Zoey Shearer
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Federico Holm
Co-Presenter: He, Harriet
Research Mentor School/College/Department: / SNRE
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 3 – 1:40pm – 2:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Zoey Shearer, Harriet He, Federico Holm, PH.D.
Presenter: 29
Abstract
The focus of this research is on social-ecological systems related to wildfires in the Western US. Given the ongoing and future impacts of climate change, wildfire is one of the biggest challenges western states will face in coming years. In this context, the connection between human communities, forests, and wildfire must be understood in all its complexity. This study aims to reconstruct governance networks (the collection of individuals and organizations) that are related to wildfires, community resilience, and climate change in the Western US, with the intention to better understand this complex social system. To achieve this, we are searching through public digital trace data and newspaper articles, to extract relevant information for further processing. This data, in addition to information from community wildfire protection plans, is being sorted and cleaned to figure out who’s involved in wildfire governance. Using Colorado as a pilot study to test our methods, several hundred newspaper articles were tagged to develop a machine-learning validation algorithm for feature extraction, which combined with digital trace data, allows us to uncover different actors involved in the system. This approach will eventually be applied at a much larger scale, covering the entire Western US. In the end, the approach will help widen the scope of analysis and counterbalance prevalent biases when conducting research and implementing policy.
Environmental Studies, Interdisciplinary
