Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:52:00am WEST
External resources will be made available 30 min before a session starts. You may have to reload the page to access the resources.
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
Climate Change Adaptation: Water Scarcity and Management Location: B003 Session Chair: Emilien Veron, INRAE | |
    | |
Water forecasts and irreversible adaptation investments in agriculture Cornell University, United States of America I study how seasonal water forecasts influence farmers’ externally-costly, irreversible investments in groundwater well drilling in California. I use variation in 70 years of basin-level snow runoff forecasts and forecasted spread assigned to local and distant water districts based on pre-determined water rights. I find that farmers significantly respond to erroneously low surface water forecasts by drilling wells about four years earlier than they would have, resulting in a permanent level shift in the aquifer by about one centimeter, or 58\% of a district’s average annual decline. On the other hand, lowering erroneously high forecasts results in about half as many new wells as those avoided, and high private benefits for farmers. Further, I show empirically and using a conceptual model under tighter forecast spreads, farmers hold off drilling until lower snow runoff thresholds. Thus, improving a forecasting system by reducing spread reduces expected errors which both avoids depletion and creates private benefit, and also shifts the well demand curve inward. Where water management is politically infeasible, targeting forecast improvements can therefore substantially lower long-term external costs. | |