Steven L. Rhodes

WATER ALLOCATION IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: INSTITUTIONS AND ADAPTATION

Global warming may profoundly affect temporal and spatial distributions of surface water availability. While climate modelers cannot yet predict regional hydrologic changes with confidence, it is appropriate to begin examining the likely effects of water allocation institutions on societys adaptability to prospective climate change. Such institutions include basic systems of water law, specific statutes, systems of administration and enforcement, and social norms regarding acceptable water-use practices. Both climate and the changing nature of demands on the resource have affected the development and evolution of water allocation institutions in the United States. Water laws and administrative arrangements, for example, have adapted to changing circumstances, but the process of adaptation can be costly and subject to conflict. Analysis of past and ongoing institutional change is used to identify factors that may have a bearing on the costliness of adaptation to the uncertain impacts of global warming on water availability and water demands. Several elements are identified that should be incorporated in the design of future water policies to reduce the potential for disputes and resource degradation that might otherwise result if climate change alters regional hydrology.

Rethinking desertification: What do we know and what have we learned?

Abstract From its origin as a major development and environment issue following the Sahelian drouht and famine in the early 1970s, desertification become a topic of great interest for the United Nations, governments of developing countries, and research scientists. Recent reviews of the desertification phenomenon, however, call into question the “conventional wisdom” regarding the extent of this environment problem. The “revisionist critique” addresses several concerns about the science, scope, and scale of global desertification. Several lessons are drawn from the emerging reassessment of global desertification.

State-level drought planning in the United States: factors influencing plan development

ABSTRACT Drought is a recurrent feature of the American landscape. Almost without exception, the occurrence of widespread severe drought in the United States has illustrated the low level of drought preparedness that has existed in federal and state governments. Many state governments, however: have developed formal drought contingency plans since 1982. The primary purpose of this article is to explore some factors that may have influenced the drought planning process at the state level in the United States during the past decade. First, an overview of state drought planning is presented, followed by an exploration of the possible policy influence of a specific set of factors in prompting state drought plan development. This will help to demonstrate that the development of state drought plans is not solely contingent on recent drought experiences. The authors suggest that, in some instances, social, political, and institutional influences on state drought planning since the early 1980s may be as important...

Great Lakes toxic sediments and climate change: Implications for environmental remediation☆

Abstract Toxic sediments remediation represents a potentially long-term environmental programme in the Great Lakes Basin. The prospect of declining take levels due to global climate change in coming decades presents challenges to environmental policy makers concerned with choosing appropriate toxics clean-up methods and timing. It is important to integrate the possibility of declining Iake levels into Great Lakes toxic sediments remediation in order to ensure that long-term environmental policy is not in conflict with the potential regional hydrological impacts of climate change.

Rural electrification and irrigation in the U.S. High Plains

Abstract The U.S. governments rural electrification program played a critical role in the development of the agricultural economy of the High Plains, a region characterized by low precipitation, extreme temperatures and recurring drought. Rural electric co-operatives and low-cost, government-supplied electricity made large-scale, groundwater-based irrigation farming both profitable and very productive. For many of the High Plains rural electric co-operatives, groundwater-based irrigation generates a very large share of their total electricity sales and operating revenues. Declining groundwater levels and rising irrigation energy costs, however, have caused significant reductions in total irrigated cropland. Many of the electric co-operatives will continue to be confronted with declining revenues unless electric rates are raised or government subsidies for the rural electrification program increase. This raises serious questions about the continued economic viability of the High Plains rural electrification industry, as well as about the future of the regions agricultural economy.

Global change in microcosm: The case of U.S. water institutions

Water is a resource that already has been affected by some aspects of global change and whose availability in time and place may be substantially further altered by global warming. As human demands and impacts on water resources have increased, institutions governing water use have evolved in response to pressures exerted by competing resource users. The record of such institutional evolution and its implications for the impacts of environmental change on human welfare can provide a glimpse of issues that are likely to arise as other natural resources are increasingly subject to the effects of global environmental transformations. Efforts to manage multiple interdependent water uses present informative analogies to the general problem of managing the many interrelated aspects of global change.

Institutional response to climate change: Water provider organizations in the Denver Metropolitan Region

This study addresses regional adjustments to possible reductions in water availability which may occur with a future climate change. The study assesses potential responses of urban water suppliers to reduced water availability by examining an analogous case of reduced supply in the Denver metropolitan region. In this case the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys veto of a large surface storage project (the Two Forks dam) prompted water providers in metropolitan Denver to take other actions to ensure adequate future water supply. In some cases, actions taken since the veto process began represent a departure from previous water provider policies. It is argued that similar institutional adjustments may occur due to climate change-induced reductions in regional water supplies and that useful lessons may be drawn from an analysis of institutional responses to the Two Forks veto. This paper introduces what is envisioned as a long-term assessment of regional adjustments to reduced future water supplies.

Acid rain and drinking water degradation.

Acid deposition-induced drinking water degradation is discussed with respect to the geographical extent of and the potential for dealing with possibly adverse human health impacts. Qualitative evidence from the northeastern United States and Sweden strongly suggests the existence of a linkage between these two environmental concerns. It is argued that water treatment and reduction of acid rain as solutions to the problem of water toxicity need closer evaluation. More research into the causal link is warranted since the addition of human health impacts to acid rains environmental insults could have a significant bearing on discussions relating to acid rain controls.

Drought Mitigation in the United States: Progress by State Government

Drought has been a recurrent feature of the American landscape in recent years, resulting in significant impacts in many economic sectors, including agriculture, transportation, energy, recreation, and health; it has also had adverse environmental consequences. For example, the economic impacts of the 1976-77 and 1988 droughts have been estimated at nearly

Climate change management strategies: Lessons from a theory of large-scale policy

35 billion and