Technology Adoption for Long-Term Drought Resilience
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 140, Issue 3
Abstract
In this paper, a mathematical model of optimal management of prolonged and consecutive drought events is developed to evaluate circumstances under which the adoption of a water-efficient technology may offer long-term drought resilience. The decision over technology adoption and its timing is affected by the objective of surviving a certain number of consecutive droughts besides being influenced by the costs of technology and the farmer’s endowments. A key finding is that planning for surviving through a longer drought period may discourage early technology adoption among poorer farmers faced with groundwater scarcity. Compared with wealthy farmers, the tendency to conserve groundwater for the poorer farmers when the drought planning horizon is longer gets reversed with an increase in the risks of repeated droughts. At low risks, groundwater conservation increases with the drought-planning horizon, but at higher risks, groundwater is depleted faster as the drought-planning horizon increases. Technology adoption may be discouraged when the possibility of repeated droughts is imminent or when the risk of an irreversible loss of groundwater is present.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work benefited from the author’s association with an ACIAR funded project (LWR/2006/072).
References
Allen, R. G., Pereira, L. S., Raes, D., and Smith, M. (1998). “Crop evapotranspiration—Guidelines for computing crop water requirements.” FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations 〈http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0490E/X0490E00.htm〉 (Jan. 4, 2012).
Binswanger, H. P. (1980). “Attitudes towards risk: Experimental measurement in rural India.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 62(3), 395–407.
Carey, J. M., and Zilberman, D. (2005). “A model of investment under uncertainty: Modern irrigation technology and emerging markets in water.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 84, 171–183.
Chokri, D., and Khanna, M. (2005). “Irrigation technology adoption and gains from water trading under asymmetric information.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 87(2), 289–301.
Clarke, R. H., and Reed, W. J. (1994). “Consumption/pollution trade-offs in an environment vulnerable to pollution related catastrophic collapse.” J. Econ. Dyn. Control, 18, 991–1010.
Dai, A. (2011). “Characteristics and trends in various forms of the Palmer drought severity index during 1900–2008.” J. Geophys. Res., 116, D12115,.
Dixit, A., and Pindyck, R. (1994). Investment under uncertainty, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Feder, G. (1980). “Farm size, risk aversion and the adoption of new technology under uncertainty.” Oxford Econ. Pap., 32, 263–283.
Feder, G., Just, R. E., and Zilberman, D. (1985). “Adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries: A survey.” Econ. Dev. Cultural Change, 33(2), 255–298.
Khanna, M., Epohue, O. F., and Hornbaker, R. (1999). “Site-specific crop management: Adoption pattern and trends.” Rev. Agr. Econ., 21(2), 455–472.
Koundouri, P., Nauges, C., and Tzouvelekas, V. (2006). “Technology adoption under production uncertainty: Theory and application to irrigation technology.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 88(3), 657–670.
Kulecho, I. K., and Weatherhead, E. K. (2006). “Adoption and experience of low-cost drip irrigation in Kenya.” Irrig. Drain., 55(4), 435–444.
Llamas, R., and Martinez-Santos, P. (2005). “Intensive groundwater use: Silent revolution and potential source of social conflict.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 337–341.
Loaiciga, H. A. (2004). “Analytic game theoretic approach to groundwater extraction.” J. Hydrol., 297(1–4), 22–33.
Lybbert, T. J., and Barrett, C. (2011). “Risk-taking behaviour in the presence of non-convex asset dynamics.” Econ. Inquiry, 49(4), 982–988.
Madani, K., and Dinar, A. (2012). “Non-cooperative institutions for sustainable common pool resource management: Application to groundwater.” Ecol. Econ., 74, 34–45.
Namara, R. E., Upadhyay, B., and Nagar, R. K. (2005). “Adoption and impacts of micro irrigation technologies: Empirical results from selected localities of Maharashtra and Gujarat states of India.”, International Water Management Institute. Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Narayanamoorthy, A. (1997). “Drip irrigation: A viable option for future irrigation development.” Productivity, 38(3), 504–511.
Narayanamoorthy, A. (1999). “Drip irrigation for sustainable agriculture.” Productivity, 39(4), 672–680.
Polak, P., Nanes, B., and Adhikari, D. (1997). “A low cost drip irrigation system for small farmers in developing countries.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 33(1), 119–124.
Ranjan, R. (2013). “Mathematical modeling of drought resilience in agriculture.” Nat. Resour. Model., 26(2), 237–258.
Ranjan, R., and Athalye, S. (2009). “Drought resilience in agriculture: The role of technological options, land use dynamics and risk perception.” Nat. Resour. Model., 22(3), 437–462.
Ranjan, R., and Shogren, J. F. (2006). “How probability weighting affects participation in water markets.” Water Resour. Res., 42(8), W08426.
Reis, A. B. (2001). “Endogenous growth and the possibility of eliminating pollution.” J. Environ. Econ. Manage., 42(3), 360–373.
Rockstrom, R. (2003). “Resilience building and water demand management for drought mitigation.” Physics and the chemistry of the earths, parts A/B/C, 28, 869–877.
Romn, J. (2011). “Desertification: The next dust bowl.” Nature, 478, 450–451.
Rosenzweig, M. R., and Binswanger, H. P. (1993). “Wealth, weather risk and the composition and profitability of agricultural investments.” Econ. J., 103, 56–78.
Schuck, E. C., Frasier, W. M., Webb, R. S., Ellingson, L. J., and Umberger, W. J. (2005). “Adoption of more technically efficient system as a drought response.” Water Resour. Dev., 21(4), 651–662.
Sheffield, J., and Wood, E. F. (2008). “Projected changes in drought occurrence under future global warming from multi-model, multi-scenario.” Climate Dynamics, 31, 79–105.
Sunding, D., and Zilberman, D. (2000). “The agricultural innovation process: Research and technology adoption in a changing agricultural sector.” Edited handbook of agricultural economics, B. L. Gardner, and G. Rausser, eds., Vol. 1, Elsevier Science B.V., Netherlands, 207–261.
Tsur, Y., and Zamel, A. (2007). “Bio-economic resource management under threats of environmental catastrophes.” Ecol. Res., 22(3), 431–438.
Tsur, Y., and Zemel, A. (1995). “Uncertainty and irreversibility in groundwater management.” J. Environ. Econ. Manage., 29, 149–161.
Upadhyay, B., and Bhattarai, K. (2005). “Socio-economic aspects of irrigation technology cases from Nepal and India.” Proc., Ninth Int. Water Technology Conf., IWTC9, International Water Technology Association, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
Wilhite, D. A. (1986). “Drought policy in the U.S. and Australia: A comparative analysis.” Water Resour. Bull., 22(3), 425–438.
Yaron, D., Dinar, A., and Voet, H. (1992). “Innovations on family farms: The Nazareth region in Israel.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 74(2), 361–370.
Zilberman, D., Dinar, A., McDougall, N., Khanna, M., Brown, C., and Castillo, F. (2002). “Individual and institutional responses to drought: The case of California agriculture.” J. Contemp. Water Res. Educ., 21(1), 17–23.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 14, 2012
Accepted: Nov 5, 2012
Published online: Nov 7, 2012
Discussion open until: Apr 7, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.