We will test the functional aspects of our ecology of prestige hypothesis by comparing neighborhood-level demographics (population density), social stratification and environmental equity (income and education, race), and social identity and status, with a suite of social and biophysical functions. Specific social functions that we will examine are recreation behavior (types and frequency), watershed knowledge, neighborhood social capital, willingness to participate in or support environmental activities, environmental perceptions, perceptions of neighborhood environmental quality of life, and environmental neighborhood satisfaction. Particular biophysical functions are associated with land management practices: hydrologic function, water quantity, quality, and fertilizer inputs, and bird diversity.
 
We will use several sources of existing data to test our hypotheses, including the BES telephone survey, field observation survey, and photonarrative survey. In 2002, we completed the initial analysis of telephone surveys (Wilson et al. in press), and in October 2003 we completed data collection for a second telephone survey of household environmental behaviors. The next telephone survey is scheduled for 2006. The spatially explicit sampling framework throughout the Baltimore study area (i.e., social patch analysis) will be used to analyze the relationship between biophysical and social trends.
 
In WS 263, we have established baseline measures of social and biophysical structure and function using our existing data infrastructure. We will collect follow-up data to examine how the process and results of environmental restoration affect the social and biophysical functions listed above. We hypothesize that social functions will respond more quickly to the process of restoration than the results of restoration. Further, we suspect there might be an ecological restoration "placebo" feedback effect: even if biophysical functions do not improve, social functions will change positively. Because social and biophysical functions do not change at the same rates, i.e. they are temporally complex, we will use our long term data to identify and measure social legacies for biophysical functions.