Evaluating Aquifer Management Objectives against Socioeconomic Indicators to Understand Differential Impacts on Communities across Multiple Scales
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 150, Issue 10
Abstract
Urban groundwater supply planning is often achieved at the regional scale while the effects of aquifer exploitation are experienced on a local scale. In the Mexico City metropolitan area, land and water use changes have caused massive overdraft and subsidence, threatening water supply in marginalized communities. While spatially distributed groundwater models have been developed to test model uncertainty and policy interventions, there is little understanding of how regional aggregation of planning objectives can exacerbate existing social inequities. This study develops socially informed spatial analysis to evaluate differential impacts of groundwater pumping policies at multiple scales. We compare four planning objectives at three spatial resolutions to determine if policy preference shows a relationship with socioeconomic indicators. We find that the multiobjective performance of pumping policies can neglect marginalized communities according to multiple indicators. Further, clustering model grid cells according to socioeconomic indicators allows for more accurate analysis of this effect. Finally, multiscale analysis of policy preference considering subregional socioeconomic characteristics can aid in equitable selection of aquifer management alternatives.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available in a GitHub repository online at https://github.com/mrlmautner/Spatial-GW-Planning in accordance with funder data retention policies (last access: February 15, 2023) (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7644920; Mautner and Herman 2023).
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Program of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Research trips to Mexico City were funded in part by the University of California Davis Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award. We thank the Organismo de Cuencas: Aguas del Valle de México (OCAVM) of the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) of Mexico and the Instituto de Geofísica of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) for their input on initial model development and pumping data.
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Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 150 • Issue 10 • October 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 29, 2023
Accepted: Apr 15, 2024
Published online: Jul 18, 2024
Published in print: Oct 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Dec 18, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Disaster risk management
- Disasters and hazards
- Economic factors
- Geohazards
- Geotechnical engineering
- Groundwater
- Groundwater management
- Infrastructure
- Land subsidence
- Natural disasters
- Practice and Profession
- Social factors
- Urban and regional development
- Urban areas
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Water supply
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