Complementary Vantage Points: Integrating Hydrology and Economics for Sociohydrologic Knowledge Generation

Müller, Marc F.; Levy, Matthew

doi:10.1029/2019wr024786

Cited by 42 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 238 publications

(309 reference statements)

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“…Rather, the primary objective of the model is a careful theoretical treatment of opportunity costs as a mechanism often thought to drive the relationship between climate change and conflict. In doing so, we elucidate the rich dynamics, and often counterintuitive outcomes, that emerge even under highly stylized theoretical representations of human behavior and climate (21).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and the opportunity cost of conflict

Roche

Müller-Itten

Dralle

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A growing empirical literature associates climate anomalies with increased risk of violent conflict. This association has been portrayed as a bellwether of future societal instability as the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are predicted to increase. This paper investigates the theoretical foundation of this claim. A seminal microeconomic model of opportunity costs—a mechanism often thought to drive climate–conflict relationships—is extended by considering realistic changes in the distribution of climate-dependent agricultural income. Results advise caution in using empirical associations between short-run climate anomalies and conflicts to predict the effect of sustained shifts in climate regimes: Although war occurs in bad years, conflict may decrease if agents expect more frequent bad years. Theory suggests a nonmonotonic relation between climate variability and conflict that emerges as agents adapt and adjust their behavior to the new income distribution. We identify 3 measurable statistics of the income distribution that are each unambiguously associated with conflict likelihood. Jointly, these statistics offer a unique signature to distinguish opportunity costs from competing mechanisms that may relate climate anomalies to conflict.

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Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and the opportunity cost of conflict

Roche

Müller-Itten

Dralle

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Borrowed from econometrics, the design focuses on isolating and quantifying the causal effect of a single driver-impervious cover-by controlling for other drivers of change (confounders). Recent reviews detail a variety of ways econometric approaches can improve our understanding of hydrologic change (Müller & Levy, 2019) and of coupled human-natural systems more broadly (Ferraro et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Effect of Impervious Cover on Annual Flood Magnitude for the United States

Blum

Ferraro

Archfield

et al. 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

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Despite consensus that impervious surfaces increase flooding, the magnitude of the increase remains uncertain. This uncertainty largely stems from the challenge of isolating the effect of changes in impervious cover separate from other factors that also affect flooding. To control for these factors, prior study designs rely on either temporal or spatial variation in impervious cover. We leverage both temporal and spatial variation in a panel data regression design to isolate the effect of impervious cover on floods. With 39 years of data from 280 U.S. streamgages, we estimate that a one percentage point increase in impervious basin cover causes a 3.3% increase in annual flood magnitude (95%CI: 1.9%, 4.7%) on average. Using 2,109 streamgages, some of which have upstream regulation and/or overlapping basins, we estimate a larger effect: 4.6% (CI: 3.5%, 5.6%). The approach introduced here can be extended to estimate the causal effects of other drivers of hydrologic change.

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“…Empirically, we must overcome the challenges of combining social with hydrological and ecological data, of which the latter two measure features of a continuous spatio-temporal field, whereas the former is discrete, often static, and may not coincide with the spatial scale at which hydrological outcomes emerge. Advances in computer science and hydrological modeling can help us combine these different types of data into more integrated and causal analyses (Ferraro et al 2019, Müller andLevy 2019). Advances in digitization of historical records, natural language processing, machine learning, and remotely sensed imagery can help us address the paucity of data on institutions and social structure (e.g., Lansing et al 2017).…”

Section: Questions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems

Brelsford¹,

Dumas²,

Schlager³

et al. 2020

E&S

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We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines' different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally coconstituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the "characteristic management challenges" that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.

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Complementary Vantage Points: Integrating Hydrology and Economics for Sociohydrologic Knowledge Generation

Cited by 42 publications

References 238 publications

Climate change and the opportunity cost of conflict

Climate change and the opportunity cost of conflict

Causal Effect of Impervious Cover on Annual Flood Magnitude for the United States

Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems

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