One of the key challenges in coordinating drought response and planning is the fact that numerous and separate government agencies have diverse responsibilities, authority, and missions related to the management of water resources. Different organizations and stakeholders often possess divergent understandings and knowledge of drought and different ideas about the most appropriate ways to address drought risks and impacts. The drought landscape is characterized by fragmentation and lacks a cohesive policy to support integration and consistency within and between management levels (Chappells and Medd, 2012; Dennis, 2013; Folger et al., 2012, 2013; Grigg, 2014).
Wilhite (2011) has argued that greater institutional capacity is needed to improve drought planning coordination and collaboration across multiple levels of government and other entities affected by drought or responsible for drought management and response in some way. One suggestion is that the river basin, or watershed, scale is an appropriate one at which to focus efforts and one at which the myriad agencies and organizations responsible for drought-related decisions could converge (Dennis, 2013; National Integrated Drought Information System Program Implementation Team, 2007; Schwab, 2013; Wilhite, 2011). There are several imperatives that warrant a basin-focused drought management. Several studies note that increasing vulnerability to drought will occur at watershed and sub-watershed scales, due to the other sources of water stress that affect those scales. These stressors include land use change, development patterns, and increasing water demands due to consumptive use and energy production needs for water (Averyt et al., 2011; Sun et al., 2008). Water users in a river basin are increasingly interconnected and dependent on the activities and requirements of other systems and communities that may appear quite distant geographically, economically, or socially (Whisnant et al., 2008). Impaired hydrological conditions during drought can have important implications for water resources management decisions, particularly those based in river basins. For example, declining streamflows can affect the ability of upstream and downstream water users to access water, reservoirs to refill, and adjacent and connected basins to alleviate water shortages through interbasin transfers (Patterson et al., 2013).
While many water management policies and programs are disconnected from one another, drought planning activities could take advantage of the many water and drought-
related decisions already made at the river basin level in order to address critical issues occurring at that level (Pulwarty and Maia, 2015). For example, the federal government manages many water infrastructure projects, such as reservoirs, dams, locks, and
hydroelectric. Key agencies include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation (Folger et al., 2012, 2013). In addition, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issues licenses and oversees operations for over 1,000 private hydropower projects (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2015). During drought, these projects (and their managing agencies) are expected to balance multiple interests, including water supply (and quality) for municipal and industrial use, agriculture, electricity generation, and protected and endangered species. Planning and management often involves evaluating trade-offs, such as those between upstream and downstream users and those between maintaining adequate reservoir levels and releasing minimum downstream flows (Carter et al., 2008). On the state level, many states have developed comprehensive river basin planning programs or watershed management plans and initiatives. In the Carolinas, watershed-level programs have primarily focused on water quality monitoring and stream and watershed conservation and restoration efforts. More recent efforts are paying attention to other aspects of water resources management, including determination of ecological flows and assessments of water availability and use on the basin scale (North Carolina Division of Water Resources, 2015; South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, 2015; Wachob et al., 2009).
The drought planning literature abounds with calls for coordination, however, specific examples of where and how this capacity has been developed and
programs are organized and conducted at the basin level, including the Upper Colorado and Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basins. Pilot projects focus on developing, and improving, the components of an early warning system. Tools include targeted products and information for regional and local decision makers, in order to improve monitoring and communications, foster partnerships, facilitate more proactive decision making (NIDIS, n.d., 2012; NIDIS Program Implementation Team, 2007; U.S. Drought Portal, 2015). Improving drought monitoring and communications capacity, however, is just one component of the many steps needed to develop more coordinated approaches to drought. Efforts to address fragmentation should also include consideration of the specific institutional arrangements that can enable cooperation and coordination, such as consistent plans and response strategies or processes that encourage or require participatory decision-making (Cook, 2014; Endter-Wada et al., 2009; Schwab, 2013). Studies of the Upper Colorado and ACF Basins demonstrate the importance of the underlying institutional context but also the difficulties inherent in building more collaborative drought institutions.
In the Upper Colorado River Basin any effort to reduce drought risks and vulnerabilities are shaped by the Colorado River Compact and the system of prior
appropriation for allocating water rights, in addition to the generally fragmented nature of water responsibilities in that basin (Kenney et al., 2010). For example, while reservoirs and interbasin transfers have been able to mitigate short-term droughts, modifications to the existing reservoir operating rules were adopted in 2007 to address some the impacts on water resources caused by persistent drought in the western United States (Kenney et al., 2010, 2011; Pulwarty and Maia, 2015). At present, adaptations made in the basin fall
within the existing institutional structures, allowing for some adjustments that improved the implementation of the “Law of the River.” However, questions are emerging
regarding the extent to which the existing water management tools adequately address the complex and interacting set of factors that affect the availability of water in the region, including climate and hydrological variability, physical infrastructure, legal frameworks, growing demands, and different historical, cultural, and economic uses and values of water (Kenney et al., 2010; Pulwarty and Maia, 2015). The recent experiences with drought also demonstrated the limited flexibility of the existing framework, raising concerns about its ability to enable long-term cooperation across the multiple interests in the basin and address major issues such as climate change and the current trajectory of declining supplies and increasing demands (Kenney et al., 2011; Pulwarty and Maia, 2015).
In the ACF Basin droughts have exacerbated a long-standing conflict over water between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. Droughts have also revealed the important role of the institutional context in contributing to drought vulnerabilities and impacts as well as the capacity and willingness to cooperate. Water and drought management issues in the region are contentious, characterized by multiple, often conflicting, interests and increasing demands and competition for water resources. Unlike the very formal, legalistic framework in the Colorado River Basin, there is no overarching plan or policy to govern the management, or distribution, of water across the ACF states. Without such a plan or agreement, there have been few incentives or mandates for collaboration and limited political interest in considering new approaches to addressing the complex issues surrounding development and water use. Meanwhile, as states in the basin remain
embroiled in a lengthy court battle over water issues, many jurisdictions and
organizations continue to conduct water supply planning on an individual basis, placing more pressure on the region’s resources (Missimer et al., 2014; Wong and Bosman, 2014).
As the examples discussed above suggest, institutional change (e.g., new rules, laws, and organizational arrangements) will be necessary to support the adoption and coordination of proactive drought management tools and strategies (Kenney et al., 2011; Wilhite, 2011). While there are plentiful examples where drought contributes to conflict or exposes other water management challenges, there are only a few examples where drought-specific research has examined how change occurs or might be supported in practice, particularly at the watershed or river basin scale. Similar to the Colorado River and ACF cases, these individual studies also demonstrate how drought vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities are a function of many factors, including hydroclimate and
environmental conditions, physical availability of water, and the legal frameworks which regulate water rights and allocations. In addition, these studies also call attention to the role of informal institutions in shaping: water use behaviors, stakeholders’ knowledge and understandings about water resources and the interests of other water users, and the extent to which different stakeholders cooperate in implementing drought response and adaptation measures (Endter-Wada et al., 2009; McNeeley, 2014; Welsh et al., 2013). This project builds on previous work by investigating in more detail the institutional mechanisms, both formal and informal, that are needed to foster greater coordination of drought management efforts. The next section reviews watershed management and environmental governance literature, two areas of research that can provide key insights
regarding the roles and functions of institutions in enabling cooperative and collective behavior.