Climate, Drought, and Agricultural Adaptations: An Investigation of Vulnerabilities and Responses to Water Stress Among Paddy Farmers in Sri Lanka

缺水在美国和全世界都是一个日益令人担忧的问题，估计每个大洲都有三分之一的人口受到影响。这个问题在严重依赖农业的发展中国家尤为紧迫，农业可占淡水使用量的85%-90%。有效的水资源管理对粮食安全、健康和世界政治稳定具有重大影响。面对不断增长的人口、土地利用的戏剧性变化和气候条件的变化，这一点变得越来越重要。历史上，世界？S农民一直依靠传统方式管理水资源，但现在他们发现自己面临着新的挑战，需要适应这些耕作方式。理解促进和制约有效适应的一系列复杂因素--心理、社会、环境和政治--需要一个超越传统学科界限的综合研究议程。这项研究借鉴了心理学、社会学、水文学和工程学的核心学科，以调查斯里兰卡马哈韦利河流域稻农的这些问题--斯里兰卡马哈韦利河流域是一个以农业为主的地区，是世界各地环境、制度和社会制度发生巨大变化的缩影。这些变化包括干旱的影响以及正在进行的国家重新安置计划，以居住和发展分水岭地区。研究小组将使用多层次、多方法的方法，包括纵向农民调查、区域一级干旱指数(加上短期和长期干旱预报方法)、主要信息提供人访谈和档案分析。研究小组将调查农民如何适应不断变化的水资源供应，以及这些决定如何受到心理、社会、制度和环境因素的影响。该小组将根据农民的情况检查可用水和水稻产量？适应行动，改变降雨和温度模式，土地利用变化，以及水分配决策。将使用基于代理的建模将这些多个数据流整合在一起，以生成一组丰富的未来情景，以描述社会和体制环境以及自然环境的变化如何影响农民的适应行动及其在管理易受缺水影响方面的有效性。该项目不仅将促进我们在学科内和学科间的理论知识，还将为发展中国家的农民和决策者提供急需的可持续水资源管理实用信息，因为缺水对粮食安全具有重大影响。美国国家情报局最近发布的一份展望2040年的报告总结道：水问题将阻碍主要国家生产粮食和发电的能力，对全球粮食市场构成风险，并阻碍经济增长。这项研究旨在通过增进农民、当地社区领导人、国家政府领导人和研究人员关于减轻水压力和促进适应的战略的知识，避免这种后果的最坏情况。此外，该小组还在项目中纳入了一个重要的教育方面，以在一个彻底跨学科的框架内培训下一代学者。因此，他们将不仅在理论和方法上得到指导，而且还将在如何将研究成果传达给不同的受众方面得到指导，包括政策制定者和世界上的一些人？S是最脆弱的人群。

Water scarcity is a growing concern in the U.S. and throughout the world, affecting an estimated one third of the population on every continent. The problem is particularly urgent in developing countries heavily reliant on agriculture, which can account for as much as 85-90% of fresh water usage. Effective water resource management has significant implications for food security, health, and worldwide political stability. This is increasingly important in the face of a growing population, dramatic shifts in land use, and changing climatic conditions. Historically, the world?s farmers have relied on traditional practices to manage water, but now find themselves challenged by new conditions that require adaptation to these farming practices. Understanding the complex array of factors?psychological, social, environmental, and political?that facilitate and constrain effective adaptation requires an integrated research agenda that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research draws upon the core disciplines of psychology, sociology, hydrology, and engineering in order to investigate these issues among paddy farmers within the Mahaweli River Watershed, Sri Lanka?a largely agricultural region that is a microcosm of the sort of massive changes occurring throughout the world in environmental, institutional, and social systems. These changes include impacts of drought as well as an ongoing national resettlement plan to populate and develop regions of the watershed. The research team will use a multi-level, multi-method approach that incorporates longitudinal farmer surveys, regional level drought indices (coupled with short- and long-term drought forecast methods), key informant interviews, and archival analysis. The research team will investigate how farmers adapt to changing water availability and how these decisions are affected by psychological, social, institutional, and environmental factors. The team will examine water availability and rice yields in light of farmers? adaptive actions, changing rainfall and temperature patterns, land use changes, and water allocation decisions. These multiple streams of data will be integrated using agent-based modeling to generate a rich set of future scenarios to characterize how changes to social and institutional circumstances and in the natural environment may affect farmers' adaptive actions and their effectiveness in managing vulnerability to water scarcity. This project will not only advance our theoretical knowledge within and across disciplines; it will provide much needed practical information about sustainable water resource management to farmers and decision makers in a developing country where water scarcities have major implications for food security. A recent report from the U.S. National Intelligence Agency looking forward to the year 2040 concludes: ?Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate energy, posing a risk to global food markets and hobbling economic growth.? This research is directed towards averting the worst of such consequences by furthering the knowledge of farmers, local community leaders, national governmental leaders, and researchers about strategies to reduce water stresses and facilitate adaptation. Additionally, the team has incorporated a major educational aspect in the project to train the next generation of scholars in a thoroughly interdisciplinary framework. As such, they will be mentored not only in theory and methodology but also in how to communicate research to diverse audiences, including policymakers and some of the world?s most vulnerable populations.