By Jessica Borders
FAIRMONT — The National Environmental Services Center and the College of Business and Economics, both at West Virginia University, are partnering to study water conservation and increase awareness.
Gerald R. Iwan, Ph.D., director of NESC at WVU, said the entities were notified in December 2009 that they had been awarded a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The concept for the project is social marketing.
Communications manager Mark Kemp-Rye said NESC has been around for 30 years. The center, started in 1979 as the National Small Flows Clearinghouse, serves as an information clearinghouse for drinking water and wastewater topics.
The EPA and other federal agencies have realized that they need to know what resonates with the public in order to properly get messages of importance across to them, Iwan said.
“We will be surveying the public as to what type of concepts resonate with them to help them conserve water, and what type of devices they might be interested in using to help them conserve water,” he said. “We will try to engage the public in water efficiency/water conservation.”
Iwan said the project is an effort to understand what citizens perceive as being of value to them. Through this social marketing attempt, NESC is trying to appeal to aspects of people’s lives that would help them think about water usage and actions they can take to conserve. This in turn could help people adopt better behavior and lead to sustainable activity.
“We’re trying to get the information out so people can make informed decisions based on what they value in their own lives,” he said.
Water has an impact on quality of life, the economy, health and everything in between, Iwan said.
Once the College of B&E; does its market research and conducts surveys of different demographics, NESC will produce different publications, listservs and public service advertisements to get this information out to people. The center has created its initial “Future Water” Web site, which is available at www.nesc.wvu.edu/futurewater and will be expanded throughout the project.
Paula Fitzgerald Bone, Ph.D., the Nathan Haddad Professor of Business Administration in WVU’s College of B&E;, is the researcher on the project.
Bone is a marketing professor that often focuses on consumer communications in the social policy area. Her area of training has been in methods that best communicate to consumers and help them make the most beneficial decisions to reflect their needs.
For the grant, her job is to analyze what is happening on Web sites for discussing water efficiency and how to get the best use of water resources. Bone said her work will focus on current happenings in the community and promotions for water efficiency. She will also develop ideas through interaction with focus groups and conduct a national online survey to figure out what people respond to best.
Bone is basically studying behavioral economics, which is a blend of psychology and economics. Right now, she is waiting for the necessary approvals in order to work with consumers.
“The goal is to get people to reduce their water usage at home,” she said.
“In many parts of the U.S., they are literally running out of water. There is not enough water to support the community. We’ve just got to make some pretty significant choices both in a scarce resource and how to manage those resources for everybody.”
NESC is in charge of the communications, and Bone will feed her research to the center to support its development of programs.
“I just think it’s great for two places with complementary skills to get together,” she said. “I’m going to learn a tremendous amount from them.”
For more information, visit www.nesc.wvu.edu/futurewater.
E-mail Jessica Borders at jborders@timeswv.com.
