Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
implications for both incidental and intentional interactions between organizations
adressing the same issues.
The interactions between water information providers may create or perpetuate
disparities in content availability and/or the perception that communities have a
legitimate stake in future water supply and quality issues. The study considers the
role differences in information availability may play in recognition justice and
empowerment toward present and future environmental decisions, finding that there
differences in proximity to water information lends only weak spatial support to the
perceptions among water information providers that Latino/as and renters are less
likely to use information, and those with school-aged children should know more
(Cutts et al.
2008
). However, the likelihood of the public to encounter information
does vary across the region.
By considering organization-level knowledge about water information programs
as partial, this research acknowledges the social context of program creation and
dissemination (Robbins
2003
), redressing a common limitation of many environ-
mental information studies (Renwick and Archibald
1998
; Kaiser and Fuhrer
2003
).
The representation incorporates both the diversity of public information program
types and record keeping systems among water information providers. Information
entered in to the GIS incorporates an indivisible combination of documentation
and perceptions of information sharing effort by the water information providers.
It includes fuzzy and layered zonal information, blurred and multiple boundaries,
uncertain locations, dynamic flows, and empirically graspabable but imprecise
terms (Egenhofer and Mark
1995
; McCall and Minang
2005
). Therefore, the data
represents the cumulative “na¨ve geography” or perception of action among
participating water information providers as much as it does the physical location
of information provided across organizations.
3.8 Conclusions
Movements for public inclusion in decision making as well as shifts in global,
regional, and local shifts in climate, temperature, and precipitation have contributed
to a perception that educating the public about water supply and water quality is an
essential part of managing water (Jury and Vaux
2005
). Water information is both
an environmental amenity and a symbol of inclusion capable of being inequitably
distributed. If it is provided unevenly, then information provision may systemati-
cally create and perpetuate difference in access, empowerment, or a perception
among some communities that their opinions and interests are of marginal rele-
vance. The system of recognition politics of a single public information campaign
may be attenuated or amplified by the collective effort of multiple information
campaigns. Although previous research indicates that environmental educators
perceive that high-need audiences may have low access to information (Morrone
and Meredith
2003
) there have, until now, been no studies on the cumulative impact
of education programs focusing on a single issue (Enviros-Ris
1999
). This may be
