Browsing by Author "Garrick, Dustin"

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Below the Plains: Navigating Groundwater Depletion in Kansas through Collective Action
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-20) Michaud, Melanie; Garrick, Dustin
In the context of increasing groundwater depletion and the critical need for sustainable water management, my research examines Kansas's transition toward enhanced groundwater conservation through the lens of the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework. This study focuses on the roles of state actors, policy entrepreneurs, local experiments like real-world labs, and the influence of landscape factors (external pressures) and cultural values in driving sustainability transitions. Kansas, facing significant groundwater depletion, provides a compelling case to explore how conservation initiatives, such as LEMAs (Local Enhanced Management Areas), emerged and gained acceptance in a traditionally depletion-oriented agricultural regime. Guided by the research objectives to understand how policy diffusion occurred, how actors changed roles, and the state's involvement in shaping transitions, I employed a qualitative approach. My research uses document analysis, interviews, and case studies of Kansas's Groundwater Management Districts (GMDs) and LEMA policies to investigate the factors driving the adoption of conservation measures. The case of the Sheridan 6 LEMA serves as a pivotal example of a "real-world lab" that influenced the broader adoption of conservation practices across Kansas and the subsequent passage of state legislation mandating groundwater management plans for all GMDs. The findings reveal that real-world labs like Sheridan 6 provided empirical evidence demonstrating that conservation could be achieved without economic harm, which built trust among local stakeholders and influenced the shift from depletion to conservation practices. Landscape factors like groundwater depletion and regulatory threats interacted with cultural values like preserving family legacies and local control, pushing incumbent regime actors to adopt conservation measures. Policy entrepreneurs, including state officials and GMD staff, played a central role in framing conservation in ways that aligned with these cultural values, leveraging political opportunities, and building coalitions that supported policy change. The research also challenges traditional views of the state's passive role in transitions, illustrating how state actors actively created and nurtured niche innovations, such as LEMAs. This research contributes to the MLP literature by addressing gaps related to the role of the state and the uneven impacts of landscape pressures and cultural values on influencing conservation behaviors across the GMDs. By integrating insights from the Kansas case, this study offers broader implications for water management in other regions. It highlights the importance of empowering policy entrepreneurs, leveraging local experiments, and understanding the interaction between landscape pressures and cultural values to drive sustainability transition.
Targets and trade-offs: Designing environmental water transactions to navigate compounding competition on the San Saba River in Texas
(Public Library of Science (PLOS), 2025) Wight, Charles; Garmany, Kyle; Smith, Ryan; Garrick, Dustin; Richter, Brian
In river basins experiencing water scarcity, water demands for freshwater ecosystems and water users increasingly compete with one another. Environmental water transactions (EWT) offer a mechanism for resolving this competition via a voluntary agreement in which existing water users are paid to modify the time, place and/or volume of their water right to provide an environmental benefit. However, the disconnect between surface water and groundwater management creates barriers to implementation and scaling of EWTs. We study EWTs addressing water scarcity in Texas’s San Saba River, focusing on targeting the location and timing to fulfill conservation objectives. We integrate recent hydrological studies to identify trends in groundwater-surface water interaction, prioritizing stream reaches for intervention and considering both geologic and anthropogenic drivers of scarcity. We analyze water rights and well data to estimate consumptive water demands during the irrigation season. We quantify the volumetric contribution of different portfolios of water rights paired with different types of EWT to assess their contributions to flow targets, including costs and benefits associated with each portfolio. Results demonstrate that the effectiveness of EWTs relies on coordinated spatial and temporal targeting within the context of hydrogeological settings and water users. We provide cost estimates for implementing four types of EWTs ranging from one season to perpetuity ($32,040 and $404,722 respectively) that can provide 3 cubic feet per second (cfs) (0.085 cubic meters) to help meet subsistence flows in the height of irrigation season (June-Aug). These costs are contextualized within a broader water governance context that considers the benefits to producers and the environment and underscores the importance of future policy to integrate groundwater-surface water interaction.
Uncovering indicators of adaptive water capacity: A rapid systematic map
(University of Waterloo, 2023-05-15) Epstein, Graham; Sharmin, Dilruba Fatima; Ochieng, Elisha; Garrick, Dustin
The global water crisis is driven by the absence of effective and efficient governance systems.There is a large and growing need to benchmark the current status of water governance in Canada and monitor trends over time. This research seeks to inform the development of a rapid, low cost and consistent indicator framework by reviewing the global literature on water governance indicators. We used a rapid systematic map to identify, screen and review 49 studies and the indicators they use to assess adaptive water governance capacity across 12 dimensions.