviewed within the four matrix variables.

 

Table 1.1 Number of interviews completed in each ecozone

 

 

Table 1.2 Number of interviews completed in each category of "land ownership and management"

 

Table 1.3 Number of interviews completed in each category of "dominant economy"

 

Table 1.4 Number of interviews completed in each category of "occupation"

 

 

Figure 1.2 Cities (marked in red) in which interviews were conducted

 

Douglas

Goodyear

Green Valley

Hayden

Huachuca

Kearny

Marana

Nogales

Oro Valley

Patagonia

Phoenix

Sacaton

Safford

Sells

Sierra Vista

Sunizona

Tombstone

Tucson

Willcox

 

 

 

After: 1996 National Geographic Society Cartographic Division, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ maps/atlas/usstates/sarizom.html

 

 

Interview Procedure

The pre-matrix round of open-ended interviews provided a baseline of information from which to create a semi-structured interview procedure. Although we subsequently moved to a more structured interview format for the matrix-determined interviews, we continued to keep a conversational style to the interview. The semi-structured nature of the questionnaire ensured that certain compatible data were gathered from study participants. At the same time, the questionnaire allowed interviewers the flexibility to tailor the interview to markedly different respondents. The interview consists of seven sections, each capturing a unique dimension of climate information use (see Appendix 2 for the full interview protocol).

 

• General Questions: This section is the same for each stakeholder. These questions are designed to elicit information about how climate impacts livelihood, use of climate information systems, ability to locate particular information in those systems, and the satisfaction with the current state of known climate information.

• Sector-Specific Impacts: This section deals with questions unique to the different occupational categories of the matrix. Sectors for which these questions are most relevant include farming, land management, emergency response, public officials, water providers, and ranching.

• Annual Calendar: This section asks questions about how information use differs throughout the year. Although this information was asked of all stakeholders, it was most effective with farmers and ranchers because their operations are largely based on seasonal patterns dictated by different kinds of crops or by cattle.

• Time Line: This section investigates the demand and use of climate information in relation to historical weather events. Respondents were asked to recall major weather events in their local area. Events such as the flood of 1993 were mentioned by the interviewers to prompt the respondent. Using these events as a mnemonic device, interviewers inquired about the respondent’s event preparedness, information sources preceding the event, and how information use might have changed in the wake of the event.

• Information List: This section focuses on a laundry list of information sources. We incorporated this section in the survey to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the climate information systems used by the stakeholders. The data gathered will also allow us to gauge which information systems are more and less trusted by the stakeholders.

• The Core Office: This section collects information about what kind of climate information services stakeholders desire. Respondents were asked to evaluate the potential utility of a core office such as CLIMAS and to suggest ways they might interact with it. Respondents also suggested ways that the core office might present climate information, as well as the kinds of workshops they would like to attend.

• General Observations: This section gathers background information about the respondent, contextual information about the city or town, region, and industry/agency in which the respondent works, and/or other information of potential use to the research project.

Interviews generally lasted about one hour and were conducted by two interviewers, one conducting the interview, the other taking notes. Over the course of an interview, however, both interviewers often took an active role in guiding the discussion. With the permission of the respondents, interviews were tape recorded. At the conclusion of each interview, the interviewers gave their business cards to the respondents and encouraged them to call if they had any questions.

 

Databases

The responses and notes from each interview were brought back to the office and entered into a set of databases. The interview data were entered into a word processing program and then later introduced into a qualitative data analysis program called Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Search and Theorizing (or NUD*IST). NUD*IST requires the interview text be structured and formatted in a particular manner to facilitate later content analysis. The interview texts averaged 1.5 to 2 pages in length in standard word processing format. Interview notes were written and labeled in NUD*IST in such a way that particular sections or themes from interviews can be isolated and selected. For example, the NUD*IST database would allow a researcher to abstract all the responses to question 2 given by respondents categorized as land managers.

Microsoft Access was also used to keep track of study participants. In a table entitled "Participants", the name of each person interviewed was entered along with basic information about his or her occupation, address, telephone number, and position within our study matrix. Each respondent was assigned a number that became the primary vehicle for identifying each person in later analysis of the data to ensure confidentiality. Those respondents who wished to be added to the CLIMAS mailing list were also noted in the database.

The Access database contains another table, "Information", that records data assessing both current use of climate information systems and useful climate information not available. The table records information respondents need, information in which they have interest, and information produced or collected by the respondent that might be useful to the rest of the stakeholder community or to the CLIMAS research team. As in the first table, the assigned stakeholder number was used to ensure consistency and confidentiality across databases.

 

Analysis

Various approaches were used to analyze the different databases. The NUD*IST database allowed us to call up specific questions and analyze relevant content from the interviews. This database also allowed us to derive themes from the data and to compare and contrast common sections of the interviews. The Access database centralized the information generated by respondents and, in conjunction with the themes derived from the NUD*IST qualitative data, allowed us to piece together a picture of the major gaps in climate information systems serving the stakeholders. Similarly, we were able to gauge the factors that both facilitate and block stakeholder access to existing climate information systems. The stakeholder team met often to discuss findings and to draw upon our collective experience in order to extract the stories behind the data.

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