U.S. worsening droughts require alternative ways of protecting urban water supplies
In the American West, unprecedented droughts have caused extreme water shortages. The current drought in California and across the West is entering its fourth year, with precipitation and water storage reaching record low levels. Droughts are ranked second in the United States in terms of national weather-related economic impacts, with annual losses just shy of $9 billion. With water scarcity likely to increase due to advancing climate change, the economic and environmental impacts of drought are also likely to get worse.
“The chances of a “megadrought” — one that lasts for thirty-five years or longer — affecting the Southwest and central Great Plains by 2100 are above 80 percent if climate change projections are not mitigated,” says Blanchard. “As the West faces more frequent and severe droughts, the successful protection of watersheds for the ecosystem services of water capture, storage, and delivery they provide will be increasingly important.”
“The sufficient and effective protection of watersheds will become more challenging, so awareness of alternative, successful strategies is critically important,” adds Bhaskar Vira, co-author of the study also from Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “The management of the Wasatch is one such strategy that should be more widely recognized amongst policymakers and researchers alike seeking effective solutions to water scarcity.”
The economic and instrumental value of the Wasatch watershed was noticed by Salt Lake City’s government as early as the 1850s, when the first legislation to protect the city’s natural resources was passed. Salt Lake City uses two tools to protect its watershed: purchasing land for conservation, and regulating land use by restricting a variety of activities within the watershed such as cattle grazing. Recreation is not altogether restricted, but is negotiated with the local community to allow public use. The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest is one of the most heavily visited national forests in the United States, with 7 million annual visitors.
“Salt Lake City has been able to preserve the natural capital that protects its watershed while allowing recreational use. The preservation of the watershed actually boosts recreation, providing visitors with natural landscapes and unadulterated settings for mountain biking, hiking, skiing, and fly-fishing,” says Blanchard.
The city raises funds to buy land within the watershed through a surcharge on water customers’ monthly bills, which provides around $1.5 million each year to protect watershed lands from development. Since 1907, the city has managed to purchase over 23,000 acres of the watershed.
“Despite the popularity and power of the Catskills narrative to promote the preservation of ecosystems via market-based incentives, we found that this narrative is at best partial, and quite possibly flawed,” says Blanchard.
“The Wasatch’s absence in the ecosystem literature results in an incomplete perspective on interventions to secure watershed ecosystem services and limits policy discussions in relation to alternative conservation approaches. It is vital that such alternatives are given more recognition in order to find effective solutions for the protection of natural capital in the future.”
— Read more in L. Blanchard et al., “The lost narrative: Ecosystem service narratives and the missing Wasatch watershed conservation story” Ecosystem Services 16 (December 2015): 105-11 (doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2015.10.019)
