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Amenity migration in the Intermountain West is a rapidly evolving process that has greatly impacted wellbeing in many rural communities over the past several decades. While the impacts of amenity migration have been discussed through both individual community case studies and cross‐community comparative analysis, there is an ongoing need for research that continues to build upon our understanding of amenity migration's effects on individual and community wellbeing. Remote and hybrid work opportunities, expanded during the COVID‐19 pandemic, have allowed for an increasing number of people to live part or full‐time in highly desirable rural locations, particularly those proximate to larger urban areas. In this paper, we discuss the historical and current trends of amenity migration in Kittitas County, proximate to Seattle, Washington, on the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains. Drawing upon perspectives shared in 80 interviews with key informants and community members about community wellbeing in three towns, we discuss the implications of amenity migration for the perceived quality of life of both longer‐term residents and newer community members. Additionally, the setting and scope of this research allows for comparison between high‐amenity rural communities with larger recreation economies, and adjacent less—amenity‐based rural communities. Findings indicate that amenity migration continues to evolve and impact community wellbeing, primarily via community cultural changes and socioeconomic and housing inequality. However, there are nuanced geographical and longitudinal differences in the impacts of amenity migration. Additionally, participants perceived an increase in amenity migration patterns and impacts in the years following the COVID‐19 pandemic. To conclude, we discuss ongoing and potential initiatives that may help support community wellbeing, as well as possibilities for further improvements in policy and planning to equitably increase the quality of life for all residents. 

Extreme weather events have cost lives and financial losses across the United States. Moreover, they are expected to increase in frequency, and this will exacerbate their impact on vulnerable sectors such as agriculture. But how farmers could adapt to extreme weather events by adopting different conservation practices has received slight attention in the literature. This study examines how farmers' perceptions of drought and flooding influence their decisions to implement conservation practices in their conventional crop fields. Out of the 350 farmer responses we received, fewer than half indicated a likelihood to adopt no-tillage/reduced tillage (43%), cover crops (40%), crop diversification (37%), and integrated crop-livestock grazing (29%). Using this data and a multivariate probit modeling framework, we show that farmers’ decisions can be partly explained by their perception of drought but not by their perception of flooding. Specifically, the perceived number of drought years significantly increases the likelihood of adopting no-tillage/reduced tillage and diversified cropping in the future. However, the number of drought years is not significantly associated with the use of cover crops and integrated crop-livestock grazing. These results suggest that the effects of extreme weather events on adoption of conservation practices as adaptive measures vary across different practices. Therefore, adaptation policies that make use of conservation practices must be tailored to farmers’ needs and priorities to be effective. 

While conservation practices promote soil health and reduce the negative environmental effects from agricultural production, their adoption rates are generally low. To facilitate farmer adoption, we carried out a survey to identify potential challenges faced by farmers regarding conservation tillage and cover crop adoption in the western margin of the US Corn Belt. We found farmers' top two concerns regarding conservation tillage were delayed planting, caused by slow soil warming in spring, and increased dependence on herbicide and fungicides. Narrow planting window and lack of time/labor were perceived by farmers as the two primary challenges for cover crop adoption. Some sense of place factors, including the commonly included dimensions of attachment, identity and dependence, played a role in farmers' perceived challenges. For example, respondents more economically dependent on farming perceived greater challenges. We found that farmers' challenge perceptions regarding reduced yield and lack of time/labor significantly decreased as years of usage increased, implying that time and experience could dilute some challenges faced by farmers. Our findings indicate that social network use, technical guidance and economic subsidies are likely to address the concerns of farmers and facilitate their adoption of conservation practices.