Whether the water is for drinking, swimming or fishing, recent research shows Floridians are more concerned about quality than quantity.
The results surprised PIE Center researchers Alexa Lamm and Tracy Irani, who asked state residents to rank the importance of clean or plentiful water supplies. Lamm and Irani are faculty members in the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communication.
Ninety-three percent of survey respondents said clean drinking water was highly or extremely important, followed by clean beaches at 90.5 percent and clean oceans at 89.3 percent.
Comparatively, the top concern for water quantity — agriculture — came in at 88.6 percent; 86.1 percent of respondents reported that plentiful water for recreation was extremely or highly important, followed by 84.8 percent of those who wanted plenty of water for golf courses.
“There has been a lot about quantity in the media, so I expected to see quantity a bit higher than it was, although all of these concerns were rated as fairly important,” Irani said. “However, your drinking water is personally relevant, so that’s what you’re going to pay attention to.”
The results from the first installment of the PIE Center’s quarterly public opinion panels should affect how policymakers and communicators discuss water issues with constituents and stakeholders, Lamm said.
“We need to make sure that when we’re communicating with the public, we bring up water quality as something that we’re interested in addressing because the public obviously has a personal connection with the quality of their water,” she said.
Participants said the lowest priority for clean water was shellfishing, with 84.2 percent of respondents indicating the activity as either extremely or highly important. Clean bays, estuaries, rivers, lakes and groundwater came in ahead of water for shellfishing.
As for the lowest priority for water quantity, only 60.7 percent of respondents said household landscapes were extremely or highly important. Commerce, rivers, lakes, aquifers and cities ranked ahead of landscapes.
