An Integrated Assessment of Climate Change in Arid Lands and Native American Vulnerability: The Case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.

Climate change and variability brings new challenges to the arid and semi-arid region of the Western United States. Increased frequency and duration of climatic extreme, particularly drought, will put regional water and environmental management system under unprecedented stress thus increasing the need for climate change adaptation (CCA). The first fundamental step in CCA is a climate change impact assessment, however the conventional CCA approach has two major shortcomings: 1) lack of integrated and holistic assessment of physical and social vulnerabilities, and 2) lack of a participatory approach. In particular, CCA assessment focuses primarily on hazards or physical vulnerabilities, such as water availability, floods, drought impact, amongst others. Furthermore, it is often derived from an expert driven approach that involves downscaling and incorporating future climate change scenarios into hydrological models (e.g. rainfall-runoff model), and coupling the hydrologic model with a reservoir or environmental system model. However, in addition to such physical vulnerabilities, important intrinsic vulnerabilities, such as socio-cultural and legal vulnerabilities, that play a major role in determining the overall impact and burden of climate change needs be considered especially since the weaker strata of society is likely to be most impacted by climate change. The motivation of this research study is to formulate and implement a systemic approach for a holistic assessment of vulnerabilities of downstream users and identify critical components for negotiation, successful collaboration, and adaptive management that address climate change impacts. The research study focuses on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe (PLPT) in Truckee River Basin and involves a complex and multi-stakeholder system with a century long history of conflict and negotiation over values and usages of water and a recently negotiated settlement, the Truckee River Operating Agreement (TROA) of 2008. Our proposed approach of a systemic assessment includes an a) investigation of physical (both technical and perceptual) and intrinsic vulnerabilities; b) analysis of the evolution of stakeholders' power relations, conflict, negotiation, and implications for climate change impacts; and, c) establishment of first fundamental steps in system dynamics modeling by eliciting cognitive map of individuals from major stakeholder groups through interviews, forming aggregated causal loop diagram or cause map through group discussions, and developing conceptual climate-environment-society feedback loop for individual groups. In conclusion, while climate data analysis showed potential climate change impact in Truckee River Basin, preliminary results show that PLPT has emerged from a historically weak power position (with high level of interest/importance but low level of influence) to high level of interest and influence. In view of this, it appears that PLPT is in a better position to safeguard its water rights in the face of climate change. However, future collaborative modeling exercise is needed for trust building, adaptive planning, and management to address climate change impacts.