Jess Whitehead - Dissertation 

Dissertation title:

The purpose of my dissertation research is:

• to explore community drinking water system (CWS) managers’ perceptions of their systems' capacities to adapt to hydroclimatic change and variation
• to use this information to work with CWS managers in developing a process for constructing local-scale scenarios of their systems' future adaptive capacity

This process is flexible enough to allow CWS managers to prioritize indicators of adaptive capacity appropriately for their systems.   By using participants’ input to construct a system dynamics-based model of CWS operation, the process imposes enough structure on scenario construction to ensure that managers and researchers build adaptive capacity scenarios in a consistent manner.  In an intensive case study of a small water system in Centre County, Pennsylvania, CWS managers successfully participated in and learned from the adaptive capacity scenario-building. The system’s managers are currently contemplating operational use of the scenario model for building their budget. 

I conducted my research in two phases. First, I identified the factors that influence local CWS’s capacities to adapt to changes in precipitation patterns and in the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts.  Second, I developed the CWS – Future Adaptive Capacity Scenario (CWS-FACS) process based on modified mediated modeling techniques.  The CWS-FACS process guides interactions with CWS managers to identify perceived adaptive capacity indicators, build a system dynamics-based model, and evaluate the plausibility and consistency of adaptive capacity scenarios.  The final dissertation text will include three prepared journal articles ready for immediate submission after my final dissertation defense, to be held at the beginning of the Fall semester, 2008.

Phase I: Identifying CWS climate change adaptive capacity factors

In the summer of 2006, I interviewed CWS officials from nine of the 40 active systems in Centre County that are owned by neighborhood water associations, municipal authorities, private for-profit companies, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Interviewees included managers from large, medium, small, and very small systems.  Using semi-structured interviewing techniques and social network mapping, I identified 19 current factors that influence local CWS operation and may be important to these system’s capacities to adapt to climate change.  I expected some of the factors that emerged; for example, CWS officials feel that the regulatory environment restricts their ability to act in response to stress or to take preventive actions by limiting funding and compliance options.  Other factors important with the smaller systems were a surprise.  In particular, some systems without paid staff are able to offset poor economic resources with excellent social capital by building and maintaining good relationships with volunteers from their customer base.  These interviews served as the foundation for developing the CWS-FACS process.

EXPERTISE AND RESEARCH SKILLS DEVELOPED: Basic drinking water system operation, social capital analysis, semi-structured interviewing, participatory mapping facilitation, qualitative data coding, database organization in Microsoft Access.

Phase II: Modeling CWS adaptive capacity and building future scenarios

In the summer and fall of 2007, I tested the CWS-FACS process with an intensive case study municipal water authority recruited from the Phase I systems.  CWS board members, the certified operator, the engineer, a township supervisor, a local emergency manager, and the system’s Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection sanitarian participated in three focus groups.  They worked on group exercises to learn about climate change vulnerability, and they discussed the factors influencing their system’s ability to adapt to climate change in the form of increased hydroclimatic variation.  This data allowed me to construct a system dynamics-based model of the CWS’s operation and influences on its adaptation to climate change using STELLA, a system dynamics modeling software program. 

In true mediated modeling, the participants would have constructed the model as part of the CWS-FACS process during focus groups with assistance from a modeling team; however, the participants’ limited available time restricted their duties to learning some basic system dynamics principles and evaluating the model’s structure.  To build scenarios, participants identified growth as their main non-climate related concern for the future and developed narrative storylines reflecting the speed of growth in the community.  I used the CWS-FACS adaptive capacity model to generate a suite of adaptive capacity scenarios by combining these growth scenarios with temporal analogues to significant local flooding and drought events like those that could occur more frequently in central Pennsylvania with anticipated changes in climate.  These temporal precipitation analogues made the scenario results more tangible to the participants because it allowed them to connect their own previous experiences with possible future experiences.  The analogues also enabled me to use a monthly model time step that reflected the ways that participants described change in the key adaptive capacity variables.  Participants are currently evaluating both the adaptive capacity scenario suite and an interactive run-time version of the model itself during supplemental individual interviews. 

Preliminary results suggest that the CWS-FACS process has already been useful for the case study CWS.  Participants have been actively engaged throughout the case study; they spontaneously gathered data, assisted in meeting setups, attended extra work sessions to solve significant problems, offered suggestions to improve the research process, and are planning to contribute to the final synthesis journal article.  Surveys completed by the participants during the focus groups and after the interviews suggest that the CWS-FACS process supported organizational learning and reflection on past system management.  Most significantly, the authority board members are contemplating operational use of their system’s scenario model.  Because they are now a municipal authority, the system must create and submit a formal budget.  Board members believe that the adaptive capacity model created during the CWS-FACS process will enhance their financial planning by accounting for realistic influences on their finances, and we are discussing altering the final run-time model for use while creating their budget.

RESEARCH SKILLS AND EXPERTISE DEVELOPED: CWS needs assessment, communicating climate change scenario information to CWS managers, water resource economics, temporal climate analogues, system dynamics modeling with STELLA, focus group moderation, creating experiential exercises to teach about climate change vulnerability.