Aguilar Francisco X, Cai Zhen, Butler Brett
The School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America.
The Center for Agroforestry, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Jan 6;12(1):e0169667. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169667. eCollection 2017.
Individual behavior is influenced by factors intrinsic to the decision-maker but also associated with other individuals and their ownerships with such relationship intensified by geographic proximity. The land management literature is scarce in the spatially integrated analysis of biophysical and socio-economic data. Localized land management decisions are likely driven by spatially-explicit but often unobserved resource conditions, influenced by an individual's own characteristics, proximal lands and fellow owners. This study examined stated choices over the management of family-owned forests as an example of a resource that captures strong pecuniary and non-pecuniary values with identifiable decision makers. An autoregressive model controlled for spatially autocorrelated willingness-to-harvest (WTH) responses using a sample of residential and absentee family forest owners from the U.S. State of Missouri. WTH responses were largely explained by affective, cognitive and experience variables including timber production objectives and past harvest experience. Demographic variables, including income and age, were associated with WTH and helped define socially-proximal groups. The group of closest identity was comprised of resident males over 55 years of age with annual income of at least $50,000. Spatially-explicit models showed that indirect impacts, capturing spillover associations, on average accounted for 14% of total marginal impacts among statistically significant explanatory variables. We argue that not all proximal family forest owners are equal and owners-in-absentia have discernible differences in WTH preferences with important implications for public policy and future research.
个体行为不仅受到决策者内在因素的影响，还与其他个体及其所有权相关，这种关系会因地理 proximity 而增强。土地管理文献在生物物理和社会经济数据的空间综合分析方面较为匮乏。局部土地管理决策可能由空间明确但往往未被观察到的资源条件驱动，受到个体自身特征、邻近土地和共同所有者的影响。本研究以家庭拥有的森林管理为例，考察了既定选择，这种资源体现了可识别决策者的强烈货币和非货币价值。使用来自美国密苏里州的住宅和非居住家庭森林所有者样本，一个自回归模型控制了空间自相关的收获意愿（WTH）反应。WTH 反应在很大程度上由情感、认知和经验变量解释，包括木材生产目标和过去的收获经验。人口统计学变量，包括收入和年龄，与 WTH 相关，并有助于定义社会邻近群体。最相近身份的群体由 55 岁以上、年收入至少 5 万美元的居住男性组成。空间明确模型表明，捕捉溢出关联的间接影响平均占统计显著解释变量总边际影响的 14%。我们认为并非所有邻近的家庭森林所有者都是平等的，非居住所有者在 WTH 偏好上有明显差异，这对公共政策和未来研究具有重要意义。
