About our Research
Where We Live is working with rural communities to better understand how drought, heat, and wildfire are affecting them and to co-develop adaptation responses. The project focuses on these events and risks as a set of interrelated impacts. We are approaching the science for the project by comparing how people perceive change in these impacts with instrumented measurement impacts to determine potential relationships.
Analytical social science and other computational tools will be used to understand why and how people’s experiences of drought, heat, and wildfire differ from the scientific data. This information will help us develop better models of how these events and risks impact communities and create targeted strategies to help people adapt.
Ultimately, our goal is to provide valuable insights that can help communities become more resilient to drought, heat, and wildfire. We’ll do this by working closely with residents, emergency management professionals, and researchers to understand their needs and priorities.
Two key questions will guide our research:
- How do people’s perceptions about drought, heat, and wildfire compare to the actual data?
- How can we use this information to help communities adapt to drought, heat, and wildfire?