Symposium/Workshop

Monday, February 4, 2008, 1-5pm  

Co-Chairs: Dr. Ken Genskow, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Dr. Linda Prokopy, Purdue University; and Rebecca Power, University of Wisconsin

Description:

Getting people to change behaviors that impact water quality is crucial to the long-term success of our nation’s efforts to reduce nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. NPS projects can help bring about these changes by delivering appropriate combinations of technical, financial, and educational assistance to people making land management decisions. Social indicators provide information about the social context, capacity, awareness, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals, households, organizations, and communities. They can provide consistent measures of social change within a watershed. Using social indicators in NPS projects can help staff understand and target audiences, focus their management efforts, and evaluate their impacts.  

This interactive workshop will provide an overview of social indicators for NPS projects and describe how indicators are being used for planning and evaluation. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to determine how social indicators might be applied to their own NPS projects.