Floods are the natural hazards that are causing the most deaths worldwide. Flood early warning systems are one of the most cost-efficient methods to reduce death rates, triggering decisions about the evacuation of exposed population. Although previous studies have investigated the effect of human behaviours on evacuation processes, studies analysing a combination of behaviours, flood onset and warning timing are limited. Our objective is to explore how changes on the aforementioned factors can affect casualties. This is done within a modelling framework that includes an agent-based model, a hydraulic model, and a traffic model, which is implemented for the case study of Orvieto (Italy). The results show that the number of casualties is most impacted by people's behaviour. Besides, we found that a delay of 30 min in releasing the warning can boost the number of casualties up to six times. These results may help managers to propose effective emergency plans.
In complex, polycentric environmental governance systems, actors may choose to collaborate with one another to reduce their collective vulnerability and enhance system function. However, collaboration can be costly, and little evidence exists for how particular collaborative forums impact the broader governance system in which they are embedded. To address this gap, we investigate the role of intermediate collaborative forums, which support collaboration among a subset of system actors, in polycentric governance systems. Empirically, we analyze the structural and functional role of an intermediate collaborative forum called the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association (AMWUA) within the municipal surface water governance network for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (PMA) in Arizona, United States. To do this, we draw from 21 interviews with water professionals in the PMA, which we analyze through a combination of network analysis and qualitative coding. We find that AMWUA facilitates strong bonding capacities among members, allowing for streamlined bridging to the rest of the network that enhances information processing and advocacy of member needs. Our findings advance theory on the role of collaboration in polycentric systems and inform the design of collaborative institutions to improve environmental governance.
<p>Finding which factors control the spatial variability of surface runoff is fundamental for assessing regional surface water availability. These controlling factors drive the water balance and vary from physio-climatic catchment attributes to anthropogenic activities. A few studies evaluated these factors in the Contiguous United States on catchments with non-human influence (Abatzoglou & Ficklin, 2017). Yet, a comprehensive analysis of the human influence on surface water availability is still missing.</p> <p>Here, we employed a parametric Budyko-based framework to assess the long-term runoff sensitivity in the last 30 years of 502 catchments in the Contiguous United States. We linked the Budyko-based framework's landscape parameter with an extensive set of 50 climatic, topographic, anthropogenic, and soil factors that were previously found influential on partitioning precipitation into evapotranspiration and runoff. The catchments belong to the GAGES-II database (Falcone, 2010) and have been grouped in reference and human-impacted basins (urban and agricultural) using the most updated land cover data of 2019. A stepwise multiple linear regression model is developed to find the most significant factors in the partitioning depending on the most extensive human activity on the basin and assess their interactions. Also, we analyzed how anthropogenic activities (e.g., irrigated agriculture, urban settlements) alter the effect of climate variables.</p> <p>Preliminary results suggest that cultivated land is the second most important factor in explaining runoff variability in agricultural basins, and urban settlements increase the runoff in catchments with a high interannual variability of precipitation.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p>Abatzoglou, J. T., & Ficklin, D. L. (2017). Climatic and physiographic controls of spatial variability in surface water balance over the contiguous United States using the Budyko relationship. Water Resources Research, 53(9), 7630&#8211;7643. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR020843</p> <p>Falcone, J. A., Carlisle, D. M., Wolock, D. M., & Meador, M. R. (2010). GAGES: A stream gage database for evaluating natural and altered flow conditions in the conterminous United States. Ecology, 91(2), 621&#8211;621. https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0889.1</p>
Designing urban water systems to respond to the accelerating and unpredictable changes of the Anthropocene will require changes not only to built infrastructure and operating rules, but also to the governance arrangements responsible for investing in them. Yet, inclusion of this political-economic feedback in dynamic models of infrastructure systems and socio-hydrology has significantly lagged behind operational feedback concerns. We address this gap through a dynamical systems application of the Coupled Infrastructure Systems (CIS) Framework, which provides the conceptual building blocks for analyzing social-ecological systems through various classes of infrastructure and the flows of material and information among them. In the model, political-economic feedback involves three decisions - infrastructure investment, rate-setting, and short-term demand curtailment - and each decision is constrained by institutional friction, the aggregation of decision and transaction costs associated with taking action. We apply the model to three cities in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area to compare how institutional friction interacts with a city’s water resource portfolio and financial position to determine its sensitivity to reductions in Colorado River water availability. We find that the slowing effect of institutional friction on investment and rate-setting decisions can increase the sensitivity of a city’s supply, but it can also promote objectives that compete with over-response (e.g., rate burden). The effect is dependent on the initial operating capacity of the CIS and flexibility within the institutions, highlighting the need to consider political-economic and operational feedback together when evaluating infrastructure systems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.