This is a presentation that I made on research to understand urban drought reslience

1. Research to understand
resilience of cities to drought:
three hypotheses
Lawrence Alan Baker
Ecological Engineering Group
Dept. Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering
University of Minnesota
USA
Presented at the European Society for Ecological
Economics, June 14, 2011

2. Goals
• The problem of urban drought
• Drought as a socio-ecological (SE)
phenomenon
• Resilience to SE drought
• Several research hypotheses

3. 70
60
Rural
% of population
50
40
Urban
30
20
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030
Year
An urbanizing world:
nearly 5 billion urban dwellers by 2030

4. Unorganized area in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

5. Global drought impacts, 1970-2007
Source: Kallis (2008)
Africa Asia South & North. Europe
central America
America
Disasters 222 226 87 12 36
Millions 310 1,493 61 0.03 14
affected
Cost, 6 30 9 6500 20
million
U.S. $
Deaths 672,647 5,381 0 2 60

6. Projected Drought Pattern (Dai, 2011)

7. Swimming Liters per 1000
pool capita/day
Turf irrigation
250
2nd flush toilet
Washing machine
Flush toilet
100
Water for production
Bathing & laundry 50
Drinking water 3
Maslow’s Triangle for Water Use

8. Drought as a Socio-Ecological Phenomenon
Meterological drought – defined as deficit of rainfall over
some period of time
Hydrological drought – defined on the basis of water
supply (including groundwater and reservoir storage,
relative to demand
Socio-ecological (SE) drought – defined based on the
impact of depleted water availability on the social,
economic, and ecological environment of human
ecosystems.
Overarching hypothesis: The long-term impact of drought
depends on the socio-ecological resilience of cities.

9. Period
Before of After Drought
Drought Drought
Impact
Robust &
resilient
Not robust,
but
resilient
Neither Robust but
robust nor not resilient
resilient
Time
Resilience and Robustness in Response to Drought

10. Factors affecting drought resilience
• Antecedent environmental conditions
• Physical infrastructure
• Water governance

11. Antecedent
environmental conditions
1. Urban groundwater
depletion
Not just in arid lands
Map of groundwater isopleths in
Chicago, Illinois, North-central U.S.
Chicago
Annual average T = 10 oC
Annual average P = 86 cm
Groundwater depletion = 260 m

12. Antecedent environmental conditions:
2. Groundwater contamination
Causes:
1. Urbanization of agricultural land
2. Leaky sewers
3. Septic systems and latrines (esp.
Africa)
4. Animal waste
Nitrate concentrations 5. Landfills
in Phoenix, Arizona (USA)
Source: Wakida and Lerner (2005)

13. Smoldering landfill in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

14. Multiple reservoirs on
two rivers
Imported water
from Colorado
River
Phoenix
Large
groundwater basin
Physical infrastructure for resilience: the water
infrastructure: Phoenix, Arizona (USA)

15. Importation of
Colorado River water
via the Central
Arizona-Phoenix
Project
Total cost: $4 billion
Capacity: 2.5 109 m3 per year

16. Agricultural buffer

17. Water governance
1. Levels of water governance
2. Water law (quantity)
3. Capacity to provide feedback
4. Capacity to respond

18. International river basins:
263 worldwide

19. Water governance example:
Arizona’s “Active Management Areas”
• Includes the entire urban region (about 7
cities + agricultural belt)
• Focus on groundwater management
• Solid legal mandate

20. Informal governance

21. Water law:
Who gets to use the water?
Characteristics:
• Rarely embedded in national constitutions (South
Africa, Kenya)
• Generally fragmented among levels of governance
• Often based on common law, formed over time by
judicial decisions
• Rules of groundwater and surface water are
usually different
• Generally does not recognize economic value
• International legal framework weak
• Treaties are highly variable

22. Projected per capita water shortages in the Phoenix
region driven by “first in right” appropriation
(Source: Bolin et al., 2010. Local Environ. 15: 261–279)

23. Feedback for drought resilience
1. Ability to acquire hydrologic information – status
of groundwater, stream monitoring, water
deliveries, etc.
2. Transparency – data available
3. Accessibility of information for appropriate levels
of governance
- “3-click rule”, no specialized software,
appropriate technical level

24. Feedback:
- transparent
- accessible
- timely
ASU’s Decision Theater

25. Capacity to respond:
1. Redundant water supplies (inter-basin transfers,
surface + groundwater supplies, rainwater
harvesting, etc.)
2. Intact water delivery system – low leakage losses
3. Agricultural buffer – system to acquire
agricultural water during severe droughts
4. Water reuse infrastructure (irrigation)
5. Equitable water quantity law
6. Ability to enforce water conservation

26. Research Agenda
General hypothesis: We can predict resilience of a city to
drought of given severity based on antecedent physical
conditions, the extent of environmental feedback, and the
capacity to adapt.
Value: Practical- Ability to increase resilience (reduce
vulnerability) to droughts. Theoretical – opportunity to
develop transdisciplinary theory of human ecosystems
Highly interdisciplinary – engineering, hydrology, political
science, sociology, geography
Site-based – one or more major cities on several continents
Duration: 5-10 years

27. Economists
Lawyers
Sociologists
The City
Environmental
engineers
Hydrologists Planners
Interdisciplinary approach