Abstract
Participatory modeling workshops were held in Sonora, México, with the goal of developing water resources management strategies in a water-stressed basin. A model of the water resources system, consisting of watershed hydrology, water resources infrastructure, and groundwater models, was developed deliberatively in the workshops, along with scenarios of future climate and development. Participants used the final version of the water resources systems model to select management strategies. The performance of the strategies was based on the reliability of meeting current and future demands at a daily time scale over a year’s period. Pre- and post-workshop surveys were developed and administered. The survey questions focused on evaluation of participants’ modeling capacity and the utility and accuracy of the models. The selected water resources strategies and the associated, expected reliability varied widely among participants. Most participants could be clustered into three groups with roughly equal numbers of participants that varied in terms of reliance on expanding infrastructure vs. demand modification; expectations of reliability; and perceptions of social, environmental, and economic impacts. The wide range of strategies chosen and associated reliabilities indicate that there is a substantial degree of uncertainty in how future water resources decisions could be made in the region. The pre- and post-survey results indicate that participants believed their modeling abilities increased and beliefs in the utility of models increased as a result of the workshops.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acharya A, Lamb K, Piechota T (2013) Impacts of climate change on extreme precipitation events over flamingo Tropicana watershed 1. JAWRA J Am Water Resour Assoc 49(2):359–370
Addison P, Rumpff L, Bau S, Carey J, Chee Y, Jarrad F et al (2013) Practical solutions for making models indispensable in conservation decision-making. Divers Distrib 19(5–6):490–502
Agua de Hermosillo (2013) Aguah en números, Agua de Hermosillo, http://www.aguadehermosillo.gob.mx/inicio/organismo/aguah-en-numeros, accessed March 12, 2013
Babbar-Sebens M, Mukhopadhyay S, Singh V, Piemonti A (2015) A web-based software tool for participatory optimization of conservation practices in watersheds. Environ Model Softw 69:111–127
Bousquet F, Tréibul G (2005) Synergies between multi-agent systems and role-playing games in companion modeling for integrated natural resource management in Southeast Asia. In Kachitvichyanukul V, Purintrapiban U, Utayopas P (eds.). Proceedings of the 2005 international conference on simulation and modelling, Bangkok, pp 461-469
Brenna E (2012) Perceptions of water conditions and management in the Sonora River Basin, Sonora, Mexico (Master's Thesis). Michigan Technological University, Houghton
Butler C, Adamowski J (2015) Empowering marginalized communities in water resources management: addressing inequitable practices in participatory model building. J Environ Manag 153:153–162
Cash D, Clark W, Alcock F, Dickson N, Eckley N, Guston D (2003) Knowledge systems for sustainable development. Proc Natl Acad Sci 100(14):8086–8091
Comisión Estatal del Agua de Sonora (CEA) (2005) Estudio geo-hidrogeologico de las sub-cuencas de los Ríos Sonora, Zanjo, San Miguel, Mesa del Seri-La Victoria y cuenca Bacoachi. CEA-ED-081-CA1. Sonora, Comisión Estatal del Agua, p 391
Comisión Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA). (2016) Sistema de Información Geográfica de Acuíferos y Cuencas (SIGACU@) Sigagis.conagua.gob.mx . Retrieved 19 January 2016, from http://sigagis.conagua.gob.mx/aprovechamientos/
Dunnett C (1980) Pairwise multiple comparisons in the unequal variance case. J Am Stat Assoc 75(372):796–800
Ebrahim GY, Jonoski A, van Griensven A, Di Baldassarre G (2013) Downscaling technique uncertainty in assessing hydrological impact of climate change in the upper Beles River basin, Ethiopia. Hydrol Res 44(2):377–398
Gaddis E, Falk H, Ginger C, Voinov A (2010) Effectiveness of a participatory modeling effort to identify and advance community water resource goals in St. Albans, Vermont. Environ Model Softw 25(11):1428–1438
Gray S, Chan A, Clark D, Jordan R (2012) Modeling the integration of stakeholder knowledge in social–ecological decision-making: benefits and limitations to knowledge diversity. Ecol Model 229:88–96
Gurung TR, Bousquet F, Trébuil G (2006) Companion modeling, conflict resolution, and institution building: sharing irrigation water in the Lingmuteychu watershed, Bhutan. Ecol Soc 11(2):36
Howell W (2013) Global Risks 2013. World Economic Forum, Cologny/Geneva, Switzerland
Jones N, Perez P, Measham T, Kelly G, d’Aquino P, Daniell K, Dray A, Ferrand N (2008) Evaluating participatory modeling: developing a framework for cross-case analysis. Environ Manag 44(6):1180
Kummu M, Ward P, de Moel H, Varis O (2010) Is physical water scarcity a new phenomenon? Global assessment of water shortage over the last two millennia. Environ Res Lett 5(3):034006. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/5/3/034006
Langsdale S, Beall A, Bourget E, Hagen E, Kudlas S, Palmer R, Tate D, Werick W (2013) Collaborative modeling for decision support in water resources: principles and best practices. J Am Water Resour Assoc 49(3):629–638
Laniak G, Olchin G, Goodall J, Voinov A, Hill M, Glynn P et al (2013) Integrated environmental modeling: a vision and roadmap for the future. Environ Model Softw 39:3–23
Malve O, Hjerppe T, Tattari S, Väisänen S, Huttunen I, Kotamäki N et al (2016) Participatory operations model for cost-efficient monitoring and modeling of river basins — a systematic approach. Sci Total Environ 540:79–89
Mayer, A.S., Winkler, R., and Fry, L. (2014) Classification of watersheds into integrated social and biophysical indicators with clustering analysis, Ecological Indicators, 45, 340-349
Meenu R, Rehana S, Mujumdar P (2012) Assessment of hydrologic impacts of climate change in Tunga-Bhadra river basin, India with HEC-HMS and SDSM. Hydrol Process 27(11):1572–1589
Ostrom E (2009) Understanding institutional diversity. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Pahl-Wostl C (2007) Transitions towards adaptive management of water facing climate and global change. Water Resour Manag 21(1):49–62
Pahl-Wostl C (2009) A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes. Glob Environ Chang 19(3):354–365
Pahl-Wostl C, Craps M, Dewul A, Mostert E, Tabara D, Taillieu T (2007) Social learning and water resources management. Ecol Soc 12(2):5 URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss2/art5/
Renger M, Kolfschoten G, Vreede G (2008) Challenges in collaborative modelling: a literature review and research agenda. Int J Simul Process Model 4(3/4):248–263
Robles-Morua A, Halvorsen K, Mayer A, Vivoni E (2014) Exploring the application of participatory modeling approaches in the Sonora River basin, Mexico: results of a workshop to assess the usefulness and impacts of models in water-related risk perceptions. J Environ Modeling Software 52:273–282
Robles-Morua A, Che D, Mayer A, Vivoni E (2015) Hydrological assessment of proposed reservoirs in the Sonora River basin, Mexico, under historical and future climate scenarios. Hydrol Sci J 60(1):50–66
Rousseeuw P (1987) Silhouettes: a graphical aid to the interpretation and validation of cluster analysis. J Comput Appl Math 20:53–65
Scholz G, Dewulf A, Pahl-Wostl C (2014) An analytical framework of social learning facilitated by participatory methods. Syst Pract Action Res 27(6):575
van den Belt M (2004) Mediated modeling. Island Press, Washington, DC
Veldkamp T, Wada Y, de Moel H, Kummu M, Eisner S, Aerts J, Ward P (2015) Changing mechanism of global water scarcity events: impacts of socioeconomic changes and inter-annual hydro-climatic variability. Glob Environ Chang 32:18–29
Vivoni E, Rodríguez J, Watts C (2010) On the spatiotemporal variability of soil moisture and evapotranspiration in a mountainous basin within the north American monsoon region. Water Resour Res 46(2). doi:10.1029/2009wr008240
Voinov A, Bousquet F (2010) Modelling with stakeholders. Environ Model Softw 25(11):1268–1281
von Korff Y, Daniell K, Moellenkamp S, Bots P, Bijlsma R (2012) Implementing participatory water management: recent advances in theory, practice, and evaluation. Ecol Soc 17(1). doi:10.5751/es-04733-170130
Vörösmarty C, Pahl-Wostl C, Bunn S, Lawford R (2013) Global water, the anthropocene and the transformation of a science. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 5(6):539–550
Whitten G, Hann M, Robles-Morua A, Mayer AS, Vivoni ER (2014) Enhancing the link between surface and groundwater models for climate change assessment of water supply and demand in Northwest Mexico. In: Ames DP, Quinn NWT, Rizzoli AE (eds) 7th Intl. Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, San Diego, 17 June 2014
Wiek A, Binder C, Scholz R (2006) Functions of scenarios in transition processes. Futures 38(7):740–766
Zorrilla P, Carmona G, De la Hera Á, Varela-Ortega C, Martínez-Santos P, Bromley J, Jorgen Henriksen H (2009) Evaluation of Bayesian networks as a tool for participatory water resources management: application to the upper Guadiana Basin in Spain. Ecol Soc 15(3):12 URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art12/
Acknowledgements
This work has been partially supported by National Science Foundation award CBET 1014818. We acknowledge the excellent facilitation of the workshops by Ana Cristina Pacheco. Finally, we are indebted to the workshop participants for their time and energy.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mayer, A., Vivoni, E.R., Kossak, D. et al. Participatory Modeling Workshops in a Water-Stressed Basin Result in Gains in Modeling Capacity but Reveal Disparity in Water Resources Management Priorities. Water Resour Manage 31, 4731–4744 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1775-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1775-6