Socio-environmental drought response in a mixed urban-agricultural setting: synthesizing biophysical and governance responses in the Platte River Watershed, Nebraska, USA

Zipper, Samuel C.; Smith, Kelly Helm; Breyer, Betsy; Qiu, Jiangxiao; Kung, Anthony; Herrmann, Dustin L.

doi:10.5751/es-09549-220439

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Groundwater is widely used for irrigation around the world and groundwater pumping can be a major driver to low streamflow, particularly by exacerbating hydrologic drought (de Graaf et al, 2014;Siebert et al, 2010;Veldkamp et al, 2017;Wada et al, 2012Wada et al, , 2013Zipper et al, 2017a). To avoid negative impacts of streamflow depletion on ecosystems and stakeholders, it is essential to both quantify the source of water used by wells and put that knowledge into the hands of management decision-makers (Gleeson et al, 2012;Irvine, 2018;Van Loon et al, 2016).…”

Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater Pumping Impacts on Real Stream Networks: Testing the Performance of Simple Management Tools

Zipper

Dallemagne

Gleeson

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

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Quantifying reductions in streamflow due to groundwater pumping (“streamflow depletion”) is essential for conjunctive management of groundwater and surface water resources. Analytical models are widely used to estimate streamflow depletion but include potentially problematic assumptions such as simplified stream‐aquifer geometry and rely on largely untested depletion apportionment equations to distribute depletion from a well among different stream reaches. Here, we use archetypal numerical models to evaluate the sensitivity of five depletion apportionment equations to stream networks with varying drainage densities, topographic relief, and groundwater recharge rates; and statistically evaluate the sources of error for each equation. We introduce a new depletion apportionment equation called web squared which considers stream network geometry, and find that it performs the best under most conditions tested. For all depletion apportionment equations, performance decreases with increases in drainage density, relief, or recharge rates, and all equations struggle to estimate depletion in short stream reaches. Poorly performing apportionment equations tend to underestimate streamflow depletion relative to numerical model results, leading to a negative bias and underpredicted variability, while error in the best performing apportionment equations tends to be due to imperfect correlation. From a management perspective, apportionment equations with error due to bias and variability are preferable as they correctly identify which reaches will be affected and can be statistically corrected. Overall, these results indicate that the web squared method introduced here, which explicitly considers stream geometry, performs the best over a range of real‐world conditions, and will be most accurate in flatter and drier environments.

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Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater Pumping Impacts on Real Stream Networks: Testing the Performance of Simple Management Tools

Zipper

Dallemagne

Gleeson

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

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“…Recent scientific studies on the PRB, which encompasses the CPNRD, were Birgé et al [19], Nemec et al [21], and Zipper et al [22]. Our version of process-tracing is minimalist and theory-building (i.e., inductive).…”

Section: Process-tracingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also identified four external factors associated with the historical and geographical context of the CPNRD FEWES nexus and identified the process each external factor was most closely associated with (Table 3). Drought is a relatively common form of natural disturbance in the CPNRD and surrounding Great Plains; however, it stresses availability of groundwater and surface water for crop irrigation and human consumption [22]. Conservation incentives-such as payments for converting erodible cropland soils to perennial grassland under the Conservation Reserve Program-drive land use change decisions and affect the quality and quantity of habitat for grassland-dependent species.…”

Section: Cpnrd Fewes Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A rain shadow effect from the Rocky Mountains creates a west-to-east precipitation gradient across the CPNRD and surrounding PRB. In much of the CPRND, water availability is a limiting factor for crop productivity; therefore, groundwater irrigation is common [22]. Prevalent irrigation methods include gravity (i.e., furrow), center-pivots, and drip irrigation systems.…”

Section: Focal Fewes Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to directionally connecting various causes, mechanisms, and outcomes associated with processes in each of the four FEWES components, we explored the influences of several external (i.e., context) variables. Information for diagram construction was drawn from Birgé et al [19], Nemec et al [21], and Zipper et al [22], as well as our baseline understanding of the CPNRD. Following construction of the causal loop diagram, we visually inspected it for social-ecological feedbacks and labeled each feedback as positive or negative.…”

Section: Causal Loop Diagrammingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Framework for Tracing Social–Ecological Trajectories and Traps in Intensive Agricultural Landscapes

et al. 2018

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Charting trajectories toward sustainable agricultural development is an important goal at the food-energy-water-ecosystem services (FEWES) nexus of agricultural landscapes. Social-ecological adaptation and transformation are two broad strategies for adjusting and resetting the trajectories of productive FEWES nexuses toward sustainable futures. In some cases, financial incentives, technological innovations, and/or subsidies associated with the short-term optimization of a small number of resources create and strengthen unsustainable feedbacks between social and ecological entities at the FEWES nexus. These feedbacks form the basis of rigidity traps, which impede adaptation and transformation by locking FEWES nexuses into unsustainable trajectories characterized by control, stability, and efficiency, but also an inability to adapt to disturbances or changing conditions. To escape and avoid rigidity traps and enable sustainability-focused adaptation and transformation, a foundational understanding of FEWES nexuses and their unique trajectories and traps is required. We present a framework for tracing trajectories and traps at the FEWES nexuses of intensive agricultural landscapes. Framework implementation in a case study reveals feedbacks characteristic of rigidity traps, as well as opportunities for modifying and dissolving them. Such place-based understanding could inform sustainable agricultural development at the FEWES nexus of intensive agricultural landscapes worldwide.

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Sociohydrological Impacts of Water Conservation Under Anthropogenic Drought in Austin, TX (USA)

Breyer

Zipper

Qiu

2018

Water Resources Research

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Municipal water providers increasingly respond to drought by implementing outdoor water use restrictions to reduce urban water withdrawals and maintain water availability. However, restricting urban outdoor water use to support watershed‐scale drought resilience may generate unanticipated cross‐scale interactions, for example, by altering drought response and recovery in urban vegetation or urban streamflow. Despite this, urban water conservation is rarely conceptualized or modeled as endogenous to the water cycle. Here we investigate cross‐scale interactions among urban water conservation and water availability, water use, and sociohydrological response in Austin, TX (USA) during a recent anthropogenic (human‐influenced) drought. Multiscalar statistical analyses demonstrated that outdoor water conservation for reservoir management at the municipal scale produced responses that can cascade both “upward” from the city to the watershed (e.g., decoupling streamflow patterns upstream and downstream of Austin at the watershed scale) and “downward” to exert heterogeneous effects within the city (e.g., redistributing water along a socioeconomic gradient at submunicipal scales, with effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems). We suggest that adapting to anthropogenic drought through irrigation curtailment requires sustained engagement between hydrology and social sciences to integrate socioeconomic status and political feedbacks within and among irrigator groups into the water cycle. Findings from this cross‐disciplinary study highlight the importance of a multiscalar and spatially explicit perspectives in urban sociohydrology research to uncover how water conservation as adaptation to anthropogenic drought links hydrological processes with issues of socioeconomic inequality and spatiotemporal scale in the Anthropocene.

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Socio-environmental drought response in a mixed urban-agricultural setting: synthesizing biophysical and governance responses in the Platte River Watershed, Nebraska, USA

Cited by 16 publications

References 64 publications

Groundwater Pumping Impacts on Real Stream Networks: Testing the Performance of Simple Management Tools

Groundwater Pumping Impacts on Real Stream Networks: Testing the Performance of Simple Management Tools

A Framework for Tracing Social–Ecological Trajectories and Traps in Intensive Agricultural Landscapes

Sociohydrological Impacts of Water Conservation Under Anthropogenic Drought in Austin, TX (USA)

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