Publications
- Prakash†, D., Nemati, M., Dinar, A., Struthers, C., MacKenzie, S., & Shugart, M. (2023). Advancements to the Ricardian model in the past quarter of the century. UCR SPP Working Paper Series.
Other Relevant Works
-
Saleth, R. M., A. Ait El Mekki, U. A. Amarasinghe, G. Amarnath, and Y. Brouziyne. (2023). Climate Change, Transformative Adaptation Options, Multiscale Polycentric Governance, and Rural Welfare in Oum Er-Rbia River Basin, Morocco: Empirical Evaluation with Policy Implications, Project Report, CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience, International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Colombo, Sri Lanka, 117pp.
-
Climate Change Impacts Across California Crosscutting Issues. (2022). Legislative Analyst's Office
- American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change. (2022). An NBER/USDA-funded conference organized by Gary Libecap and Ariel Dinar is to be published under the same title by the University of Chicago Press.
Summary: The project examines the role of agriculture in the American economy, how differential climatic and hydro-geologic factors have affected its development across regions and over time, and the farmer's adaptive responses to changes in these factors. The project highlights the importance and sensitivity of water in agricultural production, the varying water sources, the role of infrastructure, and institutional arrangements. Given those factors, what is the likely impact of climate change on water supplies, access to water, and associated agricultural practices and profitability? The focus was on the ability of farmers to adapt. Farmer adaptations include new crops, production practices, irrigation technologies, new water conveyance infrastructure, fertilizer application, and greater reliance upon groundwater. Such adaptations result in social benefits and costs, suggesting the need for new institutional arrangements to help better regulated and internalize the benefits and costs. The presented works culminated as an edited volume. Climate change is predicted to result in more frequent and intense droughts and periods of concentrated precipitation. Warmer temperatures will reduce snowpack as water storage in the US West, necessitates more reliance upon surface reservoirs, groundwater, and transmission. In the East US, irrigation and water movement are more likely. Farmers may rely upon shifts to more drought-tolerant crops, more efficient irrigation technologies, longer canals, pipes, and canal lining, and more intense use of fertilizers. Institutional innovation to reduce competitive extraction of groundwater, move water long distances, and encourage the set aside of marginal riparian lands to mitigate downstream flows and reduce downstream nitrate pollution, will be important. The different research approaches and findings described in this book provide valuable insights into how American agriculture responds to changes in water access as climate change unfolds and the value of these responses. The research uses the available historical and present experiences to analyze how farmers adapt to more significant droughts and more intense short-term precipitation. Adaptations analyzed in the book include a variety of technological, agronomic, management, and institutional means. The book presents a subset of possible reactions by farmers. Therefore, the book can mark a beginning of a research agenda for the economics of water scarcity and adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector of the US.