This section provides summaries of the remaining chapters of the dissertation. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 present the research findings and explore the issues and questions that emerged during the 2007-2008 drought. Throughout the chapters, the author integrates information obtained through interviews, drought management meetings and conference calls, and document analysis. Where specific information or a quote is attributable to an individual interviewee, the citation indicates the interviewee’s state and/or organizational affiliation to protect the confidentiality of that individual. In addition, these chapters have been written as stand-alone manuscripts and will be prepared for submission for peer-reviewed publication. Chapter 5 provides an overview of the major findings and discusses the policy implications of this research project.
1.3.1 Chapter 2: “Drought Resilience and the Institutional Components of Water and Drought Management Adaptations”
This chapter examines the role of institutions in the selection of drought
changes in the institutional framework are necessary to support different adaptation strategies?”
It is often expected that the measures to secure supplies, establish water conservation programs, and develop tools to monitor and communicate drought
conditions will improve drought resilience and society’s capacity to cope with drought. However, there has been little consideration whether these existing approaches to building drought resilience sufficiently address the full range of current, and future, drought risks. For example, relatively few studies have addressed how broader changes to drought management might be facilitated in practice or assessed the capacities necessary to implement new management approaches (Dovers and Hezri, 2010; Engle, 2012, 2013). To help fill this gap, this chapter uses concepts from resilience literature to examine the process of adapting to drought and improve understanding of the broader system of institutional arrangements, networks, and stakeholder values and beliefs that contribute to drought resilience (Adger et al., 2011; Downes et al., 2013; Nelson, 2011; Welsh, 2014). More specifically, the chapter investigates the following questions:
1. What strategies were adopted by water managers and stakeholders in the Carolinas to improve capacity to cope with drought?
2. What types of changes in the institutional framework enable different types of adaptation strategies used by water managers and other decision makers? 3. How do the implemented strategies and management changes contribute to
1.3.2 Chapter 3: “Drought Planning in the Carolinas: Institutional Interactions and Constraints”
This chapter explores the challenges associated with the implementation of drought response plans and related measures. It investigates the question: “How do institutional interactions affect the implementation and coordination of drought management efforts across the state and local levels?”
The development and implementation of drought plans and programs are an important component of a proactive, risk management approach to this natural hazard. While plans have been adopted by most states and many communities across the country, the extent to which plans have been implemented or coordinate with one another is uncertain. The fragmentation of water resources and drought management responsibilities poses one challenge for the effective coordination of planning across scales and levels. This chapter considers the institutional context dimensions of the drought response process. It examines why the implementation and coordination of drought plans (and related measures) proved difficult, given the substantial efforts to improve the broader capacity to manage drought. It specifically examines the (dis)connections between state and local entities through the following questions:
1. How does the institutional context affect the implementation of local drought response plans?
2. How does the institutional context affect the coordination of state and local drought planning and management measures?
1.3.3 Chapter 4: “Developing Collaborative Drought Institutions: Lessons and Insights from FERC Relicensing and Basin-Level Drought Management”
This chapter assesses how the interplay between formal rules and the more informal components of institutions contributed to basin-specific outcomes in the
Catawba-Wateree and Yadkin-Pee Dee Basins. It examines the question: “What types of institutional change are necessary to facilitate cross-scalar drought management and coordination?”
Droughts typically span wide geographic areas and impacts often extend across political and jurisdictional boundaries, limiting the ability of any one organization, community, or sector to effectively respond to, manage, and mitigate risks associated with large-scale events. Greater coordination across the numerous groups with drought responsibilities and interests is needed to support a more proactive approach to drought response. One suggestion is that drought management efforts should focus on river basins, given the many water management decisions made at that scale. However, there have been few assessments of how river basin coordination might be facilitated. In the Catawba-Wateree and Yadkin-Pee Dee basins, key adaptations entailed the development of basin-level drought response protocols and organizational structures to monitor and communicate drought conditions to stakeholders, efforts that contributed to the expansion of the drought decision making arena. However, while the structures and processes for drought response appear similar on the surface, in practice the activities in the two basins exhibited different levels of engagement and integration. To understand why and how these differences evolved, this study investigates not only the changes to formal
new networks, relationships, and understanding of drought issues in the two basins. This chapter addresses three particular questions:
1. How have formal and informal drought institutions changed in the two study basins?
2. How have institutional changes through the FERC relicensing process contributed to more coordinated and collaborative drought management?
3. How has the interplay between formal rules at different levels of decision making and the more informal components of institutions contributed to basin-specific outcomes in the study basins?
1.3.4 Chapter 5: “Conclusion”
Chapter 5 provides an overview of the major findings of this research project, focusing on how an improved understanding of institutions and the interplay across levels can be used to shape and inform drought adaptations. Several final observations and reflections are reviewed to highlight relevant insights and contributions to climate adaptation research. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research.