Elsevier

Journal of Hydrology

Volume 536, May 2016, Pages 284-292
Journal of Hydrology

Culture, climate change and farm-level groundwater management: An Australian case study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.02.032Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Investigates role of cultural factors in irrigators’ perceptions and behaviors.

  • Held values, beliefs, and norms shape climate change risk perceptions.

  • Values, beliefs, and norms influence adoption of adaptive water conservation.

  • Supports VBN framework of environmental decision-making.

  • First application of complete VBN chain to on-farm decision-making.

Summary

Cultural factors – values, beliefs, and norms – provide important insights into the environmental attitudes, risk perceptions, and behaviors of the general population. Little is known, however, about the ostensibly complex relationships linking those elements of culture to climate change risk perceptions, especially in the context of farm level decision in the ground water context. This paper addresses that gap through an analysis of survey data provided by irrigators in the Namoi catchment of Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin. We use Values–Beliefs–Norms theory to construct multivariate models of the relationship between ground water irrigators’ interpretations of climate change risks and their implementation of adaptive water conservation practices. Results indicate that these cultural factors are important explanations of irrigators’ climate change risk perceptions, and these risk perceptions are related to adaptive ground water management strategies at the farm level. The implications of the findings are discussed for research on the culture-environment nexus and for outreach designed to encourage agricultural adaptations to climate change.

Introduction

Agriculture is inextricably linked with climate change (Howden et al., 2007), which is perhaps the grand challenge of the 21st century (UNFCCC, 2009). On the one hand, fluctuations in the timing and duration of precipitation, the occurrence and prevalence of droughts, and changes in average temperatures all affect the ability to cultivate food and fiber. On the other hand, agriculture generates substantial greenhouse gas emissions. The food system is estimated to produce 19–29% of total anthropogenic emissions, of which approximately 80% comes from agricultural production (Vermeulen et al., 2012).

Water is a key nexus linking climate change and agriculture. Water is the foundation upon which agriculture rests, but higher mean temperatures associated with climate change are expected to alter the hydrological cycle, resulting in wider variability in rainfall and temperatures, both of which will affect irrigated and rain fed agriculture systems at local scales throughout the world (FAO, 2011). Ground water is already a critical water source in many countries and also has the potential to buffer fluctuations in surface water availability, including as a result of climate change (Marston et al., 2015). Both surface and ground water resources are over-exploited in most countries (Gleeson et al., 2012) with significant negative impacts on the environment, livelihoods and lifestyles. Researchers and managers accept that a range of policy instruments is needed to effectively address issues related to over-exploitation and the likely impacts of climate change.

Improving the on-farm efficiency of ground water use has the potential to offset reductions in irrigators’ ground water entitlements or allocations as part of the decisions by governments to ensure additional water is available to support environmental values (Ticehurst and Curtis, 2015). Improved ground water management should also be an effective means by which farmers adapt to reduced rainfall and/or increased evapotranspiration as a result of climate change. It is therefore important to understand the factors that influence how irrigators perceive risks from climate change, as these perceptions may be important for understanding the likelihood of adopting different adaptive ground water management strategies (Dunlap, 2010). This paper investigates on-farm decisions to implement a set of adaptive ground water management strategies, both observed (past) and intended (future), in the context of climate change. We draw upon data gathered by Sharp and Curtis (2012), who surveyed ground water irrigators in the Namoi Valley.

Farmers’ decisions about resource use have most often been examined as outcomes of profit maximization (Pannell et al., 2006). From this perspective, farmers are viewed primarily as self-interested, rational actors who attempt to maximize profits. Although undoubtedly important, profit maximization is likely one among many possible factors influencing farmers’ decisions and behaviors, and it may not be the most important one for understanding either the perceptions of risks from climate change or the implementation of adaptive water management strategies. Indeed, like all other humans, farmers are embedded within cultures comprised of held values, beliefs, and norms that prescribe desirable, and undesirable, modes of thought and action (Rogers et al., 2012). Calls to take more seriously the role of culture in the science of environmental decision-making are increasing across a range of disciplines (Caldas et al., 2015, Dietz, 2013, Sivapalan and Blöschl, 2015, Sivapalan et al., 2012). Using Values-Beliefs-Norms (VBN) theory (Dietz et al., 2005, Stern et al., 1999), we empirically assess the explanatory power of these cultural factors, including self-interest as a held value, in environmental decision-making among ground water irrigators in the Namoi Valley, part of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), where climate change is expected to significantly affect water and agriculture.

Section snippets

Water and climate change in the Namoi catchment

The Namoi Valley catchment is located in the MDB, the nation’s food bowl (see Fig. 1). The catchment covers approximately 42,000 square kilometers with a population of approximately 100,000 people. The Namoi River alluvial plains are extensively developed for both grazing and irrigated cropping.

Cotton is the main irrigated crop, accounting for 60% of irrigated area and 76% of water used in the catchment (ABS, 2010). The 2010–11 irrigation season resulted in a $2.5 billion cotton crop (Schliebs,

Farmers’ environmental decision-making and VBN

Environmental decision-making is the process through which individuals in different roles make choices that affect the natural environment (NRC, 2005). Because farmers make decisions about the use of environmental resources, their behaviors can be viewed as outcomes of environmental decision-making. The VBN theoretical framework is perhaps the most prominent model of environmental decision-making (Dietz et al., 2005, Stern et al., 1999). It has been demonstrated to correlate with

Data collection and analytic strategy

Using the New South Wales Office of Water database, a survey was posted in 2011 to all farming properties associated with a groundwater license in the Namoi catchment, with the exception of the Peel Valley, which is managed under a separate water-sharing plan. The survey contributed to a Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre integrated project, a large Australian Government initiative investigating the impacts of climate change and water reform in the Namoi catchment. Of the

Descriptive

Ground water irrigators in the Namoi catchment place importance on environmental values, as the typical landholder rates each of the environmental values items a “4” on a 5-point scale. Indeed, landholders rated environmental values higher, on average, than altruistic or egoistic values. Value sets are complex, however, as the typical landowner also places importance on creating wealth and striving for a financially profitable business, an egoistic value. Indeed, the self-interest value of

Discussion and conclusion

Ground water use is a key part of the challenge of climate change, and farmers’ decisions about ground water use will have important consequences for societies around the world in the 21st century. Our analysis of farmer decision-making in the Namoi catchment has implications for both research and applied outreach amongst irrigators.

Using VBN theory to develop multivariate models of decision-making, we found that cultural factors are important for farmers’ decisions to implement adaptive water

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      Research that applies VBN theory to understand water conservation attitudes among farmers is relatively scant. However, in one such study in Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, climate change beliefs predicted both past and intended adoption of water conservation behaviors among irrigators (Sanderson and Curtis, 2016). To our knowledge, there is no prior research that assesses how the physical water context shapes water conservation norms in a social-psychological framework.

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