Resilience study methodology
From Water Wiki
Focal system:
water allocation in North Carolina 2000-2050.
Important cross-scale interactions:
geographic
Perhaps the most important cross-scale interaction: state and federal laws drive many features of water treatment and delivery systems, but individual and business firm decisions create the demand that also shapes those systems. At larger scales there is the possibility of a southeastern approach to water, as a water rich area, that is globally attractive as global water problems proliferate. What implications for the meso-scale work at state level? Finally, the availability of water regionally and locally is driven by precipitation, storage and geology, and humans have direct influence in this side of the equation only on storage.
list of actors at different scale: water users, water suppliers, cities and counties, river basins, media markets, bordering states, product markets, primarily in North Carolina, a state in the southeastern United States; secondarily in other southeastern states, particularly the bordering states Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as the State of Georgia, which has a similar physiographic setting, which arguably extends up to New Jersey and down to Florida.
temporal
Cross-temporal possibilities arise in the question of who needs water when: document the geographic variability of drought as well as growth patterns, who will need the water in the future?
Temporal scales potentially at issue in study:
precipitation runoff times (flashiness), naturally and as affected by impervious surfaces and stormwater BMPs; annual precipitation patterns and impoundment operational cycles; annual budgets for relevant political and administrative institutions; water supply plans and water resource model horizons; production planning periods for agricultural and other concerned commercial enterprises; speed of droughts and other cataclysmic events; time periods for regulatory permitting of water infrastructure; debt repayment periods for water capital investments; infiltration and recharge times for major aquifers.
Main issues to address:
Important system components:
Social
Socially, fresh water in the focal geography and at the present time has lost many of the natural and communal aspects it has in less urbanized places; it is experienced by most people as something that comes out of taps in private residences, or that is purchased in bottles for drinking, or for some, as a source of recreation on large impoundments. Other than shared recreation experiences, in other words, water is experienced mostly as a private consumption good, or an input to a production process (typically cleaning or irrigating)--in either case, a commodity.
Another important social factor is the sense of place felt by people in the SES. "Sense of place" varies importantly both in strength and in scale. Intense commitment to a small geography (such as a single city, or perhaps a single river basin), coupled with economic drivers that tend to promote competition among those small units (such as lack of revenue sharing) can lead to inefficient competition over water. Cooperation might yield great returns in these situations, which are typical in North Carolina.
Ecological
Water is central to all ecological systems. A key issue for the SES is how, in dry conditions, there is assured water supply for ecological functions, given that humans will go to almost any lengths to take and use water for personal and economic purposes. What amounts, quality, and timing of flows is necessary to sustain the non-human flora and fauna that themselves sustain the entire world? Who assures these flows, and how?
Economic
Water is also central to almost all economic activity. Certain commercial and industrial sectors, such as fishing, agriculture and tourism, patently rely on water, but that dependence relationship is really no different for any manufacturing as well as for energy production, which itself underlies economic activity.
Institutions
There are several important levels of institutions critically involved in the water allocation SES:
- households
- Firms
- Public water suppliers (public sector and private utilities)
- Local governments
- state and federal regulators
Main natural resource uses
Economic
Subsistence
Cultural
Recreational
Conservation
Critical non-marketed goods and services
Important markets
Key stakeholders
(noting economic status and constraints)
Major conflicts and agreements among stakeholders with respect to the main issues
Status of learning and innovation
Governance and property rights
Organizations that manage and control important resources for focal system
Historical profile of the focal system
Literature
Philosophy
"I learned that the key design was to identify large, unattainable goals that can be approached, but not achieved; ones that relate to fundamental values of free speech, freedom, equity, tolerance, and education. And then to add a tough design for the first step, in a way that highlights or creates options to design, later, a second step...the results were steps that rapidly covered more ground than could ever be designed at the start. At the heart, that is adaptive design, where the unknown is great, learning is continual and actions evolve."
