Influence of a Disaster on the Environmental Attitudes of University Students in Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

Effective headwater protection and management requires community support and engagement. This requires an understanding of the attitudes and values of the host community (e.g. Pande and Pande 2020). This chapter examines environmental attitudes among undergraduate learners at a Hindi-medium university in the headwaters of the Uttarakhand Himalaya, India, in the aftermath of a major disaster. It uses the standard ‘New Ecological Paradigm’ questionnaire (Dunlap 2008; Dunlap et al. 2000) in its 15-item updated version (cf. Dunlap and Van Liere 1978). It also uses some additional items to explore how local university students in this headwater community think and feel about their environmental circumstances in the immediate aftermath of an environmental disaster involving catastrophic rainfall, flooding and landslides. It considers how these responses may be interpreted and how they are affected by the learner’s disciplinary course of studies. Then, more controversially, these response patterns are compared with NEP data recorded elsewhere beginning with data collected at the author’s home university and then NEP results collected in other parts of the world. Finally, it considers how differences in cultural attitudes to the environment affect the validity of NEP-style international questionnaires from Western traditions and how a more culturally sensitive questionnaire survey might be developed and employed to enhance environmental education in this Himalayan State.