Coupled Natural and Institutional Systems: A Twenty Year Study of the Changing Institutional Complexity of Wildfire

Abstract

Abstract Wildfires are one of the signature threats of climate change and scientists have devoted considerable attention to documenting the biophysical linkages between climate and wildfire. However, we know far less about the linkage between the changing environment and its implication for the human institutions with responsibility to respond to these changes. Institutional complexity is an important concept for advancing climate science as it creates the conceptual linkage between a changing biophysical environment and associated changing institutional task environment. Despite its importance for understanding needs for institutional adaptation, our knowledge of the institutional dimensions of wildfire and its interactions with the changing environment remains relatively nascent. In particular, we know little about where pressures for institutional adaptation are most acute. Effective institutional adaptation is understood as readiness to meet the demands of the new task environment. However, during times of change, institutions may struggle to re-align logics to reflect the demands of the new task environment, particularly if those changes are not well understood. In this paper, we developed and present findings from a novel dataset compiled to understand the evolution of wildfire in the United States from 1999- 2020 in terms of patterns of change in the institutional complexity of wildfire response. Findings reveal national trends of increasing institutional complexity of wildfire in indicators associated with wildfire governance, logistics, management, resource scarcity, and network coordination. However, findings also reveal substantial variation across regions.