Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Are Risk Attitudes And Rainfall Variability Determinants Of Diversification? Evidence From Rondonia, Brazil, Brenna Swinger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Risk exposure and management are inherent to smallholder farmers. One of the risks they face is climate change. Climate change decreases rainfall, increases frequency of drought, adds heat stress to crops from higher temperatures, and leads to higher rainfall variability. The threat of rainfall variability causes higher production in some years and lower in others. Even if the average income remains the same, people’s welfare is reduced by the variability and the size of the loss will depend on their attitudes towards risk.

Diversification is one adaption strategy that may help reduce climate risk. Diversified farmers produce multiple types of …

The Influence Of Wildland Urban Interface Areas On Resource Assignments To Large Wildland Fires, Kurt Swimley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

We examine the relationship between U.S. wildfire resource assignments and fire proximity to inhabited areas. Climate change and previous vegetation buildup have enabled more severe fire seasons, while more structures are being developed near vegetated, wildland areas. These changes have contributed to a steep increase in the overall cost of wildfire management, the annual costs of which regularly rise into the billions (NIFC, 2021). Still, the extent to which each driver of suppression costs contributes to the increase in spending is not entirely understood. Previous studies have shown that more suppression resources are allocated to fires near inhabited areas, …

Modeling And Forecasting Glacier National Park Visitation, Michael James Kernan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

National parks have recently seen increased visitation demand. Glacier National Park is located in an area where changes in weather and climate will occur at an accelerated rate. Changes in fire and precipitation regimes are taking place at a time when Glacier National Park is setting new visitation records. This paper uses regression and forecast models to investigate the changing landscape of park visitation.

Findings suggest important impacts to monthly visitation and cycling on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park are associated with forest fire activity and precipitation. The conclusions of this paper support perceptions about the effect natural occurrences …

Natural Amenities And Rural Development: A Multilevel Analysis Of Regional Trends And Local Patterns, Dawson Reisig

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As rural communities began seeing increased rates of growth following the rural rebound of the 1970’s, many studies have examined the causes and consequences of this shift through the lens of regional amenities and migration trends. Additionally, as development patterns have moved outwards from concentrated growth in urban areas to sprawling development at the rural-urban fringe, many studies have examined the locations of rural development in relation to open space and the amenities it provides. However, examinations of the relationship between these two processes have been severely lacking in the field of land use studies, despite widespread acknowledgement that the …

An Outlay Equivalence Analysis Of South African Households, Samuel Peevey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A significant amount of evidence suggests that gender inequality in the developing world negatively impacts women and girls’ health, education and future wage potential. This thesis investigates whether households in South Africa discriminated against their girl children, in favor of their boy children. Additionally, I will investigate whether household heads favored children matching their own sex. Using the 1^st wave of the National Income Dynamics Study and Angus Deaton’s outlay-equivalence ratio method, I will estimate the impact, 8 age and sex categories have on their household’s adult goods expenditure. I found statistically significant but practically insignificant evidence, from a …