HR: 14:30h
AN: H53G-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Institutions and Societal Impacts of Climate in the Lower Colorado and San Pedro Basins of the U.S.-Mexico Border Region
AU: * Varady, R G
EM: rvarady@email.arizona.edu
AF: Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona, 803 E. First Street, Tucson, AZ 85719, United States
AU: Wilder, M
EM: mwilder@email.arizona.edu
AF: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona, PO Box 210158, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
AU: Morehouse, B J
EM: morehoub@email.arizona.edu
AF: Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona, 715 N. Park, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
AU: Garfin, G M
EM: gmgarfin@email.arizona.edu
AF: Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona, 715 N. Park, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
AB: The U.S. Southwest and Mexico border region feature two prominent river basins, the Colorado and Rio Grande, and ecologically important sub-basins such as the San Pedro. The area within which these transboundary basins lie is characterized by overall aridity and high climatic variability over seasonal to decadal and longer time scales. Throughout human occupation, numerous and diverse strategies for buffering climate impacts have emerged. The most notable response has been an increasingly complex system of institutions and structures designed to buffer water scarcity. The Colorado River Compact, and the laws governing allocation of waters from the Rio Grande River, together with the dams, hydropower generators, canals and other engineered features, represent two of the most complex systems. Drought nevertheless remains a looming specter across much of the binational border region. Institutional mechanisms for responding to drought range from awareness-raising and capacity-building efforts, to implementation of formal drought plans, to storing water to make up for deficits, and water conservation rules that become increasingly stringent as drought intensifies. A number of formal and informal binational institutions operate in the region. Some are venerable, like the century-old International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and its Mexican counterpart the Comision Internacional de Limites y Agua (CILA). Others, like the Border Environment Cooperation Commission and the North American Development Bank, were created in the mid-1990s with the North American Free Trade Agreement. These institutions, both domestic and transnational, operate in a complex binational, bicultural environment with contrasting legal and administrative traditions. Under such constraints, they manage water resources and ecosystems and attempt to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in the context of deep and extended drought. But in spite of their efforts, society and natural habitat along the border remains highly vulnerable to changes driven by high population growth rates, migration and border enforcement, expansion into fire prone wildland-urban interface areas, invasions of exotic ecosystem-altering species, and climate changes. This is especially true for rural populations lacking alternatives to their usual water sources or to alternative means of earning a living when, for example crops fail. The paper will examine the impacts of transborder water- management institutions in the San Pedro and Lower Colorado basins, including the Delta region. In particular, the authors will assess the palpable trend toward (1) more transboundary institutional cooperation (e.g., CRICA, the Colorado River International Conservation Area effort), and (2) more community-based conservation and research efforts (e.g., the University of Arizona, NOAA-supported Climate Assessment for the Southwest project; in conjunction with new projects by the Arizona-based Sonoran Institute and Pronatura in Mexico to do restoration in particular zones, working closely with communities and local groups, such as the Asociacion Ecologica de Usuarios del Rio Hardy y Colorado (AHEURYC). Finally, the paper will seek to identify new climate-related responsibilities and actions that may be needed to respond to likely climatic change.
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
DE: 1834 Human impacts
DE: 6300 POLICY SCIENCES (7964)
DE: 6319 Institutions
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly