Interactions of Drought and Climate Adaptation (IDCA) for Urban Water

Interactions Between Short-Term Drought Responses and Long-Term Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

Lisa Dilling, Bobbie Klein, Bill Travis

This new project, which was recently funded by the NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP), will examine how drought policies interact with both short-term drought and long-term climate change. It will ask whether adjustment today or in the past lead to more resilient systems across climate time scales. The project researchers hypothesize that the more effective a policy becomes in terms of increasing water use efficiency, the more reliant the system becomes on accurate information. They will thus also examine how more efficient and/or flexible water use may increase the need for, and value of, weather and climate information and technology. They plan to take a unique interdisciplinary approach to tackling these questions by including investigators from the natural hazards community, the climate adaptation community, experts in the use of climate information, and the water resource and policy community. They will also work in tandem with an Advisory Working Group of stakeholders from the water management and urban adaptation community to ensure that their work is relevant in this rapidly evolving context. The project includes conducting a literature review of the vulnerability and drought management literatures, developing indicators for urban water system vulnerability with respect to climate change, and conducting three in depth case studies of urban water systems to evaluate changing vulnerabilities with specific drought policies.