Doctoral Dissertation Research: Climate Change Effects on U.S. Water Resources Management

21世纪的重大挑战和机遇之一涉及变化和变化的气候的实际影响以及人类对这种变化和变化的适应。这一博士论文研究改进项目将探讨在流域范围内适应水资源管理的潜力。地理学中的自然-社会传统为这项调查提供了一个多尺度的、综合的和跨学科的平台。博士生将研究四个盆地(科罗拉多河、普拉特河、特拉华河以及大沼泽地)，以获得不同的国家视角。水资源管理者需要主动规划当前的气候变化以及未来温室气体引起的气候变化，以便在人类和生态系统需求之间有效和公平地分配水资源。这可能包括评估并最终改变现有的用水优先事项，作为在日益复杂的人类机构、人口和环境维护情况下有限和可变的供水变化。学生将使用定性的方法，包括观察、访谈和问卷调查，对不同的流域利益相关者和水资源管理者进行调查。该项目的最终目标是评估水资源管理者在独特的自然和人类流域属性背景下推动气候变化的适应情况。这项研究将从具体案例中总结出适用的经验教训，为更可持续和公平的美国水管理提供参考。该项目预计将通过解决不同的水资源决策者如何根据气候变化和变化对流域规模的不确定影响来确定水管理适应，从而为科学了解气候变化的影响做出新的贡献。该项目建立在一个重要且不断发展的应用领域之上，涉及水资源管理者如何适应不确定事件，以及这些不确定性如何影响水资源管理者和利益相关者的决策。这项研究将提供科学和政策之间的桥梁，为应用环境管理提供信息，从而提高决策的质量。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

One of the great challenges and opportunities for the 21st century involve the physical effects of a variable and changing climate as well as human adaptation to that variability and change. This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement project will address the potential for adaptation of water resources management at the river basin scale. The nature-society tradition within geography provides a multi-scale, integrated, and transdisciplinary platform for this investigation. The doctoral candidate will examine four basins (the Colorado, Platte, and Delaware rivers as well as the Everglades) in order to gain a diverse national perspective. Water resource managers need to proactively plan for current climate variability as well as future greenhouse-gas induced climate change to effectively and equitably allocate water resources among human and ecosystem needs. This may involve assessing and ultimately changing existing water use priorities as finite and variable delivery of water changes under increasingly complex human institutional, population, and environmental maintenance circumstances. The student will use qualitative methods, including observation, interviews, and questionnaires, to survey diverse basin stakeholders and water managers. Assessing climate change-motivated adaptations by water managers in the context of unique physical and human basin attributes is the ultimate goal of the project. The study will generalize from the specific cases to provide applicable lessons learned to inform more sustainable and equitable U.S. water management.This project is expected to provide a new contribution to scientific knowledge of climate change impacts by addressing how diverse water resource decision-makers determine water management adaptations in light of the uncertain impacts of climate variability and change on the basin scale. The project builds on an important and continually developing arena of applications regarding how water managers accommodate uncertain events and how those uncertainties influence the decision making of water managers and stakeholders. This research will improve the quality of decision making by providing a bridge between science and policy to inform applied environmental management. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.