Development of a graphical resilience framework to understand a coupled human-natural system in a remote arid highland of Baja California Sur

• Published in: Sustainability science Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 1059 - 1076
• Main Authors: Lerback, J. C., Bowen, B. B., Macfarlan, S. J., Schniter, E., Garcia, J. J., Caughman, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Springer Japan 01.05.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anthropology; Case studies; Climate Change Management and Policy; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Environmental Economics; Environmental Management; Hydrogeochemistry; Hydrologic cycle; Hydrology; Interdisciplinary aspects; Landscape Ecology; Mountains; Original; Original Article; Public Health; Resilience; Science; Social sciences; Spring water; Sustainability; Sustainable Development; System effectiveness; System theory; Topology; Water availability; Water Resource Management and Hydrology; Water resources; Mexico; Baja California Mexico; Hydrology; Rural societies; Water management; Sustainability; Cultural anthropology; Resilience
• ISSN: 1862-4065; 1862-4057
• DOI: 10.1007/s11625-022-01101-6

Hydrological systems are important to society as water resources and effective management requires an understanding of how water and humans influence each other. To describe human-water connections it is necessary to bridge social and natural sciences. To this end, we construct an interdisciplinary graphical framework for evaluating potential human-water system resilience, which is a tool to show the spatial and temporal response to system change of both human and natural systems. This helps to identify the ways that human responses to change relate to changing water resources and identifies important thresholds and potential disconnects that would create vulnerability. We further use this tool to describe a dynamic, coupled human-water system present in the arid Sierra de la Giganta region of Baja California Sur, Mexico. In this remote mountain range, there is a community (self-identifying as Choyeros ) who rely on spring water for ranching and subsistence. Using mixed methods of hydrogeochemistry and anthropology, we describe spatial connectivity and temporal changes of both hydrologic and social systems. We use these observations to examine the Choyero response to system changes and explore the topology of the various approaches that the community employs to adapt to changing water availability. The framework guides dialogue to constrain the types of policies, strategies, and responses that help to promote the sustainability of water resources. This framework can be used to compare systems across spatio-temporal scales to produce more generalizable and communicable insights of coupled human-natural systems.