Global ETD Search

1	Essays on the Economics of Climate Change, Water, and Agriculture Ji, Xinde 30 August 2018 (has links) In an era of global-scale climate change, agricultural production faces a unique challenge due to its reliance on stochastic natural endowments, including temperature, precipitation, and water availability for irrigation. This dissertation presents a series of essays to examine how agricultural producers react and adapt to challenges presented by climate change and scarce irrigation water allocated through the prior appropriation doctrine. The dissertation approaches the problem from three distinct perspectives: institutional differences, climate and water availability, as well as producers' expectation on future endowments. Chapter 2 presents an institutional perspective, in which I investigate how different water allocation mechanisms within the prior appropriation doctrine result in differences in producers' crop allocation decisions. I find that water users in irrigation districts are able to plant more water-intensive crops than farmers outside irrigation districts. Chapter 3 presents the interaction between nature and human systems, in which I examine how the physiological complementarity of temperature and water availability diffuses from crop yield (at the intensive margin) to crop allocation strategies (at the extensive margin). Using a theoretical model I show that the observed complementarity reflects a combination of two mechanisms: yield impact through physiological complementarity, and adaptation response through shifting crop allocation patterns. Using an empirical model, I find that farmers adapt to changing climate conditions by growing more profitable crop mixes when presented with more growing degree-days (GDD), precipitation and groundwater access. Chapter 4 presents a behavioral perspective, in which I test how producers' expectation formation processes lead to short term over-adjustments to weather and water availability fluctuations. Using a fixed-effect regression on lagged weather and water realizations, I find that agricultural producers engage in a combination of cognitive biases, including the availability heuristic and the reinforcement strategy. Adopting these alternative learning mechanisms causes farmers to significantly over-react to more recent fluctuations in weather and water availability when making ex ante acreage and crop allocation decisions. / Ph. D. / In an era of global-scale climate change, agricultural production faces a unique challenge due to its reliance on variable natural factors, including temperature, precipitation, and water availability for irrigation. This dissertation presents a series of essays to examine how agricultural producers react and adapt to challenges presented by climate change and scarce irrigation water allocated through the prior appropriation doctrine. Chapter 2 presents an institutional perspective, in which I investigate how different water allocation regimes result in differences in producers’ cropping decisions. I find that irrigation districts benefit its users by allowing them to plant more water-intensive crops than farmers outside irrigation districts. Chapter 3 presents a natural science perspective, in which I examine how temperature and water availability jointly affect agricultural production and adaptation. I find that farmers significantly adapt to changing climate conditions by growing more profitable crop mixes when presented with higher temperature, precipitation, and groundwater access. Chapter 4 presents a behavioral perspective, in which I test how agricultural decision making are affected by how producers form expectations over future climate. I find that agricultural producers engage in a combination of cognitive biases when forming expectations, and as a result over-react to more recent fluctuations in weather and water availability when making acreage and crop allocation decisions. Climate Change Water Availability Prior Appropriation Agricultural Adaptation
2	A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Agricultural Adaptation to Water Stress Jason Kelly Hawes (7043078) 13 August 2019 (has links) <p>The future success of agriculture in arid and semi-arid areas globally will be highly dependent on the ability of farmers and agricultural systems to adapt to climate change. Most of these areas, though tremendously productive, suffer from the same limiting resource: water. As that resource becomes more scarce and availability more difficult to predict, water managers and farmers will be forced to implement new, creative solutions to water supply challenges. This anticipated exposure suggests that an improved understanding of agricultural adaptation to water stress in such areas is critical to successful outcomes in these regions under a changing climate. This work focuses specifically on the adaptation strategies employed by farmers, strategies which are determined by farmers’ assessment of their exposure and sensitivity to a stressor as well as their capacity to implement changes. This process of implementing change to limit vulnerability is broadly referred to as adaptation. </p> <p> This project focuses on the Eastern Snake Plain of southeastern Idaho as a case study in agricultural adaptation to increased water stress. The Eastern Snake Plain (ESP) is a diverse and productive agricultural basin in the inter-mountain region of the American West. The region’s primary products are potatoes, sugar beets, barley, and alfalfa, as well as a significant volume of livestock dominated by dairy cattle, and each of these products forms a significant share of the total US market for that crop. More than 74% of this agricultural land is irrigated, inextricably tying both the future of agriculture and the future of the Idaho economy to water in the state. In the mid-2000’s, legislators and water managers from across the plain came together to negotiate a new water rights settlement, now known as the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer Comprehensive Aquifer Management Plan (CAMP). The negotiations came in response to years of litigation involving groundwater and surface water conjunctive management in the region, and the resulting plan was designed to accomplish three goals: stabilize reach gains in the lower Eastern Snake Plain, replenish Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA) levels, and ensure sustainable water resources for agricultural, industrial, and domestic users across the basin. Though the water settlement was not directly caused by climate change, it is likely that water shortages will become more frequent under climate change, and this settlement represents a simulation of just such a shortage.</p> <p>Broadly, this work and the work of collaborators hope to understand adaptation and decision-making of groundwater farmers throughout the Eastern Snake Plain as they adapt to the on-average 12.9% reduction in water availability. This thesis is divided into three primary sections (Chapters 2, 3, and 4). </p> <p>Chapter 2 investigates tradeoffs in adaptation decision making, employing semi-structured interviews to learn more about tradeoffs as a framework for understanding adaptation more broadly. In particular, the work seeks to understand the types of tradeoffs present in ESP adaptation and when and how tradeoffs are implicitly or explicitly acknowledged. Findings indicate that tradeoffs occur both at the individual and regional scale and that shifts in crop patterns and irrigation water sourcing may have important implications for adaptation policy moving forward. </p> <p>Chapter 3 employs a household survey and statistical analysis to investigate the iterative and complex relationships between exposure, adaptive capacity, sensitivity, and vulnerability. As an early attempt to examine these relationships quantitatively in the context of US agriculture and water stress, the works focuses on laying out a clear theoretical and methodological framework for continued exploration of adaptation and vulnerability in this context. Findings indicate that under-theorized components of adaptive capacity like linking capacity and exposure to simultaneous stressors may play important roles in determining farmer vulnerability in the context of policy-induced water scarcity. </p> <p>Chapter 4 is designed to investigate and develop a novel tool for exploratory work in adaptation, examining the feasibility and predictive accuracy of an agent-based model of agricultural adaptation driven by social-psychological decision-making theories and parameterized using both secondary data sources and primary fieldwork. Findings indicate that such models may have the potential to produce well-informed macro-level patterns based on theoretically-informed micro-level inputs. This has important implications for the broader agent-base modeling community, and the work concludes with a call for further collaboration between agent-based modelers and social science theorists. </p> <p>Collectively, this work seeks to inform theory on agricultural adaptation and vulnerability, as well as explore the potential role of theoretically-informed agent-based modeling in investigating such dynamics. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for future exploration of these ideas in the Eastern Snake Plain and throughout the arid American West. </p> Social and Cultural Geography human dimensions of natural resources agricultural adaptation Idaho agent-based modeing mixed-methods
3	Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change: How Risk Influences Decision-Making Araujo, Brandon 01 January 2017 (has links) Climate change is currently threatening the livelihoods of farmers in developing countries. Psychological models have been developed to identify factors associated with adapting to climate change; however, little work has investigated the role of farmers’ risk attitudes in these models. We assessed perceptions of adaptation cost and adaptation intentions for five drought- specific adaptive behaviors among 550 farmers from 12 villages in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, as well as their attitudes toward risk. Results suggest that perceived adaptation cost and risk attitude are negatively associated with adaptation intentions. The conditional effect of adaptation cost on adaptation intention as a function of risk attitude was also investigated. Results showed that only farmers with risk averse attitudes were impacted by their perceptions of adaptation costs. These findings have implications for those interested in increasing adaptive practices of farmers in developing countries who face increasingly scarce water supplies. Thesis University of North Florida UNF climate change agricultural adaptation risk drought protection motivation theory decision-making Social Psychology Sustainability Water Resource Management
4	Assessing foresight to advance management of complex global problems Berze, Ottilia E. 15 April 2019 (has links) Many people do not like thinking about the future. If they do, over 50% of Canadians think “our way of life” (p. 7) will end within 100 years and over 80% of Canadians think “we need to change our worldview and way of life if we are to create a better future for the world” (Randle & Eckersley, 2015, p. 9). There is a good reason for this. Alarms have sounded over global urgent complex problems with potential for catastrophic consequences such as the development of artificial intelligence, climate change, mass extinction, nuclear war and pandemics (Marien & Halal, 2011). Society is also increasingly fragmenting as imminent crises build on lack of understanding, the sense of incapacity to act, fear, distrust, blame and a lack of hope. This struggle for humanity’s survival is complicated by the turbulent global environment in which institutions continue to follow path-dependent trajectories set forth in a different time and context. Governments at various levels face a problem of “fit” between current structures and processes, that have not progressed sufficiently to meet changing needs of a global society mired in complexity and governance challenges. However, hope exists. Incremental progress on many fronts and a massive amount of efforts and resources are being engaged worldwide. There are emerging fields, lenses and tools that can potentially alleviate complex problems and address this emergency. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and assess dialogue-based foresight practices being applied towards complex problems in Canada to provide insights into how these practices can assist society to alleviate global urgent complex problems and their impacts, within this backdrop of looming crises. Foresight, alternatively known as future studies or scenario-building, is a forward-looking practice recognized and used globally with over 100 research organizations focused on foresight, widespread usage by firms and over 18 countries involved in foresight activities (Berze, 2014b). Overall literature findings suggest foresight is widely and at least incrementally effective with a number of impacts in various areas (Calof, Miller, & Jackson, 2012; March, Therond, & Leenhardt, 2012; Meissner, Gokhberg, & Sokolov, 2013) but the extent of this effectiveness, the mechanisms involved, and the specific foresight benefits per type of project needs further research and evidence. For instance, limited literature exists on whether foresight can transform complex situations and if so, under what conditions. Thus, opportunities exist for assessing and increasing foresight’s impact. This dissertation is a contextualized, systematic empirical study that taps into transdisciplinary literature and practice, case studies of how foresight has been used to address specific types of complex problems in Canada, as well as surveys and interviews with foresight experts and participants. This dissertation uses a foresight community scan and a comparative case study approach to provide practical and theoretical benefits to foresight and complex problem area stakeholders. The research focuses on studying the broad interactions of foresight and identifying the impacts of dialogue-based foresight projects on people and the outcomes of complex problems. The dissertation concludes that dialogue-based foresight is a valuable and unique practice for ameliorating complex problems and their consequences. Insights are offered towards dialogue-based foresight’s potential contributions within the context of other efforts directed at humanity’s struggle for survival and global complex problems. These insights can then foster the further development and application of dialogue-based foresight on a global scale to alleviate complex problems and their effects. The dissertation outlines recommendations on key next steps to realize these potential contributions. / Graduate foresight dialogue-based complex global problems empirical transdisciplinary crisis comparative cases comparative case study hope practice community Canada projects impact value futures scenario future role wicked problems transformative complexity interviews urgent lens mechanisms assessment well-being strengthening improving concepts types foresight benefits contribution analysis tools approaches mainstream barriers Fore-CAN Georgia Basin Global Energy Landscape Agricultural Adaptation Canadian Payment System 2020 Media Futures systems digital climate change infectious diseases sustainability coping transitioning recommendations multi-perspective dialogue conflict resolution collaboration diversity outcomes invest context contributions efforts innovation cognitive social understanding foresight literacy anticipation futures literacy

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