Water Institutions and Agricultural Land-Use Change Across the Western U.S.

Ongoing climate change is expected to alter agricultural productivity, water demand, and water available for irrigation worldwide, with serious consequences for semi-arid producing regions. In general, these areas are expected to become hotter and drier, with more variable rainfall and reduced rates of surface water runoff and groundwater recharge. Under these circumstances, institutions governing the allocation of water across users will become increasingly important. It is critical to develop a better understanding of how water allocation institutions facilitate or impede climate change adaptation by agricultural producers. Doing so will aid in developing effective and efficient regional, national, and international policies that address the multifaceted impacts of changing climatic conditions. The key contribution of the proposed research is to examine how water rights institutions in the U.S. Intermountain West influence agricultural decision-making. The supply of water in the region, which is driven by uncertain weather and climate factors, drives agricultural productivity, the value of agricultural land, and producers land-use decisions. Understanding of the economic impacts of climate change on irrigated agriculture has proven elusive to date because water allocation institutions complicate the relationship between climate-driven changes in water availability and producer decision making. Specifically, climate and weather govern the amount and timing of water inflows into a region, but the amount of water available to a producer also depends on the presence of water storage infrastructure and the structure of water rights institutions. Water rights, which govern how water is distributed across users, are complex and exhibit substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity, making it difficult to evaluate how institutions affect producer behavior. This project proposes to examine the impacts of variation in water availability and the structure of water allocation institutions on agricultural land-use decisions in the Snake River Basin. Our empirical analysis exploits heterogeneity in water rights institutions across state borders within the study region to identify the impact of institutional characteristics on agricultural land-use decisions. To conduct the analysis, we will use remote sensing data to identify irrigated and rainfed agricultural lands, integrating that data into an econometric model explaining producer behavior. We will use an established method of combining complementary Landsat and MODIS datasets to generate a panel of land-use observations long enough to capture changes in climate and at a spatial resolution consistent with the individual decision-maker. When combined with existing data on physical and economic variables that influence land-use decisions, the empirical dataset will constitute a unique and powerful combination of socioeconomic and remote sensing data. The proposed project contributes significantly to the body of knowledge concerning the processes driving land-use change. In light of the increasing amount of attention devoted to the effects of climate change, and to the potential negative outcomes associated with land-use change, the results of the proposed study will be highly relevant to policymakers. Broadly, the research has implications for food security, economic livelihoods, and the environment, all of which are concerns of increasing importance given ongoing population growth and pressure on Earth s natural resources. The proposed project thus supports NASA’s Strategic Goals by [advancing] Earth system science to meet the challenges of climate and environmental change and underscores the value of NASA products for use in social science research and as a tool to support informed policy decisions.