Dissertation
CHARACTERIZING MULTIVARIATE SNOW DROUGHTS AND COMMUNITY WELLBEING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PLANNING AND IMPROVED FOOD AND WATER SECURITY
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
07/2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000007048
Abstract
Climate change is affecting snow processes in mountain ecosystems with consequences for food and water systems. Snow droughts are a new way of understanding the spatio-temporal changes in snowpacks. In the first manuscript, we expanded a multivariate snow drought index to identify global drivers of snow droughts. We found that historically, there was a shift toward more temperature driven snow droughts and that certain ecosystem types are more prone toward a certain snow drought type (i.e., temperature or precipitation driven). In the second manuscript, we extended this understanding of snow droughts to a regional applications study in the Yakima River Basin—a watershed in Eastern Washington and a subbasin of the Columbia River Basin. We found distinct management signatures related to snow droughts, with dry snow droughts having much more of an impact historically on water security and food production. There was also indication that the basin was adapted to snow droughts driven by temperature until recently (i.e., 2015) and there will be more warm snow droughts in the future, relative to no snow droughts and snow droughts driven by precipitation. Finally, we used a mixed methods approach to suggest climate adaptation pathways for the Yakima River Basin from a community wellbeing assessment conducted in communities across the watershed, including Ellensburg, Yakima, Kittitas County, Yakima County, Cle Elum, and Roslyn. Overall, we show the diverse connections communities have to snow and water in the Yakima River Basin and how we can better manage water resources by incorporating snow droughts into analyses to create a more resilient and climate adapted socioecological system protecting food and water security and community wellbeing.
Metrics
6 File views/ downloads
15 Record Views
Details
- Title
- CHARACTERIZING MULTIVARIATE SNOW DROUGHTS AND COMMUNITY WELLBEING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PLANNING AND IMPROVED FOOD AND WATER SECURITY
- Creators
- Rebecca Gustine
- Contributors
- Jennifer Adam (Chair)Jan Boll (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringChristine Lee (Committee Member)Yonas Demissie (Committee Member) - Washington State University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (TRIC)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 130
- Identifiers
- 99901152540501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation