Master of Arts / Geography / John A. Harrington Jr / Kansas watershed projects have been responsible for reducing floodwater damage across the state since the formation of watershed districts, following the Kansas Watershed District Act of 1953. A total of 80 organized watershed districts now take on the responsibilities associated with watershed management and protecting the land uses within them. Today, Kansas watershed districts face challenges in completing nearly half of the 3,000 structures proposed since 1953. Insufficient funding, burdensome policy changes, and a declining interest from local board members and landowners are key challenges boards must overcome in addition to managing rapidly aging infrastructure and dealing with projects that have exceeded their life expectancy. Research methods used for this report include content analysis of general work plans, relevant federal and state policies, and interviews with local stakeholders. In order to understand the economic, political, social and geographic impacts of watershed development, the following issues are addressed: cost-benefit ratios using monetary and non-monetary benefits, differences between federal and state funding in regards to rehabilitation and best management practices, local perceptions of watershed development, and spatial factors that exist among watershed districts. This study found that watershed projects have the potential to provide up to $115 million each year in monetary and flood damage reduction benefits in Kansas protecting over 35,000 miles of transportation routes while providing recreation opportunities and enhancing environmental conservation efforts. Political and social impacts were identified through in-person interviews with 21 local stakeholders that include landowners, board members and state representatives, representing 21 different watershed districts. Perceptions of political and social issues indicate that when government assistance is available, watershed districts are more willing to deal with increased regulations. However, a lack of financial support that has existed in Kansas watershed districts over the last eight years has contributed to a general opposition of increased federal regulations and reluctance to continue building watershed structures. Spatial factors among watershed districts illustrate the spatial and temporal differences in district development, watershed structure construction, and precipitation gradients that influence land use and ecoregions between western and eastern Kansas.

Presently, scientific communities are confronting Earth’s foremost environmental issues using best management practices. However, an increase for need in the synthesis of socio-ecological principles using a multi- and trans-disciplinary approach is required for solutions that benefit both nature and humans. To examine whether a community perceives stormwater runoff as both a local resource and threat to coastal water quality, an online survey of the Ventura River watershed community probed local residents’ understanding of watershed knowledge, beliefs, and behavior with regards to their local environment as it pertained to water resources, especially as affected by human activity. Analysis of 144 participants’ responses and their self-reported water activity, water activity frequency, and perceptions of Ventura River’s discharge and stormwater runoff reveals the community’s behavior regarding exposure to poor water quality in a local coastal environment and, ultimately, the survey participants’ level of geoliteracy concerning their local watershed. A statistical analysis between categorical variables of the survey questions examines relationships between self-reported waterborne illness symptoms and the water activities that participants enjoy regularly and/or perform for work. The survey responses demonstrated common themes in water knowledge that exist throughout this particular coastal community. Additionally, through the use of an optical and historical classification system, the Ventura River’s sediment discharge was examined both remotely and in situ. Multispectral ocean color satellite sensors have been useful in monitoring the water quality of Case 2 waters. Particularly, after severe storm events contaminants can be carried along with storm runoff from urban storm drains and Mediterranean river mouths which then enter coastal and recreationally trafficked water. Earth scientists have observed poor water quality occurring offshore in Case 2 waters near major river mouths and urban areas causing the coastal water column to deteriorate in quality.

An accurate understanding of a population’s risk perception is important, as risk perception can influence attitudes to new policies and recommended health behaviours. There is a lack of research on the possible impact that Swedish news media could have on the Swedish population’s risk perception of natural hazards. This thesis has aimed to investigate the relationship between newspaper coverage and risk perception of natural hazards by quantifying newspaper coverage and comparing it with survey data on perceived likelihood and impact of several hazards (floods, droughts, wildfires, epidemics, and climate change). Direct experience which in this thesis meant direct involvement with a hazard was shown to be the main cause of increased risk perception for floods, droughts and wildfire, while no significant impact of newspaper coverage could be found. Survey data and newspaper coverage did however suggest that there is a significant impact on epidemics risk perception. Risk perception of climate change was found to be the hazard most tied to direct experience, but it was also correlated with newspaper coverage. This means that there is a possibility of newspaper coverage impacting risk perception of climate change. Climate change was also found to be mentioned frequently in connection with the other hazards, this could reinforce the idea that climate change intensifies the other hazards and thus increases risk perception. / En korrekt förståelse för en befolknings riskuppfattning är viktig, eftersom riskuppfattning kan påverka attityder till nya policyer och rekommenderade hälsobeteenden. Det saknas forskning om den möjliga inverkan som svenska nyhetsmedier kan ha på den svenska befolkningens riskuppfattning av naturkatastrofer. Denna uppsats ämnar att undersöka förhållandet mellan tidningstäckning och risk uppfattning av naturkatastrofer genom att kvantifiera mängden artiklar som nämner olika naturkatastrofer och jämföra dem med undersökningsdata om upplevd sannolikhet för inverkan av flera naturkatastrofer (översvämningar, torka, bränder, epidemier och klimatförändringar) ämnar denna uppsats att undersöka förhållandet mellan tidningstäckning och risk uppfattning. Resultaten från den här undersökningen visar att direkta erfarenheter av översvämningar, torka och skogsbränder var den främsta orsaken till ökad riskuppfattning, medan ingen betydande inverkan av tidningsnyheter kunde hittas. Undersökningsdata och tidningstäckning tyder dock på att det finns en betydande inverkan på riskuppfattningen av epidemier. Klimatförändringar visade sig vara den risk som var mest knuten till erfarenhet men, korrelerade också med mängden tidningsnyheter. Detta innebär att det är möjligt för tidningsartiklar att påverka riskuppfattningen av klimatförändringar. Klimatförändringar nämndes också ofta i samband med de andra farorna, vilket kan ha förstärkt idén att klimatförändringar intensifierar de andra naturkatastroferna och därmed ökat riskuppfattningen.

Sustainable agriculture is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The pathways to sustainable agriculture consist of successive decisions for optimization that are often a matter of negotiation as resources are shared at all levels. This work essentially comprises three research projects with novel inter- and transdisciplinary methods to better understand and optimize agricultural water management under water scarcity conditions. In the first project, climate variability in the US Corn Belt was analyzed with a focus on deficit irrigation to find the optimal irrigation strategies for possible future changes. Two optimization methods for deficit irrigation showed positive water savings and yield increases in the predicted water scarcity scenarios. In the second project, a serious board game was developed and game sessions were carried out to simulate the complex decision space of actors in irrigated agriculture under climate and groundwater variability. The aim of the game was to understand how decisions are made by actors by observing the course of the game and linking these results to common behavioral theories implemented in socio-ecological models. In the third project, two frameworks based on innovation theories and agro-social-hydrological networks were developed and tested using agent-based models. In the first framework, centralized and decentralized irrigation management in Kansas US was compared to observe the development of collective action and the innovation diffusion of sustainable irrigation strategies. The second framework analyzed different decision processes to perform a sensitivity analysis of innovation implementation, groundwater abstraction and saline water intrusion in the Al Batinah region in Oman. Both frameworks allowed the evaluation of diverse behavior theories and decision-making parameters to find the optimal irrigation management and the impact of diverse socio-ecological policies. Inter- and Trans-disciplinary simulations of the interactions between human decisions and water systems, like the ones presented in here, improve the understanding of irrigation systems as anthropogenic landscapes in socio-economic and ecological contexts. The joint application of statistical and participatory approaches enables different but complementary perspectives that allow for a multidimensional analysis of irrigation strategies and water resources management.:Contents Declaration of Independent Work i Declaration of Conformity iii List of Publications v Acknowledgments ix Abstract xi Zusammenfassung xiii Contents xv List of Figures xvii List of Tables xix List of Abbreviations xxi 1. Introduction 3 1.1 Complex Networks Approach 3 1.2 Research Objectives 4 1.3 Thesis Outline 5 2. Literature Review 9 2.1 Agro-Hydrological Systems 9 2.1.1 Necessary Disciplinary Convergence 9 2.1.2 Multi-Objective Optimization Approaches 10 2.2 Optimization of Crop-Water Productivity 11 2.2.1 Irrigation Strategies 11 2.3 Sustainable Management of A-S-H Networks 12 2.3.1 Socio-Hydrology 13 2.3.2 Representation of Decision-Making Processes 14 2.3.3 Influence of Social Network 16 2.4 Socio-Hydrological Modeling Approaches 17 2.4.1 Game Theory Approach 17 2.4.2 Agent-Based Modeling 18 2.4.3 Participatory Modeling 20 2.5 Education for Sustainability 21 2.5.1 Experiential Learning 21 2.5.2 Serious Games 22 2.6 Summary of Research Gaps 24 3. Irrigation Optimization in The US Corn Belt 27 3.1 Agriculture in The Corn Belt 27 3.2 Historical and Prospective Climatic Variability 29 3.3 Simulated Irrigation Strategies 29 3.4 Optimal Irrigation Strategies Throughout the Corn Belt 30 3.5 Summary 31 4. Participatory Analysis of A-S-H Dynamics 35 4.1 Decision-Making Processes in A-S-H Networks 36 4.1.1 Collaborative and Participatory Data Collection Approaches 37 4.2 MAHIZ 38 4.2.1 Serious Game Development 38 4.2.2 Implementation of Serious Game Sessions 39 4.4 Evaluation of The Learning Process in Serious Games 40 4.5 Evaluation of Behavior Theories and Social Parameters 42 4.6 Summary 43 5 Robust Evaluation of Decision-Making Processes In A-S-H Networks 47 5.1 Innovation in A-S-H Networks 47 5.1.1 Multilevel Social Networks 48 5.1.2 Theoretical Framework of Developed ABMs 49 5.2 DInKA Model: Irrigation Expansion in Kansas, US 50 5.2.1 Robust Analysis of Innovation Diffusion 53 5.3 SAHIO Implementation: Coastal Agriculture in Oman 54 5.3.1 SAHIO Sensitivity analysis 58 5.4 Summary 60 6 Conclusions and Outlook 63 6.1 Limitations 64 6.2 Outlook 64 Bibliography 69 Appendix A. Implementation Code 79 A.1 DInKA 79 A.2 SAHIO 82 Appendix B. SAHIO’s Decision-Making Process for Each MoHuB Theory 91 Appendix C. SAHIO A-S-H Innovation Results 97 Appendix D. Selected Publications 101 D.1 Evaluation of Hydroclimatic Variability and Prospective Irrigation Strategies in the U.S. Corn Belt. 103 D.2 A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture. 121 D.2.1 MAHIZ Rulebook 140 D.2.2 MAHIZ Feedback Form 156