The Social Network to Improve Water Quality in the Red Cedar Basin: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The way we perceive our social environment and the way we connect with our community matters. More specifically, social capital (the amount of empowerment, efficacy, participation, and trust one has within a community) matters.

If communities are to find solutions to environmental problems, we must first understand how we, as a society and community, view these problems and are able to utilize our community resources to create lasting solutions.

For two months, I studied the social network of people most closely associated with water quality policy in the Red Cedar Basin. Not only have I studied who is connected to whom, but I have also studied what values each of these individuals have.

I chose to focus on how the level of social capital each of these individuals had influenced their views or expectations of a leader. Our findings show that the type of social capital an individual has is significantly correlated with valuing some leadership qualities over others.

For example, if someone has a higher general social capital (higher frequency of attending various community events), they are 80% more likely to value ‘social connections with the right people’ as a leadership trait and 41% more likely to value ‘the ability to make others feel empowered’ as a leadership trait. However, these traits are not valued as highly among individuals with higher diverse social capital (those who greatly value diversity and differing perspectives in the workplace) and higher leadership social capital (those who plan and organize events and are seen as a leader or sought out for advice).

In fact, an individual with higher diverse social capital is 35% less likely to see ‘the ability to make others feel empowered’ as an important leadership skill and an individual with higher leadership social capital is 19% less likely to see ‘the ability to make others feel empowered’ as a leadership trait. However, these traits are not valued as highly among individuals with higher diverse social capital (those who greatly value diversity and differing perspectives in the workplace) and higher leadership social capital (those who plan and organize events and are seen as a leader or sought out for advice).

Through survey responses we were able to conclude that individuals with higher diverse social capital attended farm field days and other similar events more frequently, and those with higher leadership social capital planned these types of events more frequently. While good listening and communication is important, putting farmers in leadership roles and empowering them may be the most important way to have a more cohesive form of policy implementation.

How individuals within this social network prioritize leadership attributes matter and may influence the way policy implementation is conducted in the Red Cedar Basin. Within my analysis, 3 of 195 individuals identified in the network were farmers in the Red Cedar Basin. A social network that is more inclusive to all actors within the watershed could lead to more effective policy implementation and a greater understanding of the local environment. I hope to continue this research further and establish an even greater understanding of how these different types of social capital influence a variety of environmental and community behavior.