The central USA has experienced an increase in the frequency and magnitude of humaninduced
earthquakes. The earthquakes are caused by the deep-well injection of water produced
from oil and gas development. However, the novelty of these earthquakes and the
politicized nature of oil and gas have resulted in competing explanations for their causes,
leading to public uncertainty. To determine public beliefs about the causes of the earthquakes
and the factors that influence these beliefs, we administered and analyzed a household
survey. We found that the more individuals experienced the adverse effects of the
earthquakes, the more they agreed that they were caused by the injection of wastewater
from oil and gas production. Further, individuals with more positive perceptions of oil
and gas industry activity more strongly believed that the earthquakes are caused by nature.
These findings show that beliefs around technological, energy-related hazards are shaped
by hazard exposure and views about the human activity causing the hazard. Understanding
what the public believes to be the cause of the earthquakes is important, as it can impact
policy and personal interventions taken to mitigate risk.
Professionalized maintenance arrangements are emerging and growing to improve rural
water service sustainability across sub-Saharan Africa, where local governments often act
as rural service authorities. Uganda鈥檚 Ministry of Water and Environment released a novel
policy in 2019 to promote professionalization, outlining requirements of local governments
to support professionalized maintenance under a new framework for rural water service
delivery. We identify how responsibilities of local government actors shifted under this policy
and then use Organizational Institutional Theory to explore how the institutional environment鈥�
composed of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars鈥攊nfluences these
actors鈥� fulfillment of assigned functions under the new policy and support of professionalized
maintenance arrangements. To do this, we collected, transcribed, and qualitatively coded
data from semi-structured interviews with 93 Ugandan local government actors at all hierarchical
levels across 22 sub-counties in three Ugandan districts. Due to infrequent references
by interviewees to regulative influences on action such as formal rules and policies, we propose
that the new policy alone is unlikely to motivate essential local government support.
Allocated responsibilities must align with widely-cited normative and cultural-cognitive influences,
including relationship expectations, typical processes and routines, political dynamics,
notions of identity, perceived self-efficacy, and cultural beliefs. We recommend
leveraging existing institutional influences where possible to motivate actions aligned with
the policy. For example, local government actors can fulfill community expectations of them
to solve prolonged nonfunctionality by connecting communities to professionalized maintenance
service providers instead of performing individual out-of-pocket repairs. Improving
understanding of local service authority perspectives is essential as professionalized maintenance
arrangements emerge and grow and as new policies expand and shift essential
support functions.
Cord, C., Javernick-Will, A., Buhungiro, E., Harvey, A., & Linden, K. (2022). Institutional influences on local government support for professionalized maintenance of water supply infrastructure in rural Uganda: A qualitative analysis. PLOS Water, 1(2), e0000003.
Cord, C., Javernick-Will, A., Buhungiro, E., Harvey, A., & Linden, K. (2022). PLOS Water, 1(2), e0000003.Decentralization in many African countries makes local governments responsible for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) service provision. Yet service provision is complex and requires concerted inputs from many actors, thus local governments are increasingly collaborating with internal and external stakeholders. These 鈥榗ollaborative approaches鈥�, which bring together diverse stakeholders to solve complex problems facing service delivery, have been found to strengthen service provision when they obtain support and commitment from local government decision makers. However, the ways to obtain this commitment remain understudied. This cross-case comparative study investigated how collaborative approaches in Ethiopia and Uganda obtained government commitment for their activities. Results draw upon experiences of 13 cases where sufficient commitment either was or was not gained. Deep case knowledge of the research team, aided by Qualitative Comparative Analysis, revealed that the collaborative must (a) be seen as legitimate and credible, (b) align activities within government mandates, and (c) demonstrate the value of the activities to decision-makers. Together this strategy provides a reliable way for collaborative approaches to secure government commitment for their activities. Notably, the results also show that commitment can be obtained even amidst turnover and political dynamics.
Systems for regular, preventive maintenance of infrastructure are needed to ensure safe water access globally. Emerging and growing across rural sub-Saharan Africa, professionalized maintenance arrangements feature legal, regulated service providers who maintain infrastructure in exchange for consumer payment through contracts. However, little is understood about the conditions that enable service providers to retain consumer contracts, an important component of their sustainability that indicates consistent demand and payment. This paper uses fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify combinations of operational, natural, physical, political, and social conditions enabling high contract retention across 22 implementation cases in Uganda, uncovering 2 pathways to success. In both pathways, consistent expansion by the service provider normalizes concepts such as tariff payment and local government participation increases trust and accountability between the service provider and consumers. The predominant pathway features one additional condition, coordinated sector aid, ensuring consistent implementation and mitigating harmful dependencies. The alternative pathway relies on large user communities and ease of access to those communities to counteract uncoordinated aid. Thus, operational, social, and political conditions may be suf!cient to enable high contract retention irrespective of natural and physical conditions. This paper uncovers the combined efforts required of service providers, service authorities, international donors, and local aid actors to ensure the sustainable maintenance of rural water infrastructure for reliable safe water access.
Cord, C., Javernick-Will, A., Buhungiro, E., Harvey, A., Jordan, E., Lockwood, H., & Linden, K. (2022). Pathways to consumer demand and payment for professional rural water infrastructure maintenance across low-income contexts. Science of The Total Environment, 815, 152906.
Cord, C., Javernick-Will, A., Buhungiro, E., Harvey, A., Jordan, E., Lockwood, H., & Linden, K. (2022). Science of The Total Environment, 815, 152906.Poleacovschi, C., Javernick-Will, A., Wang, S., & Tong, T. (2021). Gendered knowledge accessibility: Evaluating the role of gender in knowledge seeking among engineers in the US. Journal of Management in Engineering, 37(1), 04020094.
Poleacovschi, C., Javernick-Will, A., Wang, S., & Tong, T. (2021). Journal of Management in Engineering, 37(1), 04020094.This study seeks to understand how housing safety perceptions have changed after a specific hazard event: the 2019鈥�2020 earthquakes affecting the US Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. The research team conducted and qualitatively analyzed 52 semistructured interviews with households, informal builders, and individuals involved in formal construction on the island to understand risk and safety perceptions related to both hurricanes and earthquakes before and after the 2019鈥�2020 earthquakes. The study found that, after the earthquakes, trust in informal construction processes decreased; trust in formal construction processes and self-efficacy increased; and perceptions of expected earthquake damage and views on the relative safety of building materials changed, including a notable shift to doubt the safety of concrete construction. Because household risk and housing safety perceptions directly affect decisions about safe construction materials and practices, it is critical to both understand these perceptions and investigate how these perceptions may change with the experience of a less frequent or less familiar hazard event.