Flathead Wild and Scenic River Planning: 2019 Q-methodology data on public perspectives of human and ecological meanings and services and drivers of change

The Flathead River system (North Fork, South Fork, and Middle Fork), which includes part of the Flathead National Forest and Glacier National Park in Montana, has approximately 219 miles of river designated as Wild and Scenic. Between August and November of 2019, public input data regarding the Flathead River system were collected from 157 members of the interested public, either at two public meetings in Kalispell, Montana, or at various locations in the field. These data include: (1) a ‘Q-sort’ of human and ecological meanings and services, whereby 48 benefits (e.g., quiet soundscapes, water quality, being free from society and its regulations) provided by the Flathead River system were sorted on a scale of most important to most unimportant; (2) a ‘drivers of change’ exercise, where participants selected up to five positive and five negative things they felt would influence the human and ecological meanings and services most important to them; (3) a mapping exercise, where participants highlighted specific (or general) areas within the Flathead River system that they may have been focusing on while completing the activity and; (4) some demographic characteristics (e.g., self-description, age).
The data collected during this public engagement process were obtained in support of a planning process related to the Flathead Wild and Scenic comprehensive river management plan (CRMP). The public input was analyzed and provided to the managers in a full report, and it constituted a scientifically rigorous public engagement activity. The intent of this work, framed within the literature as a ‘social vulnerability assessment’, provided managers with an understanding of human-nature relationships and the threats to those relationships. Additionally, this research was completed, in part, to apply a ‘social vulnerability’ protocol in a different context, which is an approach previously developed for the purpose of providing other National Forest planning teams (e.g., Forest Plan Revision, Comprehensive River Management Planning, finer scale restoration projects) with a tool to engage the public with a social science approach.