Arizona Department of Water Resources

This project examines community perceptions and decisions about climate science, economics, and policies associated with resilience strategies that address increasing water scarcity in the Southwest. Strategies to be evaluated include: investments in built infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs and pipelines); incentive-based risk-sharing agreements; and watershed ecosystem services. The project emphasizes how ecosystem services can buffer water impacts of climate change, as well as the potential for climate mitigation as a strategy to enhance water supply security. Project outputs will include a replicable method for co-producing resilient water-related climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, including scientific and economic evaluation. Potential outcomes include improved water supply reliability and cooperation on adapting to shortages for a regional economy that exceeds $3 trillion annually.

In response to prolonged drought conditions and declining storage capacity in Lake Mead, the Bureau of Reclamation called upon Colorado Basin States to develop new drought contingency plans to limit the draw-down of Lake Mead. Arizona’s Drought Contingency Plan calls for significant reductions in surface water supplies delivered to irrigated agriculture in Pinal County. This project considers the effects of these reduced water supplies on: crop production in Pinal county; Arizona dairy production and non-agricultural sectors in the Pinal County economy; and recreational demand around Lakes Mead and Powell. These surface water reductions may reduce the sustainability of agricultural production in Central Arizona.

Local drought impacts information is critical for monthly drought status reports, but the lack of local-level observations limits the state’s ability to assess and mitigate drought effects. Arizona DroughtWatch (AZDW)—an online tool developed to increase and collect impact observation—has not generated sufficient interest by stakeholders. This project evaluated the development of AZDW to determine whether adequate stakeholder in­volvement was included in the process, and evaluate current use to determine whether revisions to the project could increase the use and usefulness of this decision-making tool.

Through the evaluation researchers found several weaknesses in the public-participation reporting-system model including that participation was reduced due to participants’ overcommitment and time constraints, consultation fatigue, and confusion about the value of qualitative impact reports. Based on these findings, professional resource agency personnel should provide the backbone of drought impacts monitoring to ensure that decision makers receive the high-quality, consistent information they require. Public participation in impacts monitoring efforts can also be improved using this model. Professional observers can help attract volunteers who consider access to high-quality data an incentive to visit the Arizona DroughtWatch site and who may be more likely to participate in impacts monitoring if they see examples of how the information is being used by decision-makers.

This project examines the impacts of drought and climate change on climate sensitive sectors in the Southwest, focusing on agriculture, outdoor recreation, and tourism. Drafted a funded grant proposal on Economic Impacts on Drought on Agriculture, Recreational Tourism, and Rural Communities to a combination of NIDIS and the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Persistent drought and climate change affect water and energy costs, and hence choices made by farms, cities and industrial water and energy users, as well as energy and water providers’ operations. This project examines potential climate change and variability adaptation strategies related to water and energy in the Colorado River and Rio Grande Basins, including northwestern Mexico. Researchers are investigating how climate influences the market price of water and developing a menu of water and energy supply reliability tools with guidelines for using these tools.

This project addresses two related research questions. First, how does climate variability and water availability affect recreational visits to national and state parks in the Southwest? Second, what are the economic impacts of weather and environment-induced changes in visitation?

Parks in the study area received more than 35 million visits annually. These visitors spent more than $1.3 billion per year, generating more than 35,000 jobs. Although a small part of the overall Southwest economy, this employment and spending was quite important to local, rural economies. Accurate forecasts of visits to parks, and to tourist sites in general, were of great value to the tourism industry. Tourist services were seen as highly “perishable” goods. For example, a vacant hotel room unused one night cannot be “stored” and used again.

Although national and state park planning documents acknowledge the importance of climate on park visitation patterns, statistical analyses of park visitation have not included climate, water availability, or other environmental variables in their estimation. The project used multivariate regression analysis to examine the contribution of climate and other environmental changes on park visitation, controlling for other factors (such as spatial patterns of economic and population growth). The project used an input-output model to examine how climate and environmental change affect spending, income, and employment in areas around parks.

This project provided insights about drought in the Southwest: its causes, its impacts, and the potential vulnerability of Arizona’s expanding communities. CLIMAS researchers worked in coordination with the Governor’s Drought Task Force (GDTF) to provide basic research and information on drought to help the GDTF with effective drought planning for Arizona. The project:

• Synthesized existing scientific knowledge about past, present, and future climate and hydrology within Arizona to be used in drought assessment;
• Refined knowledge about drought sensitivities and vulnerabilities, and defined mitigation and adaptation strategies for the GDTF drought plan;
• Provided the GDTF with timely value-added hydroclimatological information and educational materials;
• Documented the kinds of research needed to improve the scientific knowledge base for adaptive drought planning and response;
• Linked hydroclimatological information with drought impacts across a variety of biophysical and socioeconomic sectors.