The role of social norms and awareness in predicting watershed residents’ intentions to improve water quality

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is a leading cause of surface water impairment in the United States. This study assesses watershed residents’ likelihood of adopting water quality improvement practices to reduce NPS. Specifically, we tested the role of two constructs—awareness and social norms—in shaping watershed residents’ adoption intention. We collected and analyzed survey data from 1,066 urban to rural residents in the Little Calumet-Galien watershed in northern Indiana that drains into Lake Michigan. We embedded an information experiment about NPS pollution to test the effect of awareness in shaping residents’ intention to adopt water quality improvement practices. Our results show that watershed residents had limited general knowledge of water quality problems in their area, some awareness of relevant practices for improving water quality, and a moderate likelihood of adopting selected water quality improvement practices in the next year. Although two measures of awareness were statistically significantly associated with the likelihood of adoption, our survey experiment results show that exposure to an information sheet had no effect on residents’ adoption intention. Despite the little presence and low predictive power of water quality-friendly descriptive norms, injunctive norms were shown to be a statistically significant predictor of residents’ adoption intention. Together, our results suggest that information alone may not be effective in motivating residents to adopt water quality improvement practices. However, social norms, particularly injunctive norms, present a great opportunity for water quality improvement programs if they work with communities to facilitate the development of positive descriptive norms and to strengthen existing injunctive norms about water quality improvement.