Measuring Local Subjective Wellbeing in the Puget Sound Region
Presentation Abstract
Monitoring how ecosystems, cultural amenities, and governance are contributing to human wellbeing is a critical part of managing social ecological systems in the Salish Sea Region. We demonstrate the potential to use Google Consumer Insights (GSI) as a method of monitoring ecosystem related wellbeing. Using results from 4,418 respondents to an online survey conducted in Washington’s Puget Sound, we describe the relationship between overall life satisfaction (a standard global measure for subjective wellbeing) and diverse metrics of engaging cultural ecosystem services. We apply multiple correspondence analysis to generate factors underlying key areas of ecosystem services including sense of place, outdoor activities, cultural activities, and psychological wellbeing in addition to a measure of good governance. While we use ordered logistic regression to demonstrate that cultural activities, sense of place, and outdoor activities are associated with life satisfaction, we also provide estimates of how these key factors vary across demographic groups and spatial characteristics of Puget Sound through use of subgroup and small area estimation (SAE). This allows us to compare the results of our survey’s subjective measures to readily available objective indicators such as access to shellfish beds, availability of local green space, and proximity to local farmers markets. We find that GSI type surveys enable low cost monitoring that matches many objective indicators for the given time period. This may allow the systematic use of GSI surveys as a low cost continual monitoring method to generate evidence of changes at sub-regional scales across time periods. In our conclusion, we provide recommendations regarding how subjective measures can be gathered through services such as GSI. The results of this analysis are useful for policy practitioners working on monitoring of social systems in the Salish Sea region, as well as for academic researchers investigating the relationship between human wellbeing and ecosystem services.
Session Title
Human Wellbeing Related to the Salish Sea
Conference Track
People
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2016 : Vancouver, B.C.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
2016 12:00 AM
End Date
2016 12:00 AM
Location
2016SSEC
Type of Presentation
Oral
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Human beings--Effect of environment on--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Biodiversity--Monitoring--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Ecosystem health--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Ecological assessment (Biology)---Washington (State)--Puget Sound
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Measuring Local Subjective Wellbeing in the Puget Sound Region
2016SSEC
Monitoring how ecosystems, cultural amenities, and governance are contributing to human wellbeing is a critical part of managing social ecological systems in the Salish Sea Region. We demonstrate the potential to use Google Consumer Insights (GSI) as a method of monitoring ecosystem related wellbeing. Using results from 4,418 respondents to an online survey conducted in Washington’s Puget Sound, we describe the relationship between overall life satisfaction (a standard global measure for subjective wellbeing) and diverse metrics of engaging cultural ecosystem services. We apply multiple correspondence analysis to generate factors underlying key areas of ecosystem services including sense of place, outdoor activities, cultural activities, and psychological wellbeing in addition to a measure of good governance. While we use ordered logistic regression to demonstrate that cultural activities, sense of place, and outdoor activities are associated with life satisfaction, we also provide estimates of how these key factors vary across demographic groups and spatial characteristics of Puget Sound through use of subgroup and small area estimation (SAE). This allows us to compare the results of our survey’s subjective measures to readily available objective indicators such as access to shellfish beds, availability of local green space, and proximity to local farmers markets. We find that GSI type surveys enable low cost monitoring that matches many objective indicators for the given time period. This may allow the systematic use of GSI surveys as a low cost continual monitoring method to generate evidence of changes at sub-regional scales across time periods. In our conclusion, we provide recommendations regarding how subjective measures can be gathered through services such as GSI. The results of this analysis are useful for policy practitioners working on monitoring of social systems in the Salish Sea region, as well as for academic researchers investigating the relationship between human wellbeing and ecosystem services.
