Drought Intensity, Future Expectations, and the Resilience of Climate Beliefs

Pamela Booth, Patrick Walsh and Pike Stahlmann-Brown

Ecological Economics, 2020, vol. 176, issue C

Abstract: Although past literature has suggested experience with the effects of climate change can affect people's belief in climate change, there is limited research on the duration of this outcome. If extreme events only update beliefs in the short term, there is a risk that long term investments and planning are only made in narrow windows around the events. Using a national survey of New Zealand farmers, we explore the effect of drought intensity on future climate expectations and plans for land-use change, focusing on the window of experience farmers use in planning. Results suggest farmers reference a short-term window rather than the historical record. Higher expectations of drought are also positively associated with land-conversion plans, highlighting the importance of beliefs in adaptation and planning behaviour. Climate change planning and adaptation require long term interest and investment. Our results suggest that short-term fluctuations in drought and weather can affect beliefs, so that a few good years might breed resistance to longer term investment.

Keywords: Climate Change; Drought; Survey Methods; Applied Econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919308043
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:176:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919308043

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106735

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().