Abstract
The likely intensification of extreme droughts from climate change in many regions across the United States has increased interest amongst researchers and water managers to understand not only the magnitude of drought impacts and their consequences on water resources, but also what they can do to prevent, respond to, and adapt to these impacts. Building and mobilizing ‘adaptive capacity’ can help in this pursuit. Researchers anticipate that drought preparedness measures will increase adaptive capacity, but there has been minimal testing of this and other assumptions about the governance and institutional determinants of adaptive capacity. This paper draws from recent extreme droughts in Arizona and Georgia to empirically assess adaptive capacity across spatial and temporal scales. It combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify a handful of heuristics for increasing adaptive capacity of water management to extreme droughts and climate change, and also highlights potential tradeoffs in building and mobilizing adaptive capacity across space and time.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Since conducting this research, the Southwest and Southeast have both experienced additional extreme droughts, such as the widespread drought of 2012.
A complete reference list of the documents analyzed and a more in-depth description of the design and instruments used in this research are available from the author upon request.
The SPI is a comparable metric across locations for evaluating climate stress on hydrological processes calculated based on the probability of precipitation for various time scales (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 month intervals). Through a normalization and standardization process, the values can be compared across regions.
The 6-month SPI was used, because it corresponds with the same timeframe on which the management data were collected with the EHC (6-month increments representing ‘winter’ and ‘summer’). In addition, two ‘lagged’, or delayed response, relationships of the 6-month SPI were evaluated across all systems (i.e., a 6-month lag, and a 12-month lag) to determine if the implementation of the drought preparedness approaches was more immediate or delayed (by one or two lagged periods on the EHC).
Since conducting this research, budget cuts have affected state drought preparedness measures in Arizona. While the overall ASDPP process remains in place, the cuts indicate the dynamic and potentially fragile nature of building adaptive capacity through drought preparedness.
As with Arizona, recent changes in Georgia’s drought preparedness approach reflect the dynamism and oftentimes vulnerable nature of building adaptive capacity. Through an executive order in 2011, Georgia’s Governor folded the once independent State Climatologist Office into the Governor’s executive branch. The Governor also replaced the 12-year-serving State Climatologist.
Officially, Georgia requires water conservation and drought ordinances for CWSs to obtain water withdrawal permits. However, these ‘plans’ are rarely produced by the CWSs, or not enforced (often overridden) by the State.
The qualitative data coding exercise classified 30 bridge and 21 barrier categories in both states. A more thorough description of these categories and specific examples from both states are available from the author upon request.
Only one- and two-period lags (i.e., 6-month and 12-month lags) were evaluated, because additional lag periods would have omitted progressively more data at the beginning stages of the timeframe; reducing the power of the results and making it increasingly difficult to identify significant relationships.
Only a 10-year period was investigated. Some approaches might have already been entrenched within a CWS at the beginning this timeframe, making it difficult to detect longer-term relationships between droughts and the implementation of certain management approaches. The qualitative data from the EHC prove valuable in addressing these issues by verifying and augmenting the patterns discovered in the quantitative data.
This particular finding on the role of boundary organizations in improving adaptation processes is also supported by a recent study by Corfee-Morlot et al. 2011.
Abbreviations
- AM:
-
Adaptive management
- ASDPP:
-
Arizona State Drought Preparedness Plan
- CLIMAS:
-
Climate Assessment for the Southwest
- CWS:
-
Community water system
- DRC:
-
Drought Response Committee
- EHC:
-
Event history calendar
- EPD:
-
Environmental Protection Division
- GDMP:
-
Georgia Drought Management Plan
- ICG:
-
Interagency Coordinating Group
- IR:
-
Integrated resources planning
- IWRM:
-
Integrated water resources management
- LDIG:
-
Local Drought Impact Group
- LHC:
-
Life history calendar
- MNGWPD:
-
Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District
- MTC:
-
Monitoring Technical Committee
- NGO:
-
Non-governmental organization
- RISA:
-
Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments
- SECC:
-
Southeast Climate Consortium
- SPI:
-
Standardized Precipitation Index
- SRP:
-
Salt River Project
- U.S.:
-
United States
References
Adger WN, Agrawala S, Mirza MMQ, Conde C, O’Brien K, Pulhin J, Pulwarty R, Smit B, Takahashi K (2007) Assessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity. In: Parry ML et al (eds) Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Arnell N (2010) Adapting to climate change: an evolving research programme. Clim Change 100:107–111
Axinn WG, Pearce LD, Ghimire D (1999) Innovations in life history calendar applications. Soc Sci Res 28:243–264
Beecher JA (1995) Integrated resource planning fundamentals. J Am Water Works Assoc 87:34–48
Blomquist W, Dinar A, Kemper K (2005) Comparison of institutional arrangements for river basin management in eight basins. World Bank Pol Res Work Pap 3636:46
Brooks N, Adger WN, Kelly PM (2005) The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Glob Environ Change 15:151–163
Corfee-Morlot J, Cochran I, Hallegatte S, Teasdale P-J (2011) Multilevel risk governance and urban adaptation policy. Clim Change 104:169–197
Cromwell JE III, Smith JB, Raucher RS (2007) No doubt about climate change and its implications for water suppliers. J Am Water Works Assoc 99:112–117
Dai A (2010) Drought under global warming: a review. WIRES Climate Change. doi:10.1002/wcc.1081
Engle NL (2011) Adaptive capacity and its assessment. Glob Environ Change 21:647–656
Engle NL, Lemos MC (2010) Unpacking governance: building adaptive capacity to climate change of river basins in Brazil. Glob Environ Change 20:4–13
Eriksen S, Kelly P (2007) Developing credible vulnerability indicators for climate adaptation policy assessment. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 12:495–524
Hayes MJ, Wilhelmi OV, Knutson CL (2004) Reducing drought risk: bridging theory and practice. Natural Hazards Review 5:106–113
McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology. Anaheim, CA
McLain RJ, Lee RG (1996) Adaptive management: promises and pitfalls. Environ Manage 20:437–448
Medema W, McIntosh BS, Jeffrey PJ (2008) From premise to practice: a critical assessment of integrated water resources management and adaptive management approaches in the water sector. Ecol. Soc. 13:29 [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss22/art29/.
Nelson DR, Adger WN, Brown K (2007) Adaptation to environmental change: contributions of a resilience framework. Annu Rev Environ Resour 32:395–419
Olsson P, Folke C, Berkes F (2004) Adaptive comanagement for building resilience in social–ecological systems. Environ Manage 34:75–90
Pahl-Wostl C, Kabat P, Möltgen J (eds) (2007) Adaptive and Integrated Water Management. Coping with Complexity and Uncertainty, Springer Verlag, p. 440
Pielke RA Jr, Prins G, Rayner S, Sarewitz D (2007) Lifting the taboo on adaptation. Nature 445:597–598
Seager R, Ting M, Held I, Kushnir Y, Lu J, Vecchi G, Huang H-P, Harnik N, Leetmaa A, Lau N-C, Li C, Velez J, Naik N (2007) Model projections of an imminent transition to a more arid climate in Southwestern North America. Science 316:1181–1184
Seager R, Tzanova A, Nakamura J (2009) Drought in the Southeastern United States: causes, variability over the last millennium and the potential for future hydroclimate change. J Clim 22:5251–5272
Smit B, Pilifosova O, Burton I, Challenger B, Huq S, Klein RJT, Yohe G, Adger N, Downing T, Harvey E, Kane S, Parry M, Skinner M, Smith J, Wandel J (2001) Adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity. In: McCarthy JJ et al (eds) Climate change 2001: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
U.S. Climate Change Science Program (2008) Decision-support experiments and evaluations using seasonal-to-interannual forecasts and observational data: a focus on water resources. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. Beller-Simms N et al (eds). NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, Asheville.
Wilhite DA (2009) Drought monitoring as a component of drought Preparedness planning. Coping with Drought Risk in Agriculture and Water Supply Systems, pp. 3-19.
Wilhite DA, Hayes MJ, Knutson CL (2005) Drought preparedness planning: building institutional capacity. In: Wilhite DA (ed) Drought and water crises: Science, technology, and management issues. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Woodhouse CA, Meko DM, MacDonald GM, Stahle DW, Cook ER (2010) A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North America. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:21283–21288
Acknowledgments
Maria Carmen Lemos, Richard Moss, and Ariane de Bremond significantly helped guide this paper to completion. Rosina Bierbaum, Dan Brown, Steve Wright, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Christine Kirchhoff played an integral role in developing survey instruments associated with portions of this research. Finally, the author is indebted to the Dan David Foundation Fellowship and the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment and Rackham Graduate School for financial support, as well as the numerous water managers and other participants who donated their time to make this research possible.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOCX 379 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Engle, N.L. The role of drought preparedness in building and mobilizing adaptive capacity in states and their community water systems. Climatic Change 118, 291–306 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0657-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0657-4