Lauren Hunt

Spatial (mis)alignment between climate-related risks and risk perceptions across the US

Here, we examine the spatial patterns of (mis)alignment between climate-related risks and risk perceptions across the conterminous US and discuss how (mis)alignment may affect climate efforts in these places. We use public data describing county-level US public perceptions of personal climate risk developed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and derived via a multilevel regression with post-stratification on a national survey (Howe et al 2015) (figure 1(A)) and publicly available hazard risk data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Risk Index that quantifies and rates expected annual economic loss resulting from climate-related hazards (Zuzak et al 2021) for five major hazards...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation

Mapping Climate Change Vulnerability of Rangelands in the West Using Social-Ecological Indicators

Perhaps once considered dry, unproductive and unremarkable landscapes, America’s rangelands are increasingly recognized as invaluable cultural and ecological systems as they become progressively threatened by climate change. Water scarcity and wildfire across the western United States is expected to increase in severity and frequency due to climate change (Schoennagel et al., 2017). The economies of rural rangeland communities rely on agriculture and recreation, and the semi-arid landscapes are home to unique ecological communities. With careful stewardship, rangelands maintain soils, watersheds and carbon storage, but poor management can degrade wildlife habitat and destroy biodiversity (McNeeley et al., 2017)....