Drought News Might Help Cut Water Waste
报导旱灾或有助于减少水资源浪费
As news coverage of California's most recent drought intensified, water use trends went down—suggesting news might inspire consumers to conserve.
由于媒体对加州最近一次干旱的报道力度不断加强，居民用水量出现下降趋势——这意味着新闻也许促使人们节约用水。
撰文\播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）
翻译：陈美娟
审校：潘磊
California's most recent drought - which officially ended this spring - made national, even international news. <>
加利福尼亚州最近的一次干旱在今春正式结束。这场旱灾引发了美国甚至国际上的新闻关注。
And that saturated coverage may have actually influenced Californians to conserve more water—compared to an earlier drought, from 2007 to 2009, which snagged far fewer headlines. 这场铺天盖地的报导实际上已经影响了加州居民去节约更多的水——相比起之前发生在2007-2009年的旱灾，那时抢占的头条远远少于现在。
Researchers tallied all drought-related stories from nine major newspapers from 2005 to 2015. They also counted Google queries, and saw drought-related searches spike as more news appeared.
研究者们统计了2005至2015年间刊登在九大主流报刊的所有与干旱有关的报道。他们也统计了谷歌上的搜索数据，发现与旱灾有关的搜索随着更多相关新闻出现而显著增加。
Then they analyzed water use in the San Francisco Bay Area. And after controlling for other factors—like weather and unemployment—they found that drought news was significantly linked to a cut in water waste: up to an 18 percent drop per 100 news articles in a two-month period. 之后，他们分析了旧金山湾区域的用水情况。在剔除天气和失业率等其他因素的影响后，他们发现干旱新闻与浪费水现象的减少显著相关：在两个月的统计时间内，每100篇报道影响人们用水的减少量最多达到18%。
The results are in the journal Science Advances. [Kimberly J. Quesnel and Newsha K. Ajami, Changes in water consumption linked to heavy news media coverage of extreme climatic events]
Study author Newsha Ajami, a hydrologist at Stanford University, says more water news—from any source—is good for consumers. 该研究报告的作者，斯坦福大学的水文学家Newsha Ajami谈到，不论什么来源，更多关于水的报道对消费者来说是有益的。
"Obviously it's great the media's covering this, but on a non-drought or non-emergency situation, water agencies can actually step up their education and outreach efforts and create a more sort of two-way communication stream between them and their water users and customers."
“显然媒体报导关注这件事是好的，但是在没有干旱或者不紧急的情况下，水务机构实际上可以通过加强教育和宣传力度，在他们和用户之间建立起更多的双向沟通渠道。”
So that the next time the state dries up, residents might more readily turn off the tap. 所以，下次州里再干旱，居民们也许就能更顺手地关水龙头了。
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