Social Capital and Cross-boundary Collaboration in Wyoming Wildfire Management Networks

Wildfire hotspots often intersect jurisdictional boundaries, so protecting human communities and restoring healthy fire regimes will require collaborative, cross-boundary action from fire managers. However, collaboration between fire management groups can have varied outcomes depending on the actors involved, all with different missions, financial obligations, and cultures. One way to conceptualize the interactions between actors is with the idea of social capital. We will investigate the following research question: how does social capital impact cross-boundary collaboration in wildfire management networks? We will survey wildfire managers in northwestern Wyoming about their collaborative actions using a snowball sampling method. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), we will elicit a social network map from which we can derive social capital scores (betweenness centrality, and degree centrality) for the participants. We can then compare social capital scores to responses about collaborative actions. We expect actors who have higher betweenness-centrality to be more likely to collaborate across boundaries and participate in more costly collaborative behaviors. Results will be used to identify critical gaps within the network that could be filled to increase effective collaboration and thus, the resilience of the fire region. Note: We expect to have preliminary results from several rounds of snowball sampling in Wyoming by the time of this poster presentation