Long-term Hydrologic Observatories and Water Resource Sustainability: Opportunities for Conjunctive Social and Biophysical Research on Flexible Water Management
Abstract
The controls on common hydrological science research themes such as flood, drought, water quality and water resource management are both biophysical and social. To date, the emphasis of CUAHSI has been the advancement of hydrology as a physical science, and developing proposals for a network of hydrologic observatories (HOs) to test cross-cutting hypotheses has been central to recent community efforts. A recurring question in CUAHSI community discussions has been whether and how to include data collection relevant to social science questions in the HO designs. A second question has been whether sustainability is an appropriate cross-cutting theme to be addressed by HOs. These questions are addressed by presenting several examples of information useful to social science research on sustainable management of water resources. The Great Salt Lake Basin and the Suwannee River are used as examples to compare and contrast the biophysical and societal attributes pertinent to water sustainability, interpreted as flexible resource management.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUFM.H31C0406C
- Keywords:
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- 1803 Anthropogenic effects;
- 1884 Water supply