Idaho surveys show public cares about water

Published 8:30 am Tuesday, February 10, 2026

The water-focused survey that Bob Mahler began mailing to about 3,000 randomly selected Idaho residents every four to five years starting in 1988 generated an approximately 50% response rate, around twice what was expected.

“To me that means the public really cares about water,” the University of Idaho professor of soil and water systems said.

Survey respondents have long valued water quality and recently pay closer attention to how much is available year to year. Respondents consistently identified soil and water as the state’s most important natural resources.

Mahler kept mailing the survey through its most recent iteration in 2023.

“We stayed with it because we wanted to compare year to year,” he said.

And the method — copied by officials in 42 states and U.S. territories, according to UI — produced a reliable cross-section of respondents and a 2-3% margin of error.

Future surveys

Mahler, who is nearing retirement, expects the next version to be conducted online due to factors such as cost and time, and to include some updated questions.

“We are not going back to mail simply because it’s harder to get addresses nowadays,” he said.

Surveyors in moving the longtime project online would have to take into account desired sample size and audience composition given that an Internet-based survey could generate a much lower response rate and participation weighted toward technology savvy people, Mahler said.

Findings

The state’s population more than doubled since he started the survey. And the population mix changed to include more people who are from elsewhere and “bring perspectives from their states of origin,” he said.

Agriculture “was very important in ’88,” Mahler said. “It is still important to the audience, but not as important because a lot of people that have moved into the state are not very familiar with it and they don’t depend on ag for their jobs or the community they live in.”

Irrigated agriculture is an important cultural aspect of the state according to more than 63% of respondents in 2003, down from 93% in 1988. In-migration by people who lack an ag heritage, and rapid urbanization, are primary factors, he said.

Other findings include that while the typical resident dislikes governmental regulation, he or she approves of voluntary actions that can help improve water quality, including university extension education. Residents who reported taking voluntary steps to improve water quality increased from 26% in 1988 to 80% in 2023. Those who reported taking steps to improve water quantity increased from 16% to 73%.

Between 1988 and 2007, more than 90% of participants considered their drinking water to be safe, compared to about 82% in 2023. Factors in the decline likely include increased awareness of problems such as the Flint, Mich., water crisis, marketing of in-home water filtration systems, and population growth, Mahler said.

Well over 80% of respondents in 2023 said population growth harms water resources, up from over half in 2007 and over 20% in 1988. Growth in the Boise-Meridian area accelerated around 2010, “so there is more concern about population and its impact on our water resources,” he said.

Value

Mahler, who has written about the findings, would like UI Extension to continue surveying the public about water perceptions, he said in a news release.

“Our legislators are interested in anything that improves the quality of water in the state,” he said. “They’re not interested in regulating things more to do that, but they’re interested in programs that give people the ability to take voluntary actions to improve and protect our water resources.”

Name: Robert (Bob) Mahler

Title: University of Idaho professor of soil, water and environmental sciences

Education: B.S. (1976) and M.S. (1978), soils, Washington State University; Ph.D., (1978), soil microbiology, North Carolina State University

Home: Boise

Family: Daughter Claudia teaches math and statistics at the University of Calgary

Hobbies: Hiking, travel