Scholars@Duke
Toddi Steelman

Toddi Steelman

Stanback Dean, Nicholas School of the Environment
Environmental Sciences and Policy

Selected Publications

Uncharted territory: governance opportunities for wildfire management and the case of Cyprus

Journal Article International Journal of Wildland Fire · May 30, 2024 Global environmental and social change are pushing wildfire activity and impact beyond known trajectories. Here, we conducted a targeted review to distill five wildfire challenges that we argue form opportunities for their governance (research aim 1). We e ... Full text Cite

A global outlook on increasing wildfire risk: Current policy situation and future pathways

Journal Article Trees, Forests and People · December 1, 2023 Aim: to understand how wildfire risk policies are designed to mitigate1 the impacts of wildfires. Wildfires are a growing threat in many parts of the world, posing significant risks to human life, and the environment. In recent years, wildfires have increa ... Full text Cite

Co-management during crisis: insights from jurisdictionally complex wildfires

Journal Article International Journal of Wildland Fire · May 1, 2022 There is a general agreement within the wildfire community that exclusively top-down approaches to policy making and management are limited and that we need to build governance capacity to cooperatively manage across jurisdictional boundaries. Accordingly, ... Full text Cite

Adaptive governance

Chapter · January 1, 2022 This chapter explores how the concept of adaptive governance has evolved since it first emerged in the 1990s. Three branches on the adaptive governance tree are explored - socio-ecological, institutional, and the policy sciences approach. The chapter provi ... Cite

Evaluating the efficacy of GIS maps as boundary objects: unpacking the limits and opportunities of Indigenous knowledge in forest and natural resource management

Journal Article Journal of Cultural Geography · January 1, 2022 The meaningful inclusion of diverse forms of knowledge, such as Indigenous knowledge (IK), remain unrealized in many natural resource management decision-making processes. Innovative boundary objects could be used to facilitate the effective inclusion of I ... Full text Cite

Mobilizing transdisciplinary sustainability science in place-based communities: Evaluating saliency, legitimacy, and credibility in northern Canada

Journal Article Environmental Challenges · December 1, 2021 The field of transdisciplinary sustainability science offers limited guidance on what it means to mobilize knowledge outside of conventional policy and decision-making settings. Research within this field tends to emphasize knowledge mobilization for conve ... Full text Cite

Pathways of Representation in Network Governance: Evidence from Multi-Jurisdictional Disasters

Journal Article Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · October 1, 2021 Governance systems reconcile diverse interests to enable collective decision-making and action. Questions related to representation in the governance of networks are addressed in the literature; underexplored is the empirical variation in governance arrang ... Full text Cite

Evaluating transdisciplinary research practices: insights from social network analysis

Journal Article Sustainability Science · March 1, 2021 Transdisciplinary researchers collaborate with diverse partners outside of academia to tackle sustainability problems. The patterns and practices of social interaction and the contextual nature of transdisciplinary research result in different performance ... Full text Cite

Insights for building community resilience from prioritizing youth in environmental change research

Journal Article Sustainability (Switzerland) · September 1, 2019 Youths are the next generation to foster community resilience in social-ecological systems. Yet, we have limited evidence on how to engage them effectively in learning about environmental change. One opportunity includes the involvement of youths in resear ... Full text Cite

A Systematic Review of Relationships Between Mountain Wildfire and Ecosystem Services

Journal Article Landscape Ecology · May 1, 2019 Context: Consideration of human–environment dimensions of wildfire make ecosystem services (ES) a useful framework for understanding wildfire challenges and devising viable management strategies. Scientific literature on wildfire and ES is growing rapidly, ... Full text Cite

Identifying transformational space for transdisciplinarity: using art to access the hidden third.

Journal Article Sustainability science · January 2019 A challenge for transdisciplinary sustainability science is learning how to bridge diverse worldviews among collaborators in respectful ways. A temptation in transdisciplinary work is to focus on improving scientific practices rather than engage research p ... Full text Cite

Beyond ICS: How Should We Govern Complex Disasters in the United States?

Journal Article Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management · January 1, 2019 The complexity of large-scale disasters requires governance structures that can integrate numerous responders quickly under often chaotic conditions. Complex disasters - by definition - span multiple jurisdictions and activate numerous response functions c ... Full text Cite

Evidence of effectiveness in the Cohesive Strategy: Measuring and improving wildfire response

Journal Article International Journal of Wildland Fire · January 1, 2019 The United States' National Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy aims to achieve greater social and ecological resilience to wildfire. It also raises the question: cohesive for whom and for what purpose? In this article, we address the wildfire response g ... Full text Cite

Studying Networks in Complex Problem Domains: Advancing Methods in Boundary Specification

Journal Article Perspectives on Public Management and Governance · December 1, 2018 The application of network perspectives and methods to study complex problem and policy domains has proliferated in the public management literature. Network metrics are highly sensitive to boundary decisions as findings are a direct reflection of who and ... Full text Cite

The Structure of Effective Governance of Disaster Response Networks: Insights From the Field

Journal Article American Review of Public Administration · October 1, 2018 There is significant debate about the appropriate governance structure in a disaster response. Complex disasters exhibit both networked and hierarchical characteristics. One challenge in the field of disaster management is how to structure a response that ... Full text Cite

Damming Knowledge Flows: POWER as a Constraint on Knowledge Pluralism in River Flow Decision-making in the Saskatchewan River Delta

Journal Article Society and Natural Resources · August 3, 2018 Rivers and dams are increasingly contested venues where knowledge pluralism is critical for effective governance. To navigate change, decision-makers can adopt culturally-sensitive interventions to address the needs of diverse stakeholders and rights holde ... Full text Cite

Look for the leaders

Journal Article Nature · July 27, 2017 Full text Cite

Patterns of preference and practice: bridging actors in wildfire response networks in the American Northwest.

Journal Article Disasters · July 2017 The roles of bridging actors in emergency response networks can be important to disaster response outcomes. This paper is based on an evaluation of wildfire preparedness and response networks in 21 large-scale wildfire events in the wildland-urban interfac ... Full text Cite

Sustainability Champions: Role Models in Sustainability Graduate Education

Chapter · January 1, 2017 Sustainability champions are iconic men and women who have shaped the scholarly understanding of sustainability by considering broad, alternative, and visionary solutions to sustainability problems. For instance, sustainability champions such as Rachel Car ... Full text Cite

Perspective Matters: The Challenges of Performance Measurement in Wildfire Response Networks

Chapter · January 1, 2017 While the field of evaluation and measurement performance is well established, evaluating network performance in the context of disaster response is rare. The complexity and scope of disaster incident response necessitates a focus beyond the performance of ... Full text Cite

Climate change and adaptive decision making: Responses from North Carolina coastal officials

Journal Article Ocean and Coastal Management · January 1, 2017 While climate change is a global phenomenon, adaptive action starts at the local level. Understanding how local decision makers make sense of climate change and the decision to adapt or not is imperative for advancing action on climate change. This article ... Full text Cite

U.S. wildfire governance as social-ecological problem

Journal Article Ecology and Society · December 1, 2016 There are fundamental spatial and temporal disconnects between the specific policies that have been crafted to address our wildfire challenges. The biophysical changes in fuels, wildfire behavior, and climate have created a new set of conditions for which ... Full text Cite

Farming through change: using photovoice to explore climate change on small family farms

Journal Article Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · November 25, 2016 This research utilizes photovoice to examine how farmers on small family farms in central North Carolina are experiencing vulnerability to climate change. Understanding the adaptive behaviors of farmers is critical in fostering the resilience of these indi ... Full text Cite

Adaptive governance

Chapter · June 24, 2016 Cite

Wildfire risk as a socioecological pathology

Journal Article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · June 1, 2016 Wildfire risk in temperate forests has become a nearly intractable problem that can be characterized as a socioecological "pathology": that is, a set of complex and problematic interactions among social and ecological systems across multiple spatial and te ... Full text Cite

Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges.

Journal Article Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · June 2016 Living with fire is a challenge for human communities because they are influenced by socio-economic, political, ecological and climatic processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of 2 days, the authors discussed how communities could ... Full text Cite

Same time, same place: analyzing temporal and spatial trends in urban metabolism using proximate counties in the North Carolina Triangle

Journal Article Urban Ecosystems · March 1, 2016 Urban ecosystems’ demands for energy and materials are rapidly growing, as is the burden of wastes produced in utilizing these resources. Current consumption patterns are considered unsustainable, as they degrade resource stocks and ecosystem services that ... Full text Cite

Local ecological knowledge and fire management: What does the public understand?

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · January 1, 2016 As fire management agencies seek to implement more flexible fire management strategies, local understanding and support for these strategies become increasingly important. One issue associated with implementing more flexible fire management strategies is e ... Full text Cite

Practicing the science of sustainability: the challenges of transdisciplinarity in a developing world context

Journal Article Sustainability Science · October 1, 2015 Questions related to how we practice sustainability science remain salient in the face of the failure to achieve broad-scale sustainability objectives. Transdisciplinarity is an essential part of sustainability science. Transdisciplinary conceptual scholar ... Full text Cite

Communication under Fire: The Role of Embeddedness in the Emergence and Efficacy of Disaster Response Communication Networks

Journal Article Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · July 1, 2015 Communication networks among responders are critical to effective coordination and information transfer across agencies active in a disaster response. Using the theory of embeddedness, we investigate how aspects of relational and institutional embeddedness ... Full text Cite

Conflict and Collaboration in Wildfire Management: The Role of Mission Alignment

Journal Article Public Administration Review · May 1, 2015 Responding to large wildfires requires actors from multiple jurisdictions and multiple levels of government to work collaboratively. The missions and objectives of federal agencies often differ from those of state land management agencies as well as local ... Full text Cite

What information do people use, trust, and find useful during a disaster? Evidence from five large wildfires

Journal Article Natural Hazards · March 1, 2015 The communication system through which information flows during a disaster can be conceived of as a set of relationships among sources and recipients who are concerned about key information characteristics. The recipient perspective is often neglected with ... Full text Cite

Understanding Information Exchange During Disaster Response: Methodological Insights From Infocentric Analysis

Journal Article Administration and Society · January 1, 2014 We leverage economic theory, network theory, and social network analytical techniques to bring greater conceptual and methodological rigor to understand how information is exchanged during disasters. We ask, "How can information relationships be evaluated ... Full text Cite

Barriers to utilization of municipal biomass residues for bioenergy

Journal Article Journal of Extension · April 1, 2013 Municipal biomass residues (MBR) are plentiful in the southeastern U.S. Despite favorable economic and policy contexts, few cities generate bioenergy from MBR. We hypothesized that the perspectives of the actors managing MBR have hindered implementation. W ... Cite

Interviewing for an interdisciplinary job: Principled goals, pragmatic outcomes, and finding the right fit in academia

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences · March 1, 2013 This paper sets up a scenario about Rebecca, a jobseeker, who is a fictitious composite, a "typical" candidate who wants a position at a college/university. A job description is provided. She interviews for the advertised position, and while doing so, she ... Full text Cite

Best practices in risk and crisis communication: Implications for natural hazards management

Journal Article Natural Hazards · January 1, 2013 As societies evolve, often the most appropriate response to the hazard must also evolve. However, such shifts in appropriate response to a hazard, whether at the individual or at the societal level, are rarely straightforward: Closing the gap between desir ... Full text Cite

How can we span the boundaries between wildland fire science and management in the united states?

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · December 1, 2012 In 2009, the federal Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) initiated a national network of boundary organizations, known as regional fire science consortia, to accelerate the awareness, understanding, and use of wildland fire science. Needs assessments conduct ... Full text Cite

What is limiting more flexible fire management-public or agency pressure?

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · December 1, 2011 Conventional wisdom within American federal fire management agencies suggests that external influence such as community or political pressure for aggressive suppression are key factors circumscribing the ability to execute less aggressive fire management s ... Cite

College and university environmental programs as a policy problem (Part 1): Integrating Knowledge, education, and action for a better world?

Journal Article Environmental Management · January 1, 2011 The environmental sciences/studies movement, with more than 1000 programs at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, is unified by a common interest-ameliorating environmental problems through empirical enquiry and analytic judgment. Unf ... Full text Cite

College and university environmental programs as a policy problem (Part 2): Strategies for improvement

Journal Article Environmental Management · January 1, 2011 Environmental studies and environmental sciences programs in American and Canadian colleges and universities seek to ameliorate environmental problems through empirical enquiry and analytic judgment. In a companion article (Part 1) we describe the environm ... Full text Cite

Implementing innovation: Fostering enduring change in environmental and natural resource governance

Book · December 1, 2010 Over the past three decades, governments at the local, state, and federal levels have undertaken a wide range of bold innovations, often in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and communities, to try to address their environmental and natural re ... Cite

Effective protection of open space: does planning matter?

Journal Article Environmental management · July 2009 High quality plans are considered a crucial part of good land use planning and often used as a proxy measure for success in plan implementation and goal attainment. We explored the relationship of open space plan quality to the implementation of open space ... Full text Cite

New editor statement

Journal Article Policy Sciences · March 10, 2009 Full text Cite

Serving the common interest in U.S. Forest Policy: a case study of the healthy forests restoration act.

Journal Article Environmental management · March 2009 In the United States, the common interest often is conceived as a by-product of the pluralist, interest-group-driven democratic process. Special interests dominate in many political arenas. Consequently, we have lost the language, vocabulary, and ability t ... Full text Cite

Biodiversity conservation in local planning.

Journal Article Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · February 2009 Local land-use policy is increasingly being recognized as fundamental to biodiversity conservation in the United States. Many planners and conservation scientists have called for broader use of planning and regulatory tools to support the conservation of b ... Full text Cite

Communities and wildfire policy

Chapter · August 11, 2008 Full text Cite

The development of a discipline: A 20-year evaluation of Society and Natural Resources

Journal Article Society and Natural Resources · November 1, 2007 This article presents an assessment of the first 20 years of Society & Natural Resources (SNR), based on a content analysis of places, topics, and methods published; an electronic survey of the membership of the International Association for Society and Na ... Full text Cite

Is wildfire policy in the United States sustainable?

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · March 1, 2007 Beginning in 2000, wildfire policy in the United States shifted from focusing almost exclusively on suppression to embracing multiple goals, including hazardous fuels reduction, ecosystem restoration, and community assistance. Mutually reinforcing, these p ... Cite

Voluntary environmental programs in the United States: Whose interests are served?

Journal Article Organization and Environment · December 1, 2006 The appeal of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) lies in their promise to mutually serve government, industry, and environmental interests because they can reduce administrative burdens, provide flexibility to decide how to implement environmental imp ... Full text Cite

Valuation in the environmental policy process

Journal Article Policy Sciences · March 1, 2006 Expert valuation, a process used to determine how much stakeholders value eco-system aspects, places experts as intermediaries for public-preference input into the environmental policy process. While the rise and refinement of expert valuation might captur ... Full text Cite

Collaborative environmental management: What roles for government?

Book · September 8, 2004 Collaboration has become a popular approach to environmental policy, planning, and management. At the urging of citizens, nongovernmental organizations, and industry, government officials at all levels have experimented with collaboration. Yet questions re ... Full text Cite

Federal and state influence on community responses to wildfire threats: Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · September 1, 2004 Federal policy has placed a priority on community-based approaches to address the wildfire risks facing communities and the environment. Federal and state governments impact considerably the resources that are available to local communities. This research ... Cite

Effective community responses to wildfire threats: Lessons from New Mexico

Journal Article Society and Natural Resources · September 1, 2004 National policies to address the wildfire threat in the United States place emphasis on community responsiveness, but great uncertainty surrounds the scope and success of community response to wildtire threats and why some communities foster effective resp ... Full text Cite

Using multiple methods to understand agency values and objectives: Lessons for public lands management

Journal Article Policy Sciences · March 1, 2004 The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) directs agencies to determine their objectives based on what stakeholders value. Identifying, measuring and analyzing values and objectives is a key challenge for public land management agencies. Us ... Full text Cite

North Carolina scientists help communities devise unique fire management plans

Journal Article Forestry Chronicle · January 1, 2004 Cite

Understanding what can be accomplished through interorganizational innovations the importance of typologies, context and management strategies

Journal Article Public Management Review · June 1, 2003 There has been increasing interest in collaborations, partnerships and networks as they have emerged as interorganizational innovations to address the integrated nature of complex policy problems. Understanding the variation in how these innovations work, ... Full text Cite

Property rights and property wrongs: Why context matters in fisheries management

Journal Article Policy Sciences · December 22, 2001 Like most wild living resources, fish present a complex management challenge. Given the failure of command and control regulatory regimes to protect fisheries, scholars and practitioners have advocated the use of property rights to rectify the fisheries cr ... Full text Cite

Making public policy programs effective and relevant: The role of the policy sciences

Journal Article Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · December 1, 2001 Full text Cite

Elite and participatory policymaking: Finding balance in a case of National Forest planning

Journal Article Policy Studies Journal · January 1, 2001 In recent years many theorists and practitioners have called for more public involvement in policymaking and for greater citizen input in decisions. The move toward participatory and community-based approaches in policymaking can be seen as a backlash agai ... Full text Cite

Innovation in Land Use Governance and Protection: The Case of Great Outdoors Colorado

Journal Article American Behavioral Scientist · January 1, 2000 Land use governance in the United States traditionally has taken a centralized or decentralized form. This research documents a perceived innovation in land use governance that combines centralized and decentralized approaches—Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO ... Full text Cite

The public comment process

Journal Article Journal of Forestry · April 26, 1999 Public comment is one of the most commonly used methods for obtaining public input in national forest planning. This research explores a historically important planning exercise on the Monongahela National Forest to determine what the public actually contr ... Cite

Understanding participant perspectives: Q-methodology in national forest management

Journal Article Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · January 1, 1999 Many policy practitioners and theorists have argued that value-free, objective solutions to policy problems do not exist. While participant values and subjective viewpoints influence policy problems, empirically determining participant perspectives and pre ... Full text Cite

Common property, collective interests, and community opposition to locally unwanted land uses

Journal Article Society and Natural Resources · January 1, 1998 Investigations of “not in my backyard”; or NIMBY behavior often focus on the importance of the facility and the role that individual interests, such as property and health concerns, play in fostering opposition from local residents. These studies have not ... Full text Cite

Public participation in national forest management: a case study of the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

Conference International Symposium on Technology and Society · January 1, 1996 What does the public contribute to the decision-making process? Congress has mandated that the public be involved in environmental and natural resource policy-making, yet little is understood about what the public actually contributes to these decision-mak ... Cite