RAPID: Assessing Vulnerabilities from Climate Change: Impacts of Water Provision, Power Relations and Perceptions of Risk on Ecohydrology in the Tampa Bay Region Socioecosystem

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Thr research supported by this award will build on activities supported by NSF Urban Long-Term Research Area (ULTRA-Ex) Award 0948986, which investigates how social organization and distribution of power in a socioecosystem-driven resource redistribution of a key resource, water, in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region. In previous work, the investigators have identified relationships among wetland ecohydrological conditions, water redistribution, social power, and perceptions of ecological change in the Tampa Bay regional socioecosystem. Through this award, they will develop and examine new scenarios regarding how this complex socioecological network might be modified by climate change. The investigators will focus their efforts on three core questions: (1) How have social organizations and distribution of power shaped current planning, perceptions of risk, and adaptation to climate change in the water provision system in Tampa Bay? (2) How do key stakeholders, decision makers, and residents perceive climate change vulnerabilities related to water quality and quantity in the Tampa Bay regional socioecosystem? (3) How will natural systems respond to regional socioecosystem-specific climate change scenarios that will impact water quality and quantity? They will collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data on perceptions of risk and adaptive capacity of the region's water system to climate change through interviews with key stakeholders, and they will statistically downscale currently available Florida climate scenarios for the region. They will develop three climate change scenarios of varying impact (low, moderate, and high), building on existing scenarios, drawing on interview responses, and testing these scenarios by using surveys with a second sample of key stakeholders and residents to assess perceptions, acceptability, and adaptive capacities. They also will measure and analyze ecological indicators in order to model the biophysical behavior of the water systems under the varying climate change scenarios.The project will develop ethnographically informed scenarios of climate change impacts on water quality and quantity that will reveal power differentials, conflicting values, and institutional barriers that shape adaptive capacity, contributing to socioecological and political ecology theory. Research results will have fundamental research value and will be disseminated broadly through presentations at public meetings, easily accessible summary reports, and through formal interactions with project partners, such as Tampa Bay Water, the primary regional water-supply wholesaler, and the Southwest Florida Water Management District, the water-supply regulatory authority. Communication with research teams conducting similar projects at other ULTRA-Ex sites will facilitate development of more impactful measures and indicators of urban vulnerability to climate change. This project is supported with funds transferred to the National Science Foundation by the Environmental Protection Agency.