Linked hydrologic and social systems that support resilience of traditional irrigation communities

Fernald, A.; Guldan, S.; Boykin, K.; Cibils, A.; Gonzales, M.; Hurd, B.; Lopez, S.; Ochoa, C.; Ortiz, M.; Rivera, J.; Rodriguez, S.; Steele, C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-293-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-293-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Predictions under change: water, earth, and biota in the anthropocene...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-293-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

Research article

|

16 Jan 2015

Research article |

| 16 Jan 2015

Linked hydrologic and social systems that support resilience of traditional irrigation communities

A. Fernald, S. Guldan, K. Boykin, A. Cibils, M. Gonzales, B. Hurd, S. Lopez, C. Ochoa, M. Ortiz, J. Rivera, S. Rodriguez, and C. Steele

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Final revised paper (published on 16 Jan 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Feb 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C315: 'Manuscript review', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Mar 2014
- AC C1381: 'Response to reviewer #1', alexander fernald, 13 May 2014
RC C355: 'Acequia resilience', Maurits Ertsen, 10 Mar 2014
- AC C1387: 'Response to reviewer #2', alexander fernald, 13 May 2014
RC C931: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #3, 15 Apr 2014
- AC C1396: 'Response to reviewer #3', alexander fernald, 13 May 2014
EC C1483: 'Editor Comment', Murugesu Sivapalan, 21 May 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (21 May 2014) by Murugesu Sivapalan

AR by alexander fernald on behalf of the Authors (03 Jul 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Sep 2014) by Murugesu Sivapalan

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Sep 2014)

RR by Christopher Scott (24 Sep 2014)

RR by Anonymous Referee #5 (03 Oct 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Overall, I found the topic of the paper interesting and relevant to the theme of the special issue. The authors have obviously invested in a tremendous amount of primary data collection and historical archival work which is commendable.

With significant revisions it would provide a valuable addition to the debate on socio-hydrology, coevolution and resilience.

However, I think the presentation needs to be substantially improved.
There are problems with the structure of the whole paper (how the pieces add up to a coherent argument) and within the individual pieces themselves (inconsistencies). I found the logic and arguments very difficult to follow.

1. The paper is not very clear on what its objectives are. For instance it says “the goals of this study are to connect human and natural systems using real data..”. Interdisciplinarity and linking models cannot be an end goal of a paper. The goal MUST be to answer either a real-world or academic puzzle which requires interdisciplinary thinking and coupling.

The unarticulated goal of the paper appears to be to explore if acequia systems are more resilient. This has real world implications are profound and I think this is a worth goal. Conventional wisdom over the last ten years has been to improve water-use efficiency in agriculture and allow transfer/sale water to cities. Acequia systems have been vilified for being inefficient and a major policy thrust has been to invest in water-use efficiency, though a few studies are beginning to question this. The paper is in fact suggesting there are real-trade offs between efficiency and resilience. It would be great if this could be articulated early on.

2. The paper comes off as a bit schizophrenic in Section 2. Is the goal to look backward to argue that acequia systems have been resilient in the past? Or is it trying to predict the future fate of acequia systems under different change drivers? The Abstract and Introduction would lead the reader to understand that only the first goal is being addressed. Personally, I feel these are (or could be) two different papers. I was a little thrown off by the climate scenarios (Sections 2.2 and 2.3) early in the paper. I recommend eliminating the projections entirely and just explore the changes from 1935 to 2011. It's OK to motivate the paper by mentioning the threat of climate change and changing economy, but better to keep the story focused on either the past or the future - it is complex enough as it is.

3. The paper also keeps going back and forth between background material and data analysis.
I realize that this is challenging since this paper's contribution is to collate and analyze a huge amount of historical data to derive a causal loop diagram, so writing the paper is challenging.
However, the author's must be upfront about it. State your goals, locate them in important questions in the wider literature, acknowledge that the system is a complex one, then present your approach in the paper.

I think the authors need to sit together and write down – what does this paper argue in 5 simple sentences.
For instance, I do not think the paper actually establishes that acequia systems are more resilient. At best, it provides a systematic approach to begin to ask such questions.

My reading of the paper is that this consists of three or four different pieces.
• What do past data on different components tell us about trends in the economy, agriculture, water use, water flows and ecosystems? Here I would organize them a little more logically. First, talk about the long term changes to the economy – there seem to be three dominant trends – the move to non-farm jobs and economic activity, the shift from subsistence farms to large agribusinesses and change in livestock holdings. Would be good to link each of these to changes in the water cycle – decrease in seepage, reduced upland grazing etc.
• Which pieces do we include so our model reflects what the community actually cares about? How does this affect management goals?
• What linkages do communities perceive – traditional knowledge on the hydrosocial cycle? How can we use local knowledge to develop a model of resilience?
• How do we put these together to come up with a model to assess resilience of acequia communities?

4. I am not 100% sure I understand the link between livestock and acequia irrigation describe in Section 3.1.2. There are several statements that seem inconsistent. In Section 3.1.1 you state, that in the 1930s the main livestock were sheep and chicken. Then the region slowly changed to a cattle-based economy. Then In section 3.1.2 you state that livestock raising itself is disappearing as a way of life and reducing resilience and stability. To provide evidence Figure 13 shows cattle inventory from 1975 (I don’t like the use of deviations – why not just show cattle populations? And Why not trace cattle populations from 1935 instead of just 1975). It seems to me that cattle populations increased, peaked in the 1970s and declined after 1980.
But if cattle themselves are a recent phenomenon, how can their decline contribute to economic instability in the community?

5. Similarly, I found the paper plunges into the hydrology early on but then only explains what an acequia system is only later in Section 4. Isn’t it better to explain this early on?
It’s a little awkward to understand the details of recharge, seepage, and future climate (!!) first and wait till the end of the paper to find out that acequia systems include a system of irrigation ditches, a set of operational rules to manage them and a socio-cultural way of life.

6. I find the presentation of two separate causal loop diagrams in the paper (figure 17 and 18) confusing. Having been through a few “community workshops” to develop soft systems models myself, I sympathize; community members have the tendency to throw everything and the kitchen sink in into these models. Maybe since Figure 17 has been discussed in a different paper, its OK to include only the simplified model in Figure 18 here.

7. I found the idea that water doesn't end up mattering at all intriguing. As hydrologists we like to believe that water availability drives everything. But what does the lack of correlation between income and water availability tell us about system resilience? Should we stop worrying about the resilience of acequia systems since it doesn't matter in the big picture?

I think the authors have side-stepped the elephant in the room here.
Sure, when asked acequia farmers say they care about whether their community apirit and their connection to the land - but it doesn't show up in the hard numbers. Does this mean our measures of resilience itself are wrong (Agribusiness Income in $) or that farmers don't really care, they just say they do?
You cannot present this data and not address it in the narrative.

Minor changes
1. Font sizes in Figure 12 unreadable.
2. Suggest combining Figures 9 and 10. Not much difference between 2002 and 2007. The point is to highlight the decline in small farms – may as well just show 1935 and 2007.
3. Legend missing in Figure 16.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (07 Oct 2014) by Murugesu Sivapalan

AR by alexander fernald on behalf of the Authors (19 Nov 2014) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (21 Nov 2014) by Murugesu Sivapalan

AR by alexander fernald on behalf of the Authors (26 Nov 2014)