CNH: Understanding the Consequences of Water-Use Decisions in a Dynamic Environment

This project attempts to understand the feedbacks between bottom-up, emergent social controls, water technologies and hydrological change in urban settings. This is based in the theory of technology induced environmental distancing (TIED), which proposes that when technology is used as a solution, it distances the user from the resource (in this case, water) resulting in acute vulnerabilities. In other words, we believe that although technology is often utilized as an end-point means to “solve” a water problem, it is actually the emergent social controls, those which occur at the level of individual behavior modification, that lead to resilience in the face of hydrological change. Despite the simplicity of this argument as well as historical and contemporary evidence which supports it, we have almost no understanding of how perceptions, values and beliefs drive social controls, nor have we characterized the feedbacks between these social dynamics and those of the hydrological system. However, extensive data sets exist for these systems but have not yet been linked. Using existing data, our research will focus on how values, perceptions, and sentiments are linked to regional hydrological system dynamics as well as how behavior modification may result in cumulative effects at the regional watershed level. We will study different regions within the United States and try to assess the perceptions and sentiments people hold with respect to water and how that translates into actions and consequences that either promote or weaken resilience.