Factors associated with family forest owner actions: A vote-count meta-analysis

Abstract

Family forest owners in the United States have an important role in providing social and ecological benefits across landscapes. Thus, a detailed understanding of their land management behavior is critical to determine whether or not these benefits will be realized. In this paper, we report on a vote-count meta-analysis of peer-reviewed quantitative studies in the U.S. to examine an array of forest landowner behaviors. We extend other reviews of this literature by including papers with any behavioral dependent variable, rather than only timber harvesting or land management behavior. We document the significance, direction, and frequency of independent variables examined with regard to 13 categories of behavior including participation in policy tools, cross-boundary cooperation, invasive species management, and wildlife management. Study-level characteristics are reported for the 128 published studies that met initial inclusion criteria for this analysis (quantitative studies within the U.S. modeling landowner behavior that were published between 2002 and 2016). Thirty-eight studies that statistically modeled landowner behavior were further analyzed. Studies examining intentions were excluded, as were qualitative explorations of landowner behavior. The most commonly studied behavior included in our analysis was participation in landowner incentive programs, and the least common was participation in cross-boundary cooperation. Among independent variables, owner characteristics and ownership objectives were most commonly included. Independent variables found to be significant across behaviors examined included: current/past landowner behaviors, knowledge, and parcel size/forested acres. Actions like cross-boundary cooperation and landowner interactions have not been quantitatively modeled as often as other actions, and represent key areas for future research.