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Several issues related to multilevel research and measurement theory are discussed. It was emphasized that questions regarding choice of level of measurement and unit of analysis are less important than the choice of an appropriate statistical model. It was demonstrated that even with an "error-free" environmental measure not all persons should view the setting in the same manner. The split-sample correlation was clearly shown to have undesirable statistical properties, and the use of standard methods was stressed. Investigators were cautioned to carefully choose a coefficient and were shown that this choice is sometimes tricky. Finally, the analysis of multilevel data using multilevel methods was recommended.

The measurement of the reliability of one's instruments is an important aspect of any scientific undertaking. The use of standard methods for evaluating the reliability of environmental assessment measures has, however, recently come under attack by Richards and his colleagues. This article presents a general view of reliability and the analysis of multilevel data. The meaning of reliability and its usefulness to environmental assessment is discussed. It is shown that standard methods of reliability are useful. The split-sample correlation, which was proposed as an alternative to standard reliability co-efficients, is shown not to have the stated properties and cannot be recommended. The intraclass correlation is described and recommended as an alternative to the split-sample correlation. This article concludes with a discussion of the analysis of multilevel data.

The current debate over subsistence rights is presently one of Alaska's most volatile unresolved public policy issues. Preference has been given to subsistence uses of wild resources, but debate has raged over how to define subsistence users. The special rights of Alaskan Native communities to harvest resources have been eroded through political and legal battles that have extended subsistence harvesting rights to all rural residents (federal law) and to all state residents (state law) and that seek to individualize the eligibility criteria. This study demonstrates that there are significant behavioral differences between the subsistence activities of Native, part‐Native, and non‐Native households in Bristol Bay, Alaska. These differences are cultural in nature and are rooted in different systems for organizing relationships between people and the natural world. These differences need to be taken into account in the legal and political debates over subsistence and in resource management decisions that affect subsistence users.

In 1975, in response to a lack of published information on which to base environmental impact statements, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) began to sponsor a series of social and economic studies in a variety of offshore areas. The goal of these studies is to provide information necessary in the development of accurate and defensible environmental assessments and to make possible the monitoring of environmental effects from OCS development, should such effects occur. Because harvests of naturally-occurring, renewable (wild) resources are important to rural Alaskan communities, much work has focused on subsistence issues. The need for Bristol Bay subsistence-harvest and sociocultural information had been identified in several MMS Alaska Regional Studies Plans. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Division of Subsistence, as a result of an FY-1988 study, supplied MMS with a computerized data base and technical papers from baseline subsistence studies they had conducted in Bristol Bay communities beginning in 1980. The general purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the harvest and uses of wild resources for the Bristol Bay region. Specific study objectives were: 1) development of a typology of subregions within Bristol Bay based on multivariate analysis of subsistence harvesting and processing; 2) examination of the ethnographic meanings and context of subsistence; and, 3) analysis of the key political, economic, social and cultural factors that affect subsistence pursuits.