WaterWired

Paper: 'Planning for Ecological Drought - Integrating Ecosystem Services and Vulnerability Assessment'

I received this paper from Nejem Raheem, whom I knew back at the University of New Mexico. He was interested in water resources and economics and I encouraged him to pursue a PhD in economics instead of getting another Masters degree. He did so, and is now an Associate Professor at Emerson College in Boston. He was one of the authors on a a paper on Defining Ecological Drought for the 21st Century that I posted in July 2017 and the senior author on another paper I posted: A Framework for Assessing Ecosystem Services in Acequia Irrigation Communities of the Upper Rio Grande Watershed. 

Nejem is still working on ecological drought and sent me his most recent paper:

Raheem,N, Cravens A.E.,Cross, M.S., et al. (2019) Planning for Ecological Drought: Integrating Ecosystem Services and Vulnerability Assessment. WIREs Water. e1352. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1352

Download Raheem_ecol_drought

Abstract
As research recognizes the importance of ecological impacts of drought to natural and human communities, drought planning processes need to better incorporate ecological impacts. Drought planning currently recognizes the vulnerability of some ecological impacts from drought (e.g., loss of instream flow affecting fish populations). However, planning often does not identify all the ecological aspects in a landscape that stakeholders value, nor does it examine the extent to which those aspects are vulnerable to drought. One approach for identifying ecological aspects is ecosystem services (ES)—that is, the benefits humans receive from nature. To incorporate ecological impacts into drought planning in the Upper Missouri Headwaters (UMH) region (Montana, USA), we combined ES elicitation using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services and a vulnerability assessment using semi‐structured interviews. We juxtaposed results from the interviews and the ES elicitation to assess which ES might be vulnerable to drought and which impacts from interviews were associated with losses of ES. While both methods suggested common drought vulnerabilities, each method also suggested drought vulnerabilities not reported using the other method. The ES elicitation produced more detail about services present in the UMH ecosystem today while interviews resulted in more discussion about ecological transformation from future droughts. Results suggest that some combination of open‐ended vulnerability assessment methods and ES elicitation using a structured framework can result in greater understanding of ecological drought vulnerability in a given region.

Overlap and exclusion of ES inventory and impacts from vulnerability interviews.

 

Good stuff.....

Enjoy!

 

"From the @ass_deans training manual: Remember it is far safer to do nothing than to take on the status quo and lose. No dean ever loses their job for not being very good, only for offending the wrong people." - @ass_deans

CRS Report: 'Management of the Colorado River - Water Allocations, Drought, and the Federal Role' (updated: 17 May 2019)

Charles V. Stern and Pervaze A. Sheikh have updated (17 May 2019) this very important CRS report, Management of the Colorado River: Water Allocations, Drought, and the Federal Role.

Download CRS_CO_River_Mgmt_Allocations_17May2019

Here is the introductory information.

Introduction
The Colorado River Basin covers more than 246,000 square miles in seven U.S. states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California) and Mexico. Pursuant to federal law, the Bureau of Reclamation (part of the Department of the Interior) manages much of the basin’s water supplies. Colorado River water is used primarily for agricultural irrigation and municipal and industrial (M&I) uses, but it also is important for power production, fish and wildlife, and recreational uses.

In recent years, consumptive uses of Colorado River water have exceeded natural flows. This causes an imbalance in the basin’s available supplies and competing demands. A drought in the basin dating to 2000 has raised the prospect of water delivery curtailments and decreased hydropower production, among other things. In the future, observers expect that increasing demand for supplies, coupled with the effects of climate change, will further increase the strain on the basin’s limited water supplies.

 River Management
The Law of the River is the commonly used shorthand for the multiple laws, court decisions, and other documents governing Colorado River operations. The foundational document of the Law of the River is the Colorado River Compact of 1922. Pursuant to the compact, the basin states established a framework to apportion the water supplies between the Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River, with the dividing line between the two basins at Lee Ferry, AZ (near the Utah border). The Upper and Lower Basins each were allocated 7.5 million acre- feet (MAF) annually under the Colorado River Compact; an additional 1.5 MAF in annual flows was made available to Mexico under a 1944 treaty. Future agreements and court decisions addressed numerous other issues (including intrastate allocations of flows), and subsequent federal legislation provided authority and funding for federal facilities that allowed users to develop their allocations. A Supreme Court ruling also confirmed that Congress designated the Secretary of the Interior as the water master for the Lower Basin, a role in which the federal government manages the delivery of all water below Hoover Dam.

Reclamation and basin stakeholders closely track the status of two large reservoirs—Lake Powell in the Upper Basin and Lake Mead in the Lower Basin—as an indicator of basin storage conditions. Under recent guidelines, dam releases from these facilities are tied to specific water storage levels. For Lake Mead, the first tier of “shortage,” under which Arizona’s and Nevada’s allocations would be decreased, would be triggered if Lake Mead’s January 1 elevation is expected to fall below 1,075 feet above mean sea level. As of early 2019, Reclamation projected that there was a 69% chance of a shortage condition at Lake Mead in 2020; there was also a lesser chance of Lake Powell reaching critically low levels. Improved hydrology in early 2019 may decrease the chances of shortage in the immediate future.

Drought Contingency
Despite previous efforts to alleviate future shortages, the basin’s hydrological outlook has generally worsened in recent years. After several years of negotiations, in early 2019 Reclamation and the basin states transmitted to Congress additional plans to alleviate stress on basin water supplies. These plans, known as the drought contingency plans (DCPs) for the Upper and Lower Basins, were authorized by Congress in April 2019 in the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan Authorization Act (P.L. 116-14). The DCPs among other things obligate Lower Basin states to additional water supply cutbacks at specified storage levels (i.e., cutbacks beyond previous curtailment plans), commit Reclamation to additional water conservation efforts, and coordinate Upper Basin operations to protect Lake Powell storage levels and hydropower generation.

Congressional Role
Congress plays a multifaceted role in federal management of the Colorado River basin. Congress funds and oversees management of basin facilities, including operations and programs to protect and restore endangered species. It has also enacted and continues to consider Indian water rights settlements involving Colorado River waters and development of new water storage facilities in the basin. In addition, Congress has approved funding to mitigate water shortages and conserve basin water supplies and has enacted new authorities to combat drought and its effects on basin water users (i.e., the DCPs and other related efforts).

Enjoy!

“The mind needs books like the sword needs a whetstone.” - Tyrion Lannister (@GameOfThrones, season 1, episode 2)

CRS Report: 'Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Southeastern Africa- Humanitarian and Recovery Response in Brief' (Updated: 10 May 2019)

Nicolas Cook and Rhoda Margesson give us a brief picture of the two cyclones - Idai and Kenneth - that devastated Southeast Africa in this Congressional Research Service (CRS) report: Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Southeastern Africa: Humanitarian and Recovery Response in Brief.

I fear we'll be seeing more of these.

Download CRS_Cyclones_Idai_Kenneth_10May2019

Overview

Cyclone Idai—a large and powerful Category 2 tropical storm—came ashore on March 14, 2019, at Beira, a low-lying port city in central Mozambique, causing widespread devastation in southeastern Africa. A second strong storm, Cyclone Kenneth, came ashore on April 25 just north of the coastal town of Pemba in far northern Mozambique. Cyclone Kenneth featured winds as strong as 140 miles per hour (mph) and was classified as a Category 4 storm. Although Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in Cabo Delgado Province, a northern area where cyclones rarely come ashore, it was reportedly the strongest tropical storm on record ever to hit the country.

Cyclone Idai dumped torrents of rain over large parts of Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar, causing extensive flooding, mudslides, and at least one dam collapse. It also featured strong, sustained, and destructive winds, and caused widespread damage to buildings, infrastructure, and crops. Cyclone Idai’s impact was extensive, covering at least 1,200 square miles; it is among the worst natural disasters to hit the region. The storm displaced large numbers of people, many of whom are now in need of (1) humanitarian assistance, and (2) significant resources for recovery and reconstruction. Post-storm aid responses have been expanding. They have shifted from an initial focus on search and rescue to the provision of emergency food aid, shelter, and health care; efforts to enable access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); and other humanitarian interventions.

Enjoy - then let your members of Congress what you think.

“There are no grey areas when it comes to survival. Now we all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the future living conditions for humankind, or we can continue with our business as usual and fail. That is up to you and me.” - @GretaThunberg

CRS Insight Report: 'The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Reinsurance, and Catastrophe Bonds' Updated 11 April 2019

Just off the press (updated 11 April 2019) this brief (2+ pages) CRS Insight report by Diane P. Horn and Baird Webel is another timely one: The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Reinsurance, and Catastrophe Bonds.

Download CRS_Insight_NFIP_11April2019

Introduction
Insurance generally serves to transfer risk from one entity who does not want to bear that risk to another entity that does. An initial insurance purchase, such as homeowners buying a policy to cover damage to their home, however, is often only the first transfer of that risk. The initial (or primary) insurer may then transfer (or cede) some or all of this risk to another company or investor, such as a reinsurer. Reinsurers may also further transfer (or retrocede) risks to other reinsurers. Such risk transfers are, on the whole, a net cost for primary insurers, just as purchasing insurance is a net cost for homeowners.

The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-89) revised the authority of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to secure reinsurance from “private reinsurance and capital markets.” Risk transfer to the private market could reduce the likelihood of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) borrowing from the Treasury to pay claims. In addition, it could allow the NFIP to recognize some of its flood risk up front through premiums it pays for risk transfers rather than after-the-fact borrowing, and could help the NFIP to reduce the volatility of its losses over time. However, because reinsurers charge premiums to compensate for the assumed risk as well as the reinsurers’ costs and profit margins, the primary benefit of reinsurance is to manage risk, not to reduce the NFIP’s long- term fiscal exposure.

Enjoy!

"You are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights for there is not sufficient water to supply the land" - John Wesley Powell, 1893

Paper: 'Crisis on the High Plains - The Loss of America’s Largest Aquifer – the Ogallala'

It's appropriate to post an article about the Ogallala (aka High Plains) aquifer today. I am in Omaha about to start an AWRA conference (Setting Conditions for the Success of Integrated Water Resources Management) in Nebraska, where the Ogallala is sacred ground to many. It underlies more of Nebraska than any other state and pumps a huge amount of groundwater.

This paper is by Jeremy Frankel from the University of Denver Law School Water Law Review in May 2018: Crisis on the High Plains: The Loss of America’s Largest Aquifer–The Ogallala. You can also find the paper in this issue (Volume 33, Issue 3) of the Renewable Resources Journal.

Introduction
The grain-growing region in the High Plains of America—known as America’s breadbasket—relies entirely on the Ogallala Aquifer. But long term unsustainable use of the aquifer is forcing states in the region to face the prospect of a regional economic disaster. As the High Plains states reach the verge of a major crisis, the states have taken different approaches to conservation with varying results.

The Ogallala Aquifer supports an astounding one-sixth of the world’s grain produce, and it has long been an essential component of American agriculture. The High Plains region—where the aquifer lies—relies on the aquifer for residential and industrial uses, but the aquifer’s water is used primarily for agricultural irrigation. The agricultural demands for Ogallala water in the region are immense, with the aquifer ultimately being responsible for thirty percent of all irrigation in the United States. The Ogallala Aquifer has long been unable to keep up with these agricultural demands, as the aquifer recharges far slower than water is withdrawn.

Aside from the obvious agricultural ramifications from the Ogallala’s depletion, recent studies have shown that groundwater depletion also has a severe effect on freshwater ecosystems in the region. Each state has had to confront the issue in their own way, but the depletion of the aquifer has become severe enough to warrant the attention of the federal government as well. At the state level, the focus has been on maintaining an orderly depletion of the aquifer rather than developing a plan for sustainable use. However, some states have achieved some level of success in slowing down the aquifer’s depletion. Kansas, for example, has recently achieved mild success by adopting a program that put conservation in the hands of the State’s farmers. On the other hand, Nebraska has seen more success than Kansas by being tougher on farmers and exercising its enforcement powers. The federal government has also set up financial and technical assistance for farmers who commit to conservation and is funding large-scale pipeline projects to bring in water to the more desperate areas of the High Plains.

Cutting to the chase...

Conclusion
The Governor of Kansas, after seeing the success of the one and only LEMA group in the state, has recently declared that Kansas has been producing real results towards water conservation and that Kansas’s status as a breadbasket for the nation has been secured. However, it is important to remember to contextualize this success; it is only one group in an area less than one hundred square miles, meaning that the Ogallala is far from saved. And while there is value in allowing farmers to voluntarily take the reins in conserving the Ogallala, it is clear that they are not jumping at the opportunity to do so. The farmers themselves have commented that it is going to take a whole change of culture in the region to see the results that the Kansas legislature envisioned from the LEMA program—an uphill battle that certainly will not happen overnight. Nebraska is at least seeing some more substantial results from their hardline policies, which may be the direction the High Plains states need to take to avoid a major crisis. While the Ogallala may not be able to be completely saved at this point, it is certainly worth preserving for as long as possible, and states should not hold back in using their enforcement powers to do so.

Thanks to Tim Smith for briging this article to my attention. I'll be hearing about this over the next few days.

Enjoy!

"IT indicates they've backed up all our emails into a group of slaved and networked old Commodore 64s. Attached are your instructions for using ELM." - @ass_deans