Dr. Zhao Ma

Biography:
My research focuses on understanding how individuals and institutions make decisions with respect to natural resource management and conservation. I examine these decision making processes from two aspects. One aspect focuses on private individuals. I ask questions about how individuals make decisions with respect to land use and resource management, how they view and respond to environmental changes at local, regional and global scales, and what information, assistance and incentives they need to make informed decisions. The other aspect focuses on public and private institutions. I ask questions about how institutions formulate, implement and evaluate natural resource and environmental policies and programs at the local, regional and national levels, and how various ecological, social, economic and political factors influence policy and program development. In addition to these two aspects, I examine the interactions between individual and institutional decision making. I ask questions about how individuals view and respond to various policy and program incentives, how individual attitudes and behavior across the landscape and over time cumulatively affect policy development in public and private institutions, and how existing institutional infrastructures promote or hinder individual decision making within the context of sustainable land use and resource management. The guiding philosophy of my research is to create knowledge that contributes to improving individual and institutional capacity to address important natural resource and environmental issues in a rapidly changing global environment. My current research program consists of several projects that are in various stages. These projects can be grouped into two thematic clusters: 1) land use and conservation decision making and policy development; and, 2) individual and intuitional decision making in response to climate change.

Ongoing research projects:

• Smallholder farmer climate perception and adaptation on the Loess Plateau of China
  
• Understanding rancher perception of climate uncertainty and assessing the viability of carbon sequestration policy in Utah
  
• USU faculty knowledge of and attitudes towards climate change - Honors thesis project by Amy Rohman (IRB Letter of Information)
  
• Managing for resilience in forested ecosystems of the Intermountain West: a human dimension perspective
  
• Effect of state & local taxes on family forests