Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Understanding Robustness: Institutions, Disturbances, and Performance in Spanish Irrigation Communities

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Contemporary societies are increasingly exposed to common threats such as pollution, climate change, or market crises that are the result of the socioeconomic development process itself and manifest at global, regional, and local scales. This situation has generated a new interest in understanding the manner in which communities organize in response to threats in different contexts. Research in natural resource management has been particularly productive in that regard. In that vein, this research uses a large set of irrigation communities located in northeastern Spain to understand how characteristics of threats, the ways the local communities are organized, and the physical environment may enhance the robustness of those communities.There is a growing concern among ecologists and political scientists about the need to study robustness from an interdisciplinary perspective. This project contributes to theory building in that direction by testing the impact of both social and environmental variables. The research also helps improve decision-support computer programs that are increasingly used for water management in Spain and other countries. Finally, the research provides an inventory of sustainability threats and responses that represents the reality of many irrigation communities around the world. The inventory is useful for risk management in other natural resource sectors, so the research team is sharing the inventory with communities and public authorities.