Book Description

Enhancing the resilience and sustainability of the environment and human society is a challenge under climate change, rapid population growth, and globalization. Water has been recognized as one of the fundamental resources for all systems to persist. However, perturbations from human activities (e.g., climate change and land use management) and natural uncertainties keep bringing potential threats to water-related systems. This dissertation focuses on the impact of disturbances on behaviors of hydrological and water systems and the evaluation of appropriate management strategies toward the goal of improving system resilience. Chapter One describes the development of a grid-based Soil Moisture Routing hydrology model to provide temporal and spatial hydrological changes under land cover change in the Mica Creek Experimental Watershed in northern Idaho. Snowpack dynamics under different elevation, aspect, land cover, and climate conditions were analyzed at the point and watershed scale to identify hydrologically sensitive areas and to inform optimal harvest pattern at spatial scale. Chapter Two addresses co-management of storage in the Food-Water-Energy Nexus using an aggregated system dynamics (SD) model for evaluation of drought impacts on irrigation reliability within the Yakima River Basin. The SD model allocates available water resources to meet instream target flows, hydropower demands, and irrigation demand, based on system operation rules, irrigation scheduling, and water rights. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) was evaluated as an adaptation method to mitigate historical droughts. Chapter Three projects future climate scenarios in the SD model which includes MAR, greenhouses, crop planting time, and irrigation technology as adaptation methods. The interactions of environmental and social systems simulated the adoption of innovations and dynamic responses of water systems. Greenhouses were the most effective method in the absence of economic and resource constraints in improving irrigation reliability, whereas combining multiple innovations may better overcome the extreme climate at less cost. This dissertation demonstrates behaviors of different types of natural and human systems and provides insights to dynamic behaviors influenced by long-term adaptive management strategies.