Modeling Resilience and Sustainability of Water-Subsidized Systems: An Example from Northwest Costa Rica

Abstract

Water-subsidized systems are growing in number and maintaining the sustainability of such complex systems presents unique challenges. Interbasin water transfer creates new sociohydrological dynamics that come with tradeoffs and potential regime shifts. The Tempisque-Bebedero watershed in Northwest Costa Rica typifies this class of watershed: Transferred water is used for power generation and irrigated agriculture with significant downstream environmental impacts. To improve and clarify our understanding of the effects of social and biophysical factors on the resilience of such systems, a stylized dynamical systems model was developed, using as a guide the situation in the Tempisque-Bebedero watershed. This model was analyzed to understand the nature of socio-hydrologic regimes that exist in this class of basins and what factors determine these regimes. The model analysis revealed five distinct regimes and different regime shift behaviors dependent on environmental and policy conditions. This work offers insights into other complex socio-hydrologic systems with similar processes.

ENSO sentinels in the Americas' humid tropics: We need combined hydrometric and isotopic monitoring for improved El Niño and La Niña impact prediction

“…In Costa Rica, a nation with a vast water capital of c . 2.8 × 10 4 m 3 /person‐year, over 700 water conflicts emerged during the last decade in response to the abrupt inter‐annual climate variability and inefficient water use (Esquivel‐Hernández et al, 2018; Stan et al, 2022; Vazquez & Muneepeerakul, 2013). Roughly 80% of the disputes have occurred due to inadequate water infrastructure or a lack of scientific knowledge ranging from spatial rainfall variability, groundwater recharge processes and tap water distribution (Esquivel‐Hernández et al, 2018).…”

Resilience of a Complex Watershed under Water Variability: A Modeling Study

“…In this system, residents' livelihoods come from either the agricultural sector or an alternative industry (e.g., tourism), local governance infrastructure reacts to extreme environmental conditions (e.g., flooding), all impacting a downstream wetland. Six dynamical variables were chosen accordingly, with three ecohydrologic variables and three social variables, summarized in Table 1 and Figure 1 (see [11] for more details on dynamical variable selection). Water in the river (W) represents the available pool of water for industries and the environment.…”

“…The water governance capacity indicates the ability of the institutional systems to provide assistance to farmers in times of drought (G D ) or flood (G F ). This model was built on a previous model [11] with the major modification being the inclusion of the negative impact of too much water (flooding) and the governance capacity to deal with flooding (G F ). The symbols for unit/dimension are as follows: L for length; T for time; M for mass (e.g., mg of nutrients); N = number of people; $ for monetary unit.…”

“…The dynamical systems model was previously developed based on a Northwest Costa Rican watershed (the Tempisque-Bebedero watershed) [11], resulting in the establishment of clearly defined social-ecological regimes. However, it did not incorporate fluctuations in water availability.…”

“…To investigate system resilience under environmental variability, we incorporated the stochasticity of the incoming water, I M(t). This is a key modification: In the previous deterministic model [11], the incoming water was a constant parameter. For any one value of this parameter, there could be only one model outcome.…”