Use of nutrient management practices to reduce nutrient loss from agriculture and its associated water quality consequences, including hypoxia and eutrophication, is widely encouraged. However, little is known about which factors influence farmers’ risk perceptions associated with nutrient loss, and thus possibly influence their decisions to adopt such practices. To determine which factors were associated with relative “accuracy” of nutrient loss–associated risk perceptions, specific farm field management information was used as inputs to a Soil and Water Assessment Tool model of the study watershed to produce water quality outputs for each modeled farm field. This information was paired with farmers’ risk perceptions associated with nutrient loss on their farm to assess relative “accuracy” of each farmer’s perceptions compared to the rest of the farmers in the study. We then investigated characteristics of the farm and farmer that are associated with comparative “overprediction” and “underprediction” of risk, and found that characteristics of the individual (conservation identity, prior conservation practice adoption, efficacy beliefs, and perceived seriousness of the consequences of nutrient loss) are more important in determining whether farmers are likely to “overpredict” or “underpredict” risk than is the objective (modeled) vulnerability of their land to nutrient loss.

广泛鼓励使用养分管理实践来减少农业中的养分流失及其相关的水质后果，包括缺氧和富营养化。然而，关于哪些因素会影响农民对与养分流失相关的风险认知，从而可能影响他们采用这种做法的决定，我们知之甚少。为了确定哪些因素与营养损失相关风险感知的相对“准确性”相关，特定农田管理信息被用作研究流域的土壤和水评估工具模型的输入，以产生每个模拟农田的水质输出. 该信息与农民对其农场养分损失的风险认知相结合，以评估每个农民与研究中其他农民相比的相对“准确性”。然后，我们调查了与风险的比较“过度预测”和“预测不足”相关的农场和农民的特征，并发现个体的特征（保护身份、先前的保护实践采用、功效信念和感知后果的严重性）养分损失）在确定农民是否可能“高估”或“低估”风险方面比其土地对养分损失的客观（模型）脆弱性更为重要。