Characterizing the potential for drought action from combined hydrological and societal perspectives

Erin Towler,Debasish Paimazumder,Heather Lazrus

doi:10.5194/hess-23-1469-2019

Abstract

Abstract. Drought is a function of both natural and human influences, but fully characterizing the interactions between human and natural influences on drought remains challenging. To better characterize parts of the drought feedback loop, this study combines hydrological and societal perspectives to characterize and quantify the potential for drought action. For the hydrological perspective, we examine historical groundwater data, from which we determine the decadal likelihoods of exceeding hydrologic thresholds relevant to different water uses. Stakeholder interviews yield data about how people rate the importance of water for different water uses. We combine these to quantify the Potential Drought Action Indicator (PDAI). The PDAI is demonstrated for a study site in south-central Oklahoma, where water availability is highly influenced by drought and management of water resources is contested by local stakeholders. For the hydrological perspective, we find that the historical decadal likelihood of exceedance for a moderate threshold associated with municipal supply has ranged widely: from 23 % to 75 %, which corresponds well with natural drought variability in the region. For the societal perspective, stakeholder interviews reveal that people value water differently for various uses. Combining this information into the PDAI illustrates that potential drought action increases as the hydrologic threshold is exceeded more often; this occurs as conditions get drier and when water use thresholds are more moderate. The PDAI also shows that for water uses where stakeholders have diverse views of importance, the PDAI will be diverse as well, and this is exacerbated under drier conditions. The variability in stakeholder views of importance is partially explained by stakeholders' cultural worldviews, pointing to some implications for managing water when drought risks threaten. We discuss how the results can be used to reduce potential disagreement among stakeholders and promote sustainable water management, which is particularly important for planning under increasing drought.

Highlights

Drought can pose significant challenges to meeting the water needs of society and ecosystems, which has led to increased interest in understanding and managing drought risk and into the future (e.g., Georgakakos et al, 2014)
The key points from these results: the Potential Drought Action Indicator (PDAI) increases with (1) drier decadal drought conditions and (2) water use thresholds that are exceeded more often. It shows that for water uses where perceived importance is diverse among stakeholders, the PDAI will be diverse as well, and this is exacerbated under drier conditions
The cultural theory of risk (CTR) posits that disagreement over resource management strategies may arise among constituents with diverse worldviews for two reasons (McNeeley and Lazrus, 2014): first, as demonstrated in Table 3, worldviews explain some of the variance in how important people think that local water resources are for different activities – and presumably whether or not maintaining water for those activities should be prioritized by water management

Summary

Introduction

Drought can pose significant challenges to meeting the water needs of society and ecosystems, which has led to increased interest in understanding and managing drought risk and into the future (e.g., Georgakakos et al, 2014). The need for more proactive drought planning has led to increased interest in the development of drought management plans (e.g., Wilhite et al, 2000, 2005; Knutson et al, 1998). The PDAI is developed and demonstrated for the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer (ASA), a groundwater resource that underlies an area of about 520 square miles (1350 km2) in south-central Oklahoma. This area is part of Oklahoma Climate Division 8 (Karl and Koss, 1984), which is one of the 344 climate divisions that the United States is divided into for reporting purposes, based on climate as well as several other considerations (Guttman and Quayle, 1996). The ASA has been the center of a water management dispute that arose in 2002 when landowners began negotiations to sell their groundwater to an area outside of the ASA, near Okla-

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Conclusion