4.4.2 (2) Demographics
The purpose of collecting demographic information was to know more about the
study participants in order to have details of their household configuration and farms
independently of the Footprint Calculator survey and follow-up questions. Because
the question asking about the number of people in their households was already
included as part of the Footprint Calculator survey (see Question 5 in Appendix 1.1),
this was excluded from the demographic questions. These were closed-ended questions (with set ranges and options). Annual income was asked in US dollars rather
than in the national currency of colones. The reason for this was because the options
for this question were based on a GDP per person of 9592 for 2016 (Global Footprint
Network 2020, Open Data Platform), entered in the survey as US$10,000. However,
there was a mixture of currency responses noted (see Appendix 4.1).
4.4.3 (3) Farmers’ Surveys
The Footprint Calculator is available online from the Global Footprint Network
(https://www.footprintcalculator.org/). It uses three major consumption categories
(food, housing, and transportation) to determine the Ecological Footprint of those
completing the survey – at whichever scale deployed. In this case, households of
peasant farmers ‘campesinos’ form the level of analysis, which was aggregated
locally to encompass the towns in the study area within the corridor. Sample size
for the farmers’ surveys was based on a minimum of 96 surveys (see Sect. 4.3). To
reiterate from Sect. 4.3, this was established based on a margin of error set at 10%
and equal probabilities (of previously unknown standard deviation) set to 50% for a
two-tailed distribution at 5% significance level ( p ¼ 0.05, 95% confidence level).
The Footprint Calculator survey is available in Spanish from the Global Footprint
Network website. A summary of the questions asked appears in Appendix 1.1 (see
Appendix 4.1 for the Spanish version). These questions are used in combination with
the National Footprint Accounts to determine the global hectares consumed for each
surveyed household. In practice, however, not all these questions were asked in
order to keep the time of the survey-interviews closer to 20 minutes. For this reason,
questions that participants would not have known the answers to (e.g., Q12 on car
efficiency, Q9 on renewable energy) or irrelevant questions to the study area (e.g.,
Q13 on carpooling, Q15 on flying) were excluded and ‘general’ responses used, as
indicated (in underlined, bold) in Appendix 1.1. Moreover, some answers tended to
be repeated (e.g., Q3 on housing type, Q4 on house construction – to some extent, as
these were the same across households in the study area). In fact, some became so
obvious that it was unnecessary to ask them, and they were dropped later in the study
to reduce the survey time; for example, all properties had electricity (Q7) and nobody
travelled by train (Q14) – as there is no local train service. This will be discussed in
detail later in the next chapter (Chap. 5) as part of the fieldwork findings.
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4 Case Study – Methods
The purpose of collecting demographic information was to know more about the
study participants in order to have details of their household configuration and farms
independently of the Footprint Calculator survey and follow-up questions. Because
the question asking about the number of people in their households was already
included as part of the Footprint Calculator survey (see Question 5 in Appendix 1.1),
this was excluded from the demographic questions. These were closed-ended questions (with set ranges and options). Annual income was asked in US dollars rather
than in the national currency of colones. The reason for this was because the options
for this question were based on a GDP per person of 9592 for 2016 (Global Footprint
Network 2020, Open Data Platform), entered in the survey as US$10,000. However,
there was a mixture of currency responses noted (see Appendix 4.1).
4.4.3 (3) Farmers’ Surveys
The Footprint Calculator is available online from the Global Footprint Network
(https://www.footprintcalculator.org/). It uses three major consumption categories
(food, housing, and transportation) to determine the Ecological Footprint of those
completing the survey – at whichever scale deployed. In this case, households of
peasant farmers ‘campesinos’ form the level of analysis, which was aggregated
locally to encompass the towns in the study area within the corridor. Sample size
for the farmers’ surveys was based on a minimum of 96 surveys (see Sect. 4.3). To
reiterate from Sect. 4.3, this was established based on a margin of error set at 10%
and equal probabilities (of previously unknown standard deviation) set to 50% for a
two-tailed distribution at 5% significance level ( p ¼ 0.05, 95% confidence level).
The Footprint Calculator survey is available in Spanish from the Global Footprint
Network website. A summary of the questions asked appears in Appendix 1.1 (see
Appendix 4.1 for the Spanish version). These questions are used in combination with
the National Footprint Accounts to determine the global hectares consumed for each
surveyed household. In practice, however, not all these questions were asked in
order to keep the time of the survey-interviews closer to 20 minutes. For this reason,
questions that participants would not have known the answers to (e.g., Q12 on car
efficiency, Q9 on renewable energy) or irrelevant questions to the study area (e.g.,
Q13 on carpooling, Q15 on flying) were excluded and ‘general’ responses used, as
indicated (in underlined, bold) in Appendix 1.1. Moreover, some answers tended to
be repeated (e.g., Q3 on housing type, Q4 on house construction – to some extent, as
these were the same across households in the study area). In fact, some became so
obvious that it was unnecessary to ask them, and they were dropped later in the study
to reduce the survey time; for example, all properties had electricity (Q7) and nobody
travelled by train (Q14) – as there is no local train service. This will be discussed in
detail later in the next chapter (Chap. 5) as part of the fieldwork findings.
60
4 Case Study – Methods