Colin Polsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 133462 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Colin Polsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Colin |
| FAMILY NAME | Polsky |
| SIGNATURE | POLSKY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Clark University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 98 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Challenging the Concept of Rational Flood Risk Decision-Making: Cultural Influences on Homeownership in the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Zone
The rational actor paradigm (RAP) suggests individuals make rational choices when provided with adequate information. This should apply to decisions related to disasters, like flooding. However, it is also the case that nonrational factors, like cultural worldviews and political identities, could predict flood-related behaviors. We tested these ideas using a set of competing hypotheses, the ideological beliefs hypothesis and the cautious actor hy…
Modeling multi-scale influences on household lawncare decisions: Formal and informal neighborhood conforming effects on fertilizer use
Establishing a framework of a watershed-wide screening tool to support the development of watershed-based flood protection plans for low-lying coastal communities
Flood risk analysis is the instrument by which floodplain and stormwater utility managers create strategic adaptation plans to reduce the likelihood of flood damages in their communities, but there is a need to develop a screening tool to analyze watersheds and identify areas that should be targeted and prioritized for mitigation measures. The authors developed a screening tool that combines readily available data on topography, groundwater, surf…
Climate and Societal Impacts
Climate shapes the behavior of all living organisms, including humans. Changes in climate should therefore affect human and ecosystem wellbeing. Yet isolating the impacts of a changed climate is challenging because the climate change does not unfold in a vacuum. Instead, multiple non‐climate (social or biophysical) processes may amplify or attenuate the impacts of the changed climate. Recent climate impacts scholarship focuses on land use, emerge…
Satisfaction, water and fertilizer use in the American residential macrosystem
© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Environmental Research Letters 11 (2016): 034004, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034004
Social well-being and environmental governance in urban neighbourhoods in Boston, MA
Well-being is an holistic concept that examines individuals in their social, economic, and environmental contexts. In geographical settings where social deprivation is common, civil society organisations (CSOs) represent important actors in environmental governance, which refers to the suite of actions and discourses shaping environmental conditions or resources. These CSOs operate in neoliberal governance frameworks in which they act as formal p…
Reprint of “The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods”
The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods
Why Land Planners and Water Managers Don't Talk to One Another and Why They Should
Increasing evidence demonstrates that unsustainable land use practices result in human-induced drought conditions, and inadequate water supplies constrain land development in growing cities. Nonetheless, organizational barriers impair coordinated land and water management. Land planning is strongly influenced by political realities and interest groups, while water management is focused on the single-minded goal of providing reliable water for fut…
Heterogeneity in Residential Yard Care: Evidence from Boston, Miami, and Phoenix
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet: The Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project
Suburbanization and drought: A mixed methods vulnerability assessment in rainy Massachusetts
This paper presents evidence that water restrictions in suburbanizing eastern Massachusetts towns are becoming more common, controlling for climate. We then assess the relationship between these suburban droughts and residential development. Focusing on the suburbs of Boston, seven towns independent of the Boston water supply system were selected to represent differing levels of sprawl-style growth. Water restrictions are becoming more frequent i…
Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: The vulnerability scoping diagram
A Portfolio Approach to Analyzing Complex Human-Environment Interactions: Institutions and Land Change
Young, O. R., E. F. Lambin, F. Alcock, H. Haberl, S. I. Karlsson, W. J. McConnell, T. Myint, C. Pahl-Wostl, C. Polsky, P. Ramakrishnan, H. Schroeder, M. Scouvart, and P. H. Verburg. 2006. A portfolio approach to analyzing complex human-environment interactions: institutions and land change. Ecology and Society 11(2): 31. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01799-110231
Putting Space and Time in Ricardian Climate Change Impact Studies: Agriculture in the U.S. Great Plains, 1969–1992
The “Ricardian” technique for projecting climate change impacts on agriculture has generated an unusual amount of critical attention. Ricardian climate sensitivities are typically viewed as the necessary and static result of exclusively local economic and biophysical conditions. In this paper, six spatial econometric models are estimated to explore how human-environment relationships associated with climate sensitivities have varied over space an…
Illustrating the coupled human–environment system for vulnerability analysis: Three case studies
The vulnerability framework of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program explicitly recognizes the coupled human–environment system and accounts for interactions in the coupling affecting the system's responses to hazards and its vulnerability. This paper illustrates the usefulness of the vulnerability framework through three case studies: the tropical southern Yucatán, the arid Yaqui Valley of northwest Mexico, and the pan-A…
A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science
Global environmental change and sustainability science increasingly recognize the need to address the consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere. These changes raise questions such as: Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental changes underway, and where? Research demonstrates that vulnerability is registered not by exposure to hazards (perturbations and stresses) alone but also resides in …
Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: The vulnerability scoping diagram
A Portfolio Approach to Analyzing Complex Human-Environment Interactions: Institutions and Land Change
Young, O. R., E. F. Lambin, F. Alcock, H. Haberl, S. I. Karlsson, W. J. McConnell, T. Myint, C. Pahl-Wostl, C. Polsky, P. Ramakrishnan, H. Schroeder, M. Scouvart, and P. H. Verburg. 2006. A portfolio approach to analyzing complex human-environment interactions: institutions and land change. Ecology and Society 11(2): 31. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01799-110231
Why Land Planners and Water Managers Don't Talk to One Another and Why They Should
Increasing evidence demonstrates that unsustainable land use practices result in human-induced drought conditions, and inadequate water supplies constrain land development in growing cities. Nonetheless, organizational barriers impair coordinated land and water management. Land planning is strongly influenced by political realities and interest groups, while water management is focused on the single-minded goal of providing reliable water for fut…
The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods
Reprint of “The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods”
Putting Space and Time in Ricardian Climate Change Impact Studies: Agriculture in the U.S. Great Plains, 1969–1992
The “Ricardian” technique for projecting climate change impacts on agriculture has generated an unusual amount of critical attention. Ricardian climate sensitivities are typically viewed as the necessary and static result of exclusively local economic and biophysical conditions. In this paper, six spatial econometric models are estimated to explore how human-environment relationships associated with climate sensitivities have varied over space an…
Social well-being and environmental governance in urban neighbourhoods in Boston, MA
Well-being is an holistic concept that examines individuals in their social, economic, and environmental contexts. In geographical settings where social deprivation is common, civil society organisations (CSOs) represent important actors in environmental governance, which refers to the suite of actions and discourses shaping environmental conditions or resources. These CSOs operate in neoliberal governance frameworks in which they act as formal p…
Heterogeneity in Residential Yard Care: Evidence from Boston, Miami, and Phoenix
Suburbanization and drought: A mixed methods vulnerability assessment in rainy Massachusetts
This paper presents evidence that water restrictions in suburbanizing eastern Massachusetts towns are becoming more common, controlling for climate. We then assess the relationship between these suburban droughts and residential development. Focusing on the suburbs of Boston, seven towns independent of the Boston water supply system were selected to represent differing levels of sprawl-style growth. Water restrictions are becoming more frequent i…
Illustrating the coupled human–environment system for vulnerability analysis: Three case studies
The vulnerability framework of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program explicitly recognizes the coupled human–environment system and accounts for interactions in the coupling affecting the system's responses to hazards and its vulnerability. This paper illustrates the usefulness of the vulnerability framework through three case studies: the tropical southern Yucatán, the arid Yaqui Valley of northwest Mexico, and the pan-A…
A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science
Global environmental change and sustainability science increasingly recognize the need to address the consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere. These changes raise questions such as: Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental changes underway, and where? Research demonstrates that vulnerability is registered not by exposure to hazards (perturbations and stresses) alone but also resides in …
Putting Space and Time in Ricardian Climate Change Impact Studies: Agriculture in the U.S. Great Plains, 1969–1992
The “Ricardian” technique for projecting climate change impacts on agriculture has generated an unusual amount of critical attention. Ricardian climate sensitivities are typically viewed as the necessary and static result of exclusively local economic and biophysical conditions. In this paper, six spatial econometric models are estimated to explore how human-environment relationships associated with climate sensitivities have varied over space an…
A Portfolio Approach to Analyzing Complex Human-Environment Interactions: Institutions and Land Change
Young, O. R., E. F. Lambin, F. Alcock, H. Haberl, S. I. Karlsson, W. J. McConnell, T. Myint, C. Pahl-Wostl, C. Polsky, P. Ramakrishnan, H. Schroeder, M. Scouvart, and P. H. Verburg. 2006. A portfolio approach to analyzing complex human-environment interactions: institutions and land change. Ecology and Society 11(2): 31. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01799-110231
Suburbanization and drought: A mixed methods vulnerability assessment in rainy Massachusetts
This paper presents evidence that water restrictions in suburbanizing eastern Massachusetts towns are becoming more common, controlling for climate. We then assess the relationship between these suburban droughts and residential development. Focusing on the suburbs of Boston, seven towns independent of the Boston water supply system were selected to represent differing levels of sprawl-style growth. Water restrictions are becoming more frequent i…
Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: The vulnerability scoping diagram
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet: The Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project
Why Land Planners and Water Managers Don't Talk to One Another and Why They Should
Increasing evidence demonstrates that unsustainable land use practices result in human-induced drought conditions, and inadequate water supplies constrain land development in growing cities. Nonetheless, organizational barriers impair coordinated land and water management. Land planning is strongly influenced by political realities and interest groups, while water management is focused on the single-minded goal of providing reliable water for fut…
Heterogeneity in Residential Yard Care: Evidence from Boston, Miami, and Phoenix
The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods
Reprint of “The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods”
Social well-being and environmental governance in urban neighbourhoods in Boston, MA
Well-being is an holistic concept that examines individuals in their social, economic, and environmental contexts. In geographical settings where social deprivation is common, civil society organisations (CSOs) represent important actors in environmental governance, which refers to the suite of actions and discourses shaping environmental conditions or resources. These CSOs operate in neoliberal governance frameworks in which they act as formal p…
Satisfaction, water and fertilizer use in the American residential macrosystem
© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Environmental Research Letters 11 (2016): 034004, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034004
Climate and Societal Impacts
Climate shapes the behavior of all living organisms, including humans. Changes in climate should therefore affect human and ecosystem wellbeing. Yet isolating the impacts of a changed climate is challenging because the climate change does not unfold in a vacuum. Instead, multiple non‐climate (social or biophysical) processes may amplify or attenuate the impacts of the changed climate. Recent climate impacts scholarship focuses on land use, emerge…
Establishing a framework of a watershed-wide screening tool to support the development of watershed-based flood protection plans for low-lying coastal communities
Flood risk analysis is the instrument by which floodplain and stormwater utility managers create strategic adaptation plans to reduce the likelihood of flood damages in their communities, but there is a need to develop a screening tool to analyze watersheds and identify areas that should be targeted and prioritized for mitigation measures. The authors developed a screening tool that combines readily available data on topography, groundwater, surf…
Modeling multi-scale influences on household lawncare decisions: Formal and informal neighborhood conforming effects on fertilizer use
Challenging the Concept of Rational Flood Risk Decision-Making: Cultural Influences on Homeownership in the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Zone
The rational actor paradigm (RAP) suggests individuals make rational choices when provided with adequate information. This should apply to decisions related to disasters, like flooding. However, it is also the case that nonrational factors, like cultural worldviews and political identities, could predict flood-related behaviors. We tested these ideas using a set of competing hypotheses, the ideological beliefs hypothesis and the cautious actor hy…
Geography (13 works) · Environmental resource management (10 works) · Environmental Science (10 works) · Economics (8 works) · Environmental planning (8 works) · Business (7 works) · Ecology (7 works) · Climate change (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Climate change impacts on agriculture (5 works)