Abstract
Left in the Dust? Environmental and Labor Effects of Rural-Urban Water Sales
Growing urban populations and shifting precipitation patterns under a changing climate motivate the flexible use of markets to reallocate water in arid regions. To understand the effects of these markets, we examine the United States’ largest ever agriculture-to-urban water transfer, from Imperial County to San Diego, California. The political economy of trade shapes policy choices and we develop an analytic model illustrating the tradeoff between job preservation and environmental protection policies. Using a synthetic control approach, we find initial declines in agricultural output and labor under fallowing, which protected environmental water. Policy changes increasing the intensity of agricultural water use subsequently decreased inflows to the Salton Sea, exposing areas of fine-silted lakebed, creating additional dust. Dust-related air pollutants, PM10 and PM2.5, increase during the relevant period while placebo non-dust pollutants, Ozone and SO2, do not.
Abstract
How courts impact human-water systems
Judicial courts play a central role in water resources management by interpreting law in specific water conflicts. However, courts are frequently omitted from scientific human-water systems analysis. Here, drawing from the U.S. West, I illustrate how courts shape hydrology and how hydrology shapes courts. First, I evaluate how 1800s court rulings constrain and direct optimal streamflow restoration via water markets in the Upper Colorado River basin today. I find that because longstanding court rulings make it difficult to formally transfer existing consumptive water rights to streamflow restoration, those rulings have spawned markets where informal water transactions are an optimal strategy. Second, I evaluate a 2017 court ruling that recognized surface water-groundwater connections and confirmed that Native American tribes hold priority rights to groundwater—not just surface water. I find that this ruling potentially expands groundwater access for up to 236 tribes. My results show how courts influence our ability to improve environmental, economic, and social outcomes of water management.
