Water Supplier Decisions & Institutional Change During Transitions - Focus Groups

This research investigates the influence of institutions on the selection of adaptive actions by local public service providers (drinking water utilities) as they seek to respond to climatic stressors. Focus groups were conducted with high-level managers and supervisors from mid-sized drinking water utilities in the USA during Summer 2023. Participants were presented with a description of hypothesized institutional dependencies and asked how each of those institutional dependencies affect them and whether other institutional dependencies exist. This discussion was followed by a realistic, yet hypothetical, scenario which described a utility deciding between two potential adaptive actions after a flood event. Once the scenario was presented, participants were asked to deliberate how, if at all, each of the hypothesized institutional dependencies would affect selection and implementation of each of the two potential adaptive actions. Participants were also asked to describe any additional factors that would influence the implementation of the two potential adaptive actions. <br>