Media
Fewer students are enrolling in environmental studies - how do we stop this trend?
The Globe and Mail, July 14, 2023Online
Climate change endangers our ecosystems, economies and health. Wildfire smoke, extreme temperatures, intensified storms, and food and water insecurities acutely threaten our well-being.
To understand coronavirus transmission, we have to understand our wastewater
The Globe and Mail, March 18, 2020Online
We know little about how the novel coronavirus might survive and move within our drinking and wastewater systems. But in some regions such mechanisms could be a critical piece of the puzzle surrounding the disease transmission.
Flush your disgust. We can’t let emotions dampen our water policies
The Globe and Mail, March 22, 2019Online
Ew, yuck! That exclamation is a common verbalization of disgust. And we all know what disgust feels like, too: a stomach clench and nose wrinkle as our brain tells us to be cautious about something slimy or rotten, festering or putrid, burrowing or slithering. Psychologists have learned that disgust is a powerful influence on human behaviour, and that we’ve evolved the emotion to keep us safe – so that we don’t eat certain things, for instance. Because it’s a largely automatic reaction of our physical body and emotional psychology, disgust is mostly immune to rational argument and persuasion. (I’m looking at you, soggy Brussels sprouts of my Anglo-Irish childhood. Blech!)
It’s time to rethink our messaging about environmental change
The Globe and Mail, May 7, 2017Online
As another Earth Day trudged on by, one message became clear: it's time to change tactics.
Sounding the water alarm will backfire thanks to human nature
The Globe and Mail, March 22, 2016Online
Today is World Water Day, and experts everywhere are sounding the alarm about water problems. We’ll learn about children in distant lands who die from drinking contaminated water and women who suffer sexual assault because they don’t have access to private toilets. We’ll see photographs of urban flooding and the damage it has caused to municipal infrastructure and personal property. We’ll hear more about climate change, persistent drought and rising food prices. Someone will link water scarcity to the destabilization of societies and to violence and human migration. The list of global water problems is endless, daunting and heartbreaking...
How to keep women on the career ladder
The Globe and Mail, December 22, 2009Online
URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/how-to-keep-women-on-the-career-ladder/article1206161/
As a new professor and someone who grew up with Marlo Thomas's Free To Be ... You and Me , I find it heartening to hear about the latest gender gap between men and women. Research shows that women now outnumber and outperform men in nearly every field at Canadian universities...
Everything is not peachy
The Globe and Mail, August 18, 2008Online
URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/everything-is-not-peachy/article794050/
Our baby was fussing for her next feeding, and our preschooler was turning somersaults on the couch as he negotiated for the next episode of Sesame Street. Meanwhile, we were up to our elbows in hot syrup and peeled peaches - and we still had another 15 pints of the little devils to go...
Women’s “Choices” and Canadian Water Research and Policy: A Study of Professionals’ Careers, Mentorship, and Experiential Knowledge
Published by Environmental Practice
2014 This article is an investigation of the different factors that potentially influence the career choices of Canadian female professionals working in water research and policy (WRP). This community was broadly defined as any Canadian engineers, technicians, biologists, planners, economists, scholars conducting physical and social research, public servants (eg, national, provincial, municipal), and civil society activists who were self-identified as working on water-related issues. Participants' essay responses were ...
URL: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1466046613000550
Water cognition and cognitive affective mapping: identifying priority clusters within a Canadian water efficiency community
Published by Water Resources Management
2012 We often assume that researchers and decision-makers are rational beings reliant on hard data to determine the best policy. But individuals are also influenced by their experiences with their physical and social environments. How they perceive and interact with their environment is also important for decision-making. The brain processes these personal and professional experiences to generate the emotional responses and belief systems used to interpret environments. It is these brain-environment interpretation and ...
URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11269-012-0061-x
Risk Perceptions and Terror Management Theory: Assessing Public Responses to Urban Flooding in Toronto, Canada
Published by Water Resources Management
2016 Terror Management Theory (TMT) suggests that mortality salience (MS), or death reminders, should impact environmental behaviour and decision-making by increasing consumption and resource usage, shifting aesthetic preferences toward cultivated landscapes, and affecting adherence to environmental norms. We examined MS effects on residential flood risk perceptions in Toronto, Canada, following the major urban flood in July 2013. Survey responses were analyzed to assess risk perceptions across nine categories; ...
URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11269-016-1308-8
Mentorship, knowledge transmission and female professionals in Canadian water research and policy
Published by Water Policy
2013 We face multiple water challenges: droughts, floods, crumbling infrastructure and disappearing natural hydrosystems. Technological interventions will help but these challenges also require social solutions and good governance. Identifying and implementing both technical and social solutions demands a resilient water research and policy community (WRPC). The WRPC must include diverse perspectives as the challenges increase in intensity, frequency and scope and as decision processes accelerate. Will the ...
Assessing the social and economic barriers to permeable surface utilization for residential driveways in Kitchener, Canada
Published by Environmental Practice
2014 Urban stormwater runoff rates are expected to intensify with climate change. Permeable surfaces, a low-impact development (LID) stormwater management technology, can be used to mitigate the impacts of urban stormwater runoff. Permeable surfaces have demonstrable benefits for use in northern climates, but widespread use requires greater recognition of this potential. This article reports on the multiple barriers associated with the installation of a permeable surface in single-family residences, along with the ...
URL: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1466046613000641
Biography
Sarah Wolfe is a Professor in Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University. Until 2021, Wolfe was an associate professor (i.e., tenured) in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability (SERS) at the University of Waterloo. She examines the social-psychological variables of water decisions and governance within a context of climate change, flooding and drought. Water is essential to our existence – ecological, biological and cultural – and our ability to ‘solve’ water problems is a litmus test for our capacity to address other environmental challenges.
Recognition/Reconnaissance
Awards and Research Grants information | Professional
Please see cv or sarahwolfe.ca for list of awards and grants
Past Talks
The cognitive-affective sciences and water governance
Invited Lecture to the International Development Research Centre
Ottawa, ON., July 7, 2010
Social Capital in Community-Level Water Efficiency Programs: Reports from South Africa and Canada
nd National Conference and Policy Forum on Water Efficiency and Conservation
Waterloo, ON., November 3, 2008
Building towards Water Efficiency - Research Findings
The 3rd National Conference on Water Efficiency and Conservation
Canadian Water and Wastewater Association, October 16, 2009
Building towards Water Efficiency: Policy Innovation and Education in New and Existing Homes
WaterSmart Innovations Conference
Las Vegas, Nevada, October 7, 2009
Chasing the Dream: the myth of work-life balance in the water sector
Young Professionals Summit, Water Environment Federation and the American Water Works Association
San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 11, 2010