Abstract
In the Eastern Snake Plain of Idaho, increasing rates of groundwater extraction for irrigation have corresponded with the adoption of more efficient irrigation technologies; higher use and lower incidental recharge have led to increasing groundwater scarcity. This paper assesses farmer vulnerability to a water resource policy that responds to that scarcity by reducing availability of groundwater for irrigation by 4–20%. Using results from a household survey of impacted farmers, we examine vulnerability in two stages, contributing to theorization of farmer vulnerability in a changing climate as well as producing important regional policy insights. The first stage, multimodel selection and inference, analyzes the primary predictors of two forms of vulnerability to groundwater scarcity among this population of farmers. The second stage, a segmentation analysis, highlights policy-relevant variation in adaptive capacity and in vulnerability predictors across the population. Individual-level results indicate that key indicators of vulnerability include several dimensions of adaptive capacity and sensitivity. At the population level, we find that reductions in sensitivity may play an important role in reducing farmer vulnerability. Accelerating global environmental change will require agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions to adapt to shifts in water availability. As water resources shift, institutional contexts and policy landscapes will shift in parallel, as seen with the reduction in groundwater availability in our case study. These institutional shifts may change the face of adaptation and farmer vulnerability in unexpected ways. Our results indicate that such institutional shifts could lean on efforts to enhance farmer adaptive capacity or reduce farmer sensitivity as mechanisms for reducing farmer vulnerability to adaptation policy changes.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of Data and Material
Survey data are available via the University of Idaho Northwest Knowledge Network at https://doi.org/10.7923/3cjg-wy61.
Code Availability
R code for statistical analysis is available upon request.
References
Adger WN (2006) Vulnerability. Glob Environ Change 16:268–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.02.006
Arbuckle JG, Hobbs J, Loy A et al. (2014) Understanding Corn Belt farmer perspectives on climate change to inform engagement strategies for adaptation and mitigation. J Soil Water Conserv 69:505–516.
Basagaña X, Barrera-Gómez J, Benet M et al. (2013) A framework for multiple imputation in cluster analysis. Am J Epidemiol 177:718–725. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kws289
Bennett NJ, Blythe J, Tyler S, Ban NC (2016) Communities and change in the anthropocene: understanding social-ecological vulnerability and planning adaptations to multiple interacting exposures. Regional Environ Change 16:907–926. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0839-5
Berman M, Kofinas G, BurnSilver S (2017) Measuring Community Adaptive Capacity and Transformative Capacity in the Arctic Context. In: Fondahl G, Wilson GN (eds) Northern Sustainabilities: Understanding and Addressing Change in the Circumpolar World. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, p 59–75
Bernard HR, Ryan GW, Wutich A (2016) Analyzing qualitative data: systematic approaches. SAGE, Los Angeles
Birkenholtz T (2012) Network political ecology: method and theory in climate change vulnerability and adaptation research. Prog Hum Geogr 36:295–315. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511421532
Boyd BK, Gove S, Hitt MA (2005) Construct measurement in strategic management research: illusion or reality? Strategic Manag J 26:239–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.444
Burnham M, Ma Z (2017) Climate change adaptation: factors influencing Chinese smallholder farmers’ perceived self-efficacy and adaptation intent. Regional Environ Change 17:171–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0975-6
Burnham M, Ma Z (2016) Linking smallholder farmer climate change adaptation decisions to development. Clim Dev 8:289–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2015.1067180
Burnham M, Ma Z, Endter-Wada J, Bardsley T (2016) Water management decision making in the face of multiple forms of uncertainty and risk. J Am Water Resour Assoc 52:1366–1384. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12459
Burnham M, Ma Z, Zhu D (2015) The human dimensions of water saving irrigation: lessons learned from Chinese smallholder farmers. Agriculture Hum Values 32:347–360. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9565-8
Burnham M, RunningK, du Bray MV, Hawes J, Hillis V, Ma Z, Wardropper C (2019) Impacts of 2015 settlement agreement on Idaho’s farmers [Data set]. EPSCoR MILES Idaho State University. https://doi.org/10.7923/3cjg-wy61
Christman Z, Pearsall H, Schmook B, Mardero S (2015) Diversification and adaptive capacity across scales in an emerging post-frontier landscape of the Usumacinta Valley, Chiapas, Mexico. Int Forestry Rev 17:111–123. https://doi.org/10.1505/146554815814669016
Colquitt JA, Rodell JB (2015) Measuring Justice and Fairness. In: The Oxford Handbook of Justice in the Workplace
Costello AB, Osborne JW (2005) Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation 10:1–9
Crane TA, Delaney A, Tamás PA et al. (2017) A systematic review of local vulnerability to climate change in developing country agriculture. Wiley Interdiscip Rev: Clim Change 8:e464. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.464
Dessai S, Adger WN, Hulme M et al. (2004) Defining and experiencing dangerous climate change. Climatic Change 64:11–25. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000024781.48904.45
Dillman D, Smyth J, Christian L (2014) Mail questionnaires and implementation. Internet, phone, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: The Tailored Design Method 351–395
DiStefano C, Zhu M, Mîndrilǎ D (2009) Understanding and using factor scores: considerations for the applied researcher. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation 14: https://doi.org/10.7275/da8t-4g52
du Bray MV, Burnham M, Running K, Hillis V (2018) Adaptive groundwater governance and the challenges of policy implementation in Idaho’s Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer Region. Water Alternatives 11:533–551
Eakin H, Appendini K (2008) Livelihood change, farming, and managing flood risk in the Lerma Valley, Mexico. Agriculture Hum Values 25:555–566. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-008-9140-2
Eakin H, Bojórquez-Tapia LA (2008) Insights into the composition of household vulnerability from multicriteria decision analysis. Glob Environ Change 18:112–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2007.09.001
Eakin H, Luers AL (2006) Assessing the vulnerability of social-environmental systems. Annu Rev Environ Resour 31:365–394. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.30.050504.144352
Eakin H, York A, Aggarwal R et al. (2016) Cognitive and institutional influences on farmers’ adaptive capacity: insights into barriers and opportunities for transformative change in central Arizona. Regional Environ Change 16:801–814. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0789-y
Elliott J, Deryngd D, Müllere C et al. (2014) Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:3329–3244. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222474110
Ellis F (1998) Household strategies and rural livelihood diversification. J Dev Stud 35:1–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220389808422553
Engle NL (2011) Adaptive capacity and its assessment. Glob Environ Change 21:647–656. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.019
Frank E, Eakin H, López-Carr D (2011) Social identity, perception and motivation in adaptation to climate risk in the coffee sector of Chiapas, Mexico. Glob Environ Change 21:66–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.11.001
Füssel HM, Klein RJT (2006) Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Climatic Change 75:301–329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-0329-3
Gallopín GC (2006) Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Glob Environ Change 16:293–303.
Gardezi M, Arbuckle JG (2019) Spatially representing vulnerability to extreme rain events using midwestern farmers’ objective and perceived attributes of adaptive capacity. Risk Anal 39:17–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12943
Garrote L (2017) Managing water resources to adapt to climate change: facing uncertainty and scarcity in a changing context. Water Resour Manag 31:2951–2963. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1714-6
Grothmann T, Patt A (2005) Adaptive capacity and human cognition: the process of individual adaptation to climate change. Glob Environ Change 15:199–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2005.01.002
IDWR (2013) Enhanced Snake Plain Aquifer Model Version 2. 1
IDWR (2014a) Final Order Regarding Rangen, Inc,’s Petition for Delivery Call; Curtailing Ground Water Rights Junior to July 13, 1962 (p. 102). Department of Water Resources of the State of Idaho. https://idwr.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/legal/CM-DC-2011-004/CM-DC-2011-004-20140129-Final-Order-re-Rangens-Pet-for-DC-Curtailing-GW-rights-junior-to-19620713.pdf
IDWR (2014b) Order Granting IGWA’s Petition to Stay Curtailment (p. 7). Department of Water Resources of the State of Idaho. https://idwr.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/legal/CM-DC-2011-004/CM-DC-2011-004-20140221-Order-Granting-IGWAs-Petition-to-Stay-Curtailment.pdf
IDWR (2020) Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer volume increases 350,000 acre-feet in 2019–2020 and 2.2 million acre-feet in the last 5 years, according to IDWR hydrologists. Idaho Water Resource Board News Releas 2
Johnson GS, Sullivan WH, Cosgrove DM, Schmidt RD. (1999) Recharge of the Snake River Plain Aquifer: Transitioning from Incidental to Managed. J Am Water Res Assoc 35:123–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb05457.x
Johansson R, Effland A, Coble K (2017) Falling response rates to USDA crop surveys: why it matters. Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jones L, Tanner T (2017) ‘Subjective resilience’: using perceptions to quantify household resilience to climate extremes and disasters. Regional Environ Change 17:229–243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0995-2
Klein RJT, Midgley GF, Preston BL et al. (2014) Adaptation Opportunities, Constraints, and Limits. In: Field CB, Barros VR, Dokken DJ et al., (eds) Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 899–944
Kromm DE, White SE (1991) Reliance on sources of information for water-saving practices by irrigators in the High Plains of the U.S.A. J Rural Stud 7(4):411–421. https://doi.org/10.1016/0743-0167(91)90005-D
Lall R (2016) How multiple imputation makes a difference. Political Anal 24:414–433. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpw020
Lankford B (2013) Resource efficiency complexity and the commons: the paracommons and paradoxes of natural resource losses, wastes and wastages. Routledge
Lawrence PG, Maxwell BD, Rew LJ, Ellis C, Bekkerman A (2018) Vulnerability of dryland agricultural regimes to economic and climatic change. Ecol Soc 23(1):34.
Leichenko RM, O’Brien KL (2008) Environmental Change and Globalization Double Exposures. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Mardero S, Schmook B, Radel C et al. (2015) Smallholders’ adaptations to droughts and climatic variability in southeastern Mexico. Environ Hazards 14:271–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2015.1058741
Marshall NA (2010) Understanding social resilience to climate variability in primary enterprises and industries. Glob Environ Change 20:36–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.10.003
Marshall NA, Stokes CJ, Webb NP et al. (2014) Social vulnerability to climate change in primary producers: a typology approach. Agriculture, Ecosyst Environ 186:86–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2014.01.004
Mase AS, Gramig BM, Prokopy LS (2017) Climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and adaptation behavior among Midwestern U.S. crop farmers. Clim Risk Manag 15:8–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.11.004
Masud-All-Kamal M, Monirul Hassan SM (2018) The link between social capital and disaster recovery: evidence from coastal communities in Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 93:1547–1564. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3367-z
McCarthy JJ, Canziani, Osvaldo F, Leary NA, et al. (2001) Climate Change 2001: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability
Milman A, Warner BP (2016) The interfaces of public and private adaptation: lessons from flooding in the Deerfield River Watershed. Glob Environ Change 36:46–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.11.007
Mortreux C, Barnett J (2017) Adaptive capacity: exploring the research frontier. Wiley Interdiscip Rev: Clim Change 8:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.403
Naylor LA, Brady U, Quinn T et al. (2019) A multiscale analysis of social-ecological system robustness and vulnerability in Cornwall, UK. Regional Environ Change 19:1835–1848. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-019-01530-7
Nelson R, Kokic P, Crimp S et al. (2010) The vulnerability of Australian rural communities to climate variability and change: Part I—Conceptualising and measuring vulnerability. Environ Sci Policy 13:8–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2009.09.006
Niles MT, Lubell M, Haden VR (2013) Perceptions and responses to climate policy risks among California farmers. Glob Environ Change 23:1752–1760. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.005
O’Brien K, Eriksen S, Nygaard LP, Schjolden A (2007) Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses. Clim Policy 7:73–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2007.9685639
Osbahr H, Twyman C, Neil Adger W, Thomas DSG (2008) Effective livelihood adaptation to climate change disturbance: scale dimensions of practice in Mozambique. Geoforum 39:1951–1964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.07.010
Parker L, Bourgoin C, Martinez-Valle A, Läderach P (2019) Vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate change: the development of a pan-tropical Climate Risk Vulnerability Assessment to inform sub-national decision making. PLOS ONE 14(3):e0213641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213641
Petrosillo I, Zaccarelli N, Zurlini G (2010) Multi-scale vulnerability of natural capital in a panarchy of social-ecological landscapes. Ecol Complex 7:359–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2010.01.001
R Core Team (2020) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, https://www.R-project.org/
Revelle W (2018) psych: Procedures for Psychological, Psychometric, and Personality Research
Ritchie LA, Gill DA (2007) Social capital theory as an integrating theoretical framework in technological disaster research. Sociological Spectr 27:103–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/02732170601001037
Roesch-McNally GE, Gordon Arbuckle J, Tyndall JC (2017) What would farmers do? Adaptation intentions under a Corn Belt climate change scenario. Agriculture Hum Values 34:333–346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-016-9719-y
Rubin DB (1987) Multiple imputation for nonresponse in surveys, 1st edn. John Wiley & Sons
Running K, Burnham M, Wardropper C, et al. (2019) Farmer adaptation to reduced groundwater availability. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4ccc
Rust NA, Stankovics P, Jarvis RM et al. (2021) Have farmers had enough of experts? Environ Manag. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01546-y
Safi AS, Smith WJ, Liu Z (2012) Rural Nevada and climate change: vulnerability, beliefs, and risk perception. Risk Anal 32(6):1041–1059.
Schmidt FL, Hunter JE, Urry VW (1976) Statistical power in criterion-related validation studies. J Appl Psychol 61:473–485. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.61.4.473
Smit B, Wandel J (2006) Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Glob Environ Change 16:282–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.03.008
Stedman RC, Connelly NA, Heberlein TA et al. (2019) The end of the (Research) world as we know it? Understanding and coping with declining response rates to mail surveys. Soc Nat Resour 0:1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2019.1587127
Steiner JL, Briske DD, Brown DP et al. (2018) Vulnerability of southern plains agriculture to climate change. Climatic Change 146:201–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1965-5
Stoddard EA, Cantor A (2017) A relational network vulnerability assessment of the North Carolina Hog Industry. Ann Am Assoc Geographers 107:682–699. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1261679
Stuart D, Schewe RL, McDermott M (2012) Responding to climate change: barriers to reflexive modernization in U.S. agriculture. Organ Environ 25:308–327. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026612456536
Takahashi B, Burnham M, Terracina-Hartman C et al. (2016) Climate change perceptions of NY state farmers: the role of risk perceptions and adaptive capacity. Environ Manag 58:946–957. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0742-y
Thu K (2007) The health consequences of industrialized agriculture for farmers in the United States. Hum Organ 57(3):335–341.
Tucker CM, Eakin H, Castellanos EJ (2010) Perceptions of risk and adaptation: coffee producers, market shocks, and extreme weather in Central America and Mexico. Glob Environ Change 20:23–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.07.006
Tucker M, Napier TL (2002) Preferred sources and channels of soil and water conservation information among farmers in three midwestern US watersheds. Agriculture Ecosyst Environ 92(2–3):297–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8809(01)00293-6
Turner BL, Kasperson RE, Matson PA et al. (2003) A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proc Natl Acad Sci 100:8074–8079. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1231335100
USDA NASS (2014a) 2012 Census of Agriculture: Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey
USDA NASS (2014b) Volume 1, Geographic Area Series. Part 12. Idaho State and County Data, Washington, DC
USDA NASS (2016) USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Cropland Data Layer. USDA-NASS, Washington, DC
van Buuren S, Groothuis-Oudshoorn K (2011) {mice}: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R. J Stat Softw 45:1–67
Wang J, Brown DG, Agrawal A (2013) Climate adaptation, local institutions, and rural livelihoods: a comparative study of herder communities in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China. Glob Environ Change 23:1673–1683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.014
Watts MJ, Bohle HG (1993) The space of vulnerability: the causal structure of hunger and famine. Prog Hum Geogr 17:43–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913259301700103
Wolf J, Allice I, Bell T (2013) Values, climate change, and implications for adaptation: Evidence from two communities in Labrador, Canada. Glob Environ Change 23:548–562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.11.007
Wood AM, White IR, Royston P (2008) How should variable selection be performed with multiply imputed data? Stat Med 27:3227–3246. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.3177
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all those farmers and water resource experts who have so graciously contributed their time and attention to this project over the last several years. We would also like to thank the National Science Foundation EPSCoR MILES (Managing Idaho’s Landscapes for Ecosystem Services) Program [award number IIA-1301792] and the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture [award number 2018–69 002–27 963] for contributing funding for this research. The lead author would like to thank the Purdue Climate Change Research Center and the Purdue University Graduate School for contributing to the funding of this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical Approval
Idaho State University IRB #: IRB-FY2017-5074. Title: Adapting to New Water Restrictions in Idaho: a Study of Water Managers and Farmers. Originally Created: September 15, 2016.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hawes, J.K., Burnham, M., du Bray, M.V. et al. Social Vulnerability to Irrigation Water Loss: Assessing the Effects of Water Policy Change on Farmers in Idaho, USA. Environmental Management 69, 543–557 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01586-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01586-4