This projects investigates the role of social networks and social influence in travel behavior. Sustainable transportation programs may benefit from the incorporation of social influence through knowledge sharing, establishment of behavioral norms and peer-to-peer participation recruitment. The next phase of this ongoing research will involve evaluation of social influence as a tool in pilot sustainable transportation programs.

The project seeks to improve understanding of the role of institutions in developing adaptive capacity to the near-term effects of climate change in the Lake Victoria region of East Africa. Key adaptive capacity issues in the Lake Victoria region include disruptions to agricultural productivity, altered flood regimes, threats to the viability of fisheries, and shifts in plant and animal habitat suitability. Within the past few decades, numerous collaborative institutions have emerged to help address these adaptive capacity issues.

Integrated Regional Water Management Planning (IRWMP) in California is the product of a state funded grant program, which requires diverse water management interests to participate in the collaborative development of regional water management plans in order to qualify for grant funding. Broadly, our study of IRWMP in the San Francisco Bay Area seeks to identify factors that contribute to success in collaborative, multi-stakeholder planning processes.

This research analyzes the interaction among policy actors as they seek solutions to to complex policy problems in multiple "governance" games. We study the local ecology of games in the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta (CA), Tampa Bay (FL), and the Parana Delta of Argentina. The research involves surveys of policy stakeholders and statistical models of policy networks. We hope to understand the factors associated with cooperation, adaptive capacity, and resilience in these complex systems.

Check out our video series on Extension 3.0! All 10 videos can be found on Vimeo!

This project focuses on the evolution of stakeholder cooperation in the context of collaborative environmental policy in several different settings. Collaborative policy settings studied included the National Estuary Program, Integrated Regional Water Management, and regional land-use and transportation planning.

Project collaborators include UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences Project Scientist Sat Darshan Khalsa & Professor Patrick Brown. 

This project examines farmer decision-making in the context of disease management, including the influences of policy, learning, cooperation, economic factors, and individual characteristics. We are using semi-structured interviews, quantitative surveys, and behavioral experiments to better understand farmer decision-making with respect to the adoption of preventative disease-management practices in wood-canker diseases of grape, pistachio, and almond.