Derek Kauneckis, Assoc. Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Nevada, Reno
MtnClim 2014
Sept. 15-18, Midway, UT
Motivation for the study
 An emerging literature has developed around ideas of
system resilience from engineering, ecology and systems
theory. Recent applications to human systems.
 Our most disastrous system failures, have had more to do
with the human decision-making structures rather than
natural or built systems (Ex: New Orleans evacuation, BP
oil spill, Fukushima)
 Need for increased attention to collective decision making
level (community, organizational, policy system)
Goals
 Generate a theory and empirical testable measures of
“institutional resilience”, or the ability of a decisionmaking system to adapt to new conditions and respond to
exogenous and endogenous changes
 Develop a method, “decision node analysis” that drawn on
institutional analysis, network theory, and policy sciences
 Unit of analysis is the policy provisioning/production
system and the specific actors within the policy network
around a specific environmental public good/eco-system
service
Conceptual clarity
What is meant by institutions – “…rules used by
individuals for determining who and what are
included in decision situations, how information is
structured, what actions can be taken and in what
sequence, and how individual actions will be
aggregated into collective decisions… all of which
exist in a language shared by some community of
individuals rather than as physical parts of some
external environment”. Kiser and Ostrom, 1982, “The
Three World of Action: A Metatheoretical Synthesis
of Institutional Approaches”.
What is meant by ‘institutional resilience’
 Institutions as the collective adaptive response to
changing conditions
Examples:
 Formal water compacts
 Policy instruments
 Operational rules
 Social norms
 Resilience of a resource management system = inherent
potential of the system to avoid, or recover from, a
negative impact to the system without reducing, or even
improving, the delivery of public good/service
An application
 Comparative institutional analysis of two urban water
delivery systems (Cities of Reno and Las Vegas, NV)
 Focus on ‘decision nodes’ – interviews with water managers
at multiple levels responsible for the allocation, use, access,
management and inputs that contribute to overall water
system
 Assessment method queries individual responses to a
variety of climate risk scenarios (flood, seasonal variability
in snowpack, reduced snowpack, supply interruption, long
term drought) toward evaluating the entire
provisioning/production system
Study locations
Reno
Las Vegas
Study areas
 Two contrasting urban water systems
 Both highly-managed, built upland snow-fed
hydrological systems, urbanized, multi-use, arid region
 Water use per capital
 Reno, 64 gallons/per capita daily
 Vegas, 223 gallons/per capita daily
Reno/Sparks
Las Vegas
Colorado River System Overview
Reno/Sparks water system
Colorado River System Overview
Colorado River System Overview
Las Vegas
Las Vegas water system
Centrality of Institutions
Regional Water Allocation Agreements
Reno
 Truckee-Carson-Pyramid
Lake Water Rights
Settlement Act
 Truckee River Compact
Las Vegas
 Law of the River
 Recent amendments to
permit water banking
Water Rights and Transfer Arrangements
Reno
 New water rights
available through
transfer from agriculture
to development
 Informal water trading
Las Vegas
 New water rights
available only through
new sources
 Water banking
arrangements in place
Organizational Interactions
Reno
 Truckee Meadows Water
Authority (TMWA)
Las Vegas
 Southern Nevada Water
Authority (SNWA)
 Various federal, state and
 Local water districts
 Dominance of state and
 Heavy dominance of
local organizations
local agencies
representing municipal
areas
federal agencies (BoR)
Operational Rules
Reno
 Truckee Meadows Water
Authority (TMWA)
Las Vegas
 Southern Nevada Water
Authority (SNWA)
 Local operational
 Local water districts
managers
representing municipal
areas
 Local operational
managers
Recognized Institutional Constraints
Reno
 Truckee River Compact
Las Vegas
 Law of the River
 Endangered Species Act
 Process of establishing
 Clean Water Act
right to new sources
Measuring resilience
 Characteristics of a resilient system: as applied to policy
systems
 Multiple feedback loops in the system: awareness of climate




impacts at multiple levels, anticipatory planning, awareness and
perception of changes; Information flows laterally and horizontally
Diversity: Polycentricism, Diversity of organizations and users in
policy network, ability to jump hierarchical levels
Redundancy and modularity: Shared responsibilities, diffuse
expertise, functional redundancies
Degree of Social Capital: Levels of trust, degree of coordination,
structure of policy network
Responsive to change: Innovation, access to policy diffusion,
experimentation, History of response to change (both gradual and
sudden), Evidence of organizational and policy learning
Methods
 Content analysis of multi-level interview data
 Each attribute scored on a 1-5 scale
 Cross-validation of the score
 Weighted aggregate across individual characteristics
 Weighted aggregate across spatial influence of each
organization
Resilience index (stylized)
Feedback
5
4
3
Responsiveness
2
Diversity
1
Las Vegas
Reno
Social Capital
Redundancy
Contrasting the two systems:
Reno
 No clear focusing events
 High degree of uncertainty around climate impacts due
to heterogeneity of topography
 Medium capacity
 Supply focused
Las Vegas
 Clear information signals
 Clear articulation of policy responses and
understanding of relevant decision space
 High capacity
 Focus on both supply and demand
Public service announcement from
Southern Nevada Water Agency (click
to view)
New research
 Recent NSF – WCS/USDA Award
Reconciling Demands for Water under Extreme
Climate Conditions: An Integrated Framework for
Policy Learning, Stakeholder Engagement, and
Climate Adaption in Snow Fed, Arid River Systems
 NSF – EPSCoR Climate Infrastructure Award
National-level local government climate policy
study
- First national-level assessment of local
government climate mitigation and
adaptation policies
Derek Kauneckis, Associate Professor
Political Science Department
University of Nevada, Reno
Email: kauneck@unr.edu
Acknowledgements:
National Science Foundation– Nevada Climate Infrastructure Project
&
College of Liberal Arts Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant Program