Droughts can last for years - unlike other disasters such as floods or earthquakes, according to Mike Johnson, PhD student in geography at UC Santa Barbara. “What this means is that within the course of a drought people, governments and water users can make decisions that reduce - or exacerbate - the severity of the impacts they experience.”
That is why Johnson and Keith Clarke, professor of geography at UC Santa Barbara, are examining human behavior and different adaptive strategies in an effort to “better represent drought risk and identify optimal strategies for reducing it,” said Johnson.
“Although much research has been done to analyze the hydrological impacts of climate change on agricultural production and environmental degradation, there remains a need to understand how human resilience and dynamic – rather than prescribed – adaptations might impact future water scenarios,” said Clarke.
Clarke and Johnson received a seed grant last year from the UCGHI Planetary Health Center of Expertise (PH COE) for their project, Integrating farmers’ adaptive behaviors in California’s Central Valley to assess water and food security risks under climate change. Their work is aimed at better understanding how humans adapt and respond to perceived risks and policy in times of increasing climate variability and water demands, according to Clarke.
Clarke and Johnson want to understand the role of individual farmers and find ways to integrate them into future simulations because, according to Johnson, “human behaviors, beliefs and politics can very well affect groundwater levels, crop production and overall farmer economic well-being as humans adapt and turn to alternative measures.”
Ultimately this human behavior framework could serve as a testbed for researcher and policy makers to better understand the policies and system changes that promote well-being across water supply systems, according to David Lopez-Carr, co-director of the PH COE and professor of geography at UC Santa Barbara.
“California’s Central Valley is particularly vulnerable to water resource risks as increasing agricultural and urban demands strain surface and groundwater resources. Collectively, these strains place increasing risks on local and national food security, environmental preservation and local economies,” said Lopez-Carr.
Effects of California’s drought are felt internationally as well. As Johnson explained, California’s drought “not only impacts the local population but everyone that relies on California products, such as food. These transboundary connections mean local drought conditions in some places can have consequences on regional and global food security, health and well-being.”
Fresh water is an essential resource for sustainable, resilient and healthy communities, Clarke said; yet, “understanding which mechanisms encourage cooperative and sustainable use of this finite resource is a principal challenge.”
“Being able to better understand these connections through an agent-based perspective means that we can better represent drought risk outside of a purely hydrologic view,” said Johnson.
In 2015 the World Economic Forum declared water crisis the greatest issue facing humanity worldwide, but regions throughout the world experience crisis in different ways, making collaboration an essential piece of the puzzle, according to Clarke. “One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it brings together researchers from UC Santa Barbara and the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) in Amsterdam to collaborate on a larger study focused on the applicability and usefulness of socio-hydrological Agent Based Models (ABM),” he said.
Other partners in Kenya and Italy are testing cases focused on drought and flood risk management for populations with different climates, technologic constraints and cultural practices, said Clarke. The goal of these studies is to create preliminary literature for the use of ABMs in the contexts of water scarcity and to encourage more collaborators within the realm of water risk research.
In May, Clarke and Johnson will host IVM researchers at UC Santa Barbara to continue their ongoing collaboration, and next month they will present at the 9th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software in Colorado.