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Yann Clough. Photo.

Yann Clough

Professor

Yann Clough. Photo.

Barking up the wrong tree? : A guide to forest owner typology methods

Author

  • Hanna Ekström
  • Brian Danley
  • Yann Clough
  • Nils Droste

Summary, in English

Creating typologies of forest owners is a common approach for analyzing and understanding heterogeneity in responses to forest policies and management practice uptake. While many forest owner typologies have been developed, only a few quantitative methods dominate the field with little information on how methodological choice affects outcomes. In this study we compare five methods for quantitative typology formation and ask what type of information each method provides, and to which degree the methods complement each other. Empirically we use data from a survey conducted in 2014–2015 about Swedish forest owner's objectives, attitudes, and factors of decision-making. The results show that individual forest owners are assigned to different clusters by the compared methods, and how each method highlights different aspects of forest owner characteristics. The study shows the importance of method selection as it influences how we can describe and interpret forest owners in connection to policy adoption, uptake of practices, and environmental awareness. We conclude by providing basis for a methodological guidance on how to make judgments when selecting method(s) to typology formation based on research purpose and approach.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science
  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)

Publishing year

2024-06

Language

English

Publication/Series

Forest Policy and Economics

Volume

163

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Clustering
  • Family forest owners
  • Forest policy
  • Policy adoption
  • Typology

Status

Published

Project

  • Green forest policies - a comparative assessment of outcomes and trade-offs across Fenno-Scandinavia
  • Behaviors shaping forests - An agent-based approach to land use changes in socio-ecological systems
  • Transdisciplinary co-production in forest policy research

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1389-9341