Everyone has a different opinion on their local body of water, whether it’s clean, healthy or something to stay away from. The Grand River is a significant part of the Grand Rapids community. The history of the industrial city has caused damage to the river that flows through Grand Rapids. People’s perception of the water can determine the use of the water such as a place to kayak, swim, or just a pretty view. Perception is made up of opinions and facts, two thing that should contradict each other. The fine line between the two is how much a person’s leans into their personal norms and the social norms of the community. Both are part of the theory of value-belief-norm theory, which is a framework that explains how values, beliefs, and norms influence human behavior, specifically in the environment. Using this theory in this paper we will examine how does the perception of water quality in the Grand River influences how nearby communities and interact with the river.
Research Question
How does the perception of water quality in the Grand River influences how nearby communities and interact with the river? The history of the industrial city has caused damage to the river that flows through Grand Rapids. People’s perception of the water can determine the use of the water such as a place to kayak, swim, or just a pretty view.
Pollution is becoming increasingly common, specifically in the bodies of water. As an outside source studying a body of water, the first thing to do is to not only look at the history of the water, but also look at the relationship the residents have swimming, kayaking, or fishing in the water. Water must be over the Water Quality Index (WQI) of 70 to be considered clean and safe, on a scale of 1-100 with higher scores indicating cleaner water (Germar, Majzisch, 2019). For water to be healthy for people to be active in, the water must have an index over 70, the Grand River is at an averaging 73 index. Meaning that if there is a bad storm the index goes from healthy to below 70 making it unsafe and unusable after a storm. Bad storms that cause overflow in the river can influence the water quality index to go down by flooding the overflow sewage areas, causing the water to pull in form the toxic body of water and intermingle with the fresh water. In 1991 initiatives started to fix the water, separating storm and sanitation sewers resulted in completing fixing the untreated sewage as of 2014. After 23 years and 119 miles of new pipes in the city, the sewage problem is stable (Green, 2019)
Value-belief-norm theory, the framework of values, beliefs, and norms influence sustainable behaviors and attitudes. This framework has three focus areas: core values, environmental belief, and personal norms. Core values are what we use to shape our outlook on the world, also meaning how people perceive their activeness in society. Environmental beliefs these refer to the relationship between humans and the environment, and how they interact with each other. When a person hears about climate change, biodiversity loss, etc. Environmental beliefs are what make a person react in a way, either feeling the need to help or ignore. The last part of the theory is personal norm, the feeling of what is right or wrong when a person must act accordingly about a moral obligation. VBN theory is how a person connects their preferences and ideology of the environment with societies actions.
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