WAS drought response questions
From Water Wiki
North Carolina's response to the droughts of 2000-02 and 2007-08 provides some insight into the ability of the present water allocation system to respond to scarcity. Here are some questions the water allocation study will use to examine this response:
- How close did water systems in North Carolina come to running out of water in these droughts? How close did rivers come to having all their water withdrawn, thus denying water to instream water uses?
- How much did the Governor's and local politicians' calls for voluntary conservation reduce water usage? Can we quantify these responses, with measures of central tendency and variability? Can we explain the variability?
- More generally, how much reduction in water use was gained by all the techniques actually used in these droughts? How much of these reductions translate into long-term improvements in efficiency? How much did these reductions, short and long-term, create problems for water system revenue?
- How useful, efficient and complete is the system for monitoring and reporting water use and water availability in droughts?
- Did the water supply levels during the droughts raise questions about the safe yield estimates of water systems?
- Did the stream and groundwater levels during the droughts raise questions about the state's models of water supply?
- Did the local and state plans for water shortage response actually help when water was short?
- Were there significant equity issues raised by the various water restrictions imposed by water systems?
- How did conservation rate structures and drought surcharges affect water demand during drought? In general, how did water prices respond to water shortages?
- Was there any evidence for or against the need for more regionally coordinated approaches to drought?
- Are local water utilities overly resistant to declaring drought restrictions in the face of clear indicators of drought?
- Have the increased interconnections between water systems helped improve resilience in the face of drought?
- Does the state's water system as a whole show that it has learned from past droughts and has adapted in ways that will improve its future resilience?
