Technological Spaces in the Semi-Arid High Plains: Examining Well Ownership and Investment in Water-Saving Appliances

Abstract

Groundwater depletion has been a consequential problem in Kansas, a drought-prone state widely reliant on the High Plains aquifer. This manuscript explores well ownership’s moderating effects on the relationships between awareness of water supplies and the use of water-saving devices. It assesses one of the only quantitative datasets of private water well owners used in social scientific research (n = 864) and discusses the intricate results of multi-group structural equation models with respondents organized by their water supplies. Well ownership and water literacy are significantly correlated to owning water-conservation technologies, and well ownership combined with access to municipal water weakens the correlations between awareness and owning water-saving appliances.

Advances in Ecohydrology for Water Resources Optimization in Arid and Semi-arid Areas

“…The collected manuscripts were summarized by grouping them into three main topics to show research advances in specific fields, such as (1) transpiration/evapotranspiration [9,10,13,14], (2) groundwater or deep percolation [8,15,16], and (3) miscellaneous [11,12,17]. The research aims and main results were also summarized.…”

“…This Special Issue collected 10 original contributions focused on ecohydrology. Almost all concerned field investigations took place in arid and semi-arid areas [8][9][10][11][13][14][15][16], although some of them were from more humid environments [12]; only one investigated the optimization of water resource in a controlled laboratory environment [17]. Furthermore, half of them were developed in China [8][9][10][11]14], while the rest were from Kansas, United States [15], Korea [16], Brazil [12] and Mediterranean Europe (Italy and Portugal) [13,17].…”

“…The main goal of this Special Issue (SI) was to present advanced research and applications in ecohydrology, with a focus on water resources' optimization in arid and semi-arid areas. Overall, the contributions gathered in this SI account for the ecohydrology of (i) natural areas, including deserts [8,9], wetlands [10], grasslands-rangelands [11] and forests [12], (ii) cultivated areas, including orchards [13] or arable lands [14], or (iii) without specific focus on the environment-vegetation interaction [15][16][17]. most common contributions were studies on groundwater and transpiration-evapotranspiration.…”

Advances in Ecohydrology for Water Resources Optimization in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas

“…The main goal of this Special Issue (SI) was to present advanced research and applications in ecohydrology, with a focus on water resources' optimization in arid and semi-arid areas. Overall, the contributions gathered in this SI account for the ecohydrology of (i) natural areas, including deserts [8,9], wetlands [10], grasslands-rangelands [11] and forests [12], (ii) cultivated areas, including orchards [13] or arable lands [14], or (iii) without specific focus on the environment-vegetation interaction [15][16][17]. most common contributions were studies on groundwater and transpiration-evapotranspiration.…”

“…Based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals, a paper [15] was included among the Editor's choice articles, namely, investigations deemed of particular interest for readers, or important in their field.…”