CNH-Ex: Coping with Change: Water Availability and Arid Land Management

CNH-Ex：应对变化：水资源供应和干旱土地管理

• 批准号: 1313656
• 负责人: Kimberly Kirner
• 金额: $ 24.99万
• 依托单位: The University Corporation, Northridge
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1313656&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Ex; Coping; Change; Water

Rapid changes in water availability, due to climate change or land and water management practices, can present extreme challenges to arid land agricultural systems, ecosystems, and economies. In the American West the existing risks of water shortage, desertification, and low sustainability in arid lands have been compounded over the last hundred years by the increased removal of water resources from rural watersheds for use in cities. Agricultural arid land communities struggle as they simultaneously face climate change, variable water availability, encroaching urban development, increasingly polarized agricultural politics, and rapid inflation in the costs of business. Climate change and changes in water and land management policy can result not only in destabilization of local agriculture and economies, but can also have detrimental environmental effects, altering ecological systems and processes. In the face of these challenges, households, communities, and governmental resource management agencies will have to make changes in order to cope; however, strategies to adapt to new conditions will depend on perceptions of climate change, water availability, and how these affect the local agricultural resource base. Studying the effects of changes in water availability on arid lands and their key stakeholder groups has been particularly challenging because the impacts of climate change and water policy are felt at a variety of scales, including Federal, State, regional and local. At each scale individuals perceive the changes differently and respond in unique ways shaped by cultural and institutional influences. This project will examine how various stakeholder groups at different scales perceive climate and water policy changes and how these perceptions affect natural resources and management decisions. The investigators will examine historical data on climate, water availability, and vegetation, combining this with interviews, participatory GIS, documented water management policies, and historical personal accounts of environmental change and response in order to assess the relationship between measured and perceived environmental change as well as to understand better how people's perceptions shape the effectiveness and long-term sustainability of coping strategies. By studying the human and natural systems together, the investigators will be able to examine the complex feedbacks between them through time and across spatial scales.This project will have significant implications for land management, water policy, and biodiversity conservation planning in semi-arid lands and other water-limited environments. Our empirical analysis will allow replication and model development for other systems or locations to examine the resilience and sustainability of local practices and government policies. The results of this study will contribute to developing sustainable approaches to coping with variable water availability and policy shifts by helping land managers understand the past and plan for the future. The results will also contribute to better understanding of the dynamic relationship between climate, water availability, and vegetation communities in the Eastern Sierra region, which will be of interest to land managers developing conservation and range management plans. Water policy and conservation planning have traditionally been a top-down exercise, ignoring scale, changes through time and from place to place. This project will generate new knowledge about how environmental perception and response vary with scale and time, and how this knowledge can be used to adaptively manage coupled natural and human systems.

由于气候变化或土地和水资源管理做法，水资源供应的迅速变化可能对干旱土地的农业系统、生态系统和经济构成极端挑战。 在美国西部，水资源短缺、荒漠化和干旱土地可持续性低的现有风险在过去一百年里由于越来越多地从农村流域转移水资源用于城市而变得更加复杂。 农业干旱土地社区挣扎，因为他们同时面临气候变化，可变的水资源供应，侵蚀城市发展，日益两极分化的农业政治，以及商业成本的快速通货膨胀。 气候变化以及水资源和土地管理政策的变化不仅会破坏当地农业和经济的稳定，而且还会对环境产生有害影响，改变生态系统和生态进程。 面对这些挑战，家庭、社区和政府资源管理机构将不得不做出改变以科普;然而，适应新条件的战略将取决于对气候变化、水资源供应以及这些因素如何影响当地农业资源基础的看法。 研究水供应量变化对干旱土地及其主要利益攸关方群体的影响特别具有挑战性，因为气候变化和水政策的影响在各种规模上都能感受到，包括联邦、州、区域和地方。 在每一个尺度上，个人对变化的感知都不同，并以受文化和制度影响的独特方式作出反应。 该项目将研究不同规模的利益攸关方群体如何看待气候和水政策变化，以及这些看法如何影响自然资源和管理决策。 调查人员将研究有关气候，水资源和植被的历史数据，将其与访谈，参与式地理信息系统，记录的水管理政策以及环境变化和响应的历史个人帐户相结合，以评估测量和感知环境变化之间的关系，并更好地了解人们的看法如何塑造应对策略的有效性和长期可持续性。 通过共同研究人类和自然系统，研究人员将能够检查它们之间通过时间和空间尺度的复杂反馈。该项目将对半干旱土地和其他水资源有限环境中的土地管理，水资源政策和生物多样性保护规划产生重大影响。 我们的实证分析将允许复制和其他系统或地点的模型开发，以检查当地做法和政府政策的弹性和可持续性。 这项研究的结果将有助于制定可持续的方法，以应对可变的水资源供应和政策变化，帮助土地管理人员了解过去和规划未来。 结果也将有助于更好地了解气候，水的可用性和植被群落之间的动态关系，在东部塞拉利昂地区，这将是感兴趣的土地管理人员制定保护和范围管理计划。 水资源政策和保护规划传统上是一种自上而下的做法，忽视了规模、时间和地点的变化。 该项目将产生关于环境感知和响应如何随规模和时间而变化的新知识，以及如何使用这些知识来适应性地管理耦合的自然和人类系统。