2024-04-13 00:05:35
Human activities are reshaping the Earth’s water cycle, leading to significant changes in cloud formation and precipitation. Patrick Keyes of Colorado State University explored these impacts through interdisciplinary research, using narrative scenarios to predict future water management challenges. Credit: twoday.co.il.com
Through a combination of science and storytelling, new research delves into the future of water management amid changing environmental dynamics.
Human activity is changing the way water flows between the Earth and the atmosphere in complex ways and with long-term consequences that are difficult to describe.
A change in land use changes where clouds form and how precipitation is distributed. Meanwhile, weather-modifying activities like cloud seeding are changing how countries plan water use in the face of climate change. These and other changes in the planet’s atmospheric water cycle were once hard to imagine, but are increasingly part of modern water management on the planet.
Interdisciplinary research and story
Assistant Professor Patrick Keyes at Colorado State University is an expert on climate and social change. He has been researching these types of issues for years and realized that there is a potential gap when it comes to understanding – not only in the public but among the water research community – the ongoing consequences of these changes.
To better understand how these kinds of activities could shape the world, he enlisted water scientists from around the globe to write story-based scenarios about the possible futures humanity faces, but may not yet quite understand. The results were recently published in global sustainability As part of a creative pathway to understanding atmospheric water research with an eye to potential economic and policy issues that may be just over the horizon.
An artist has created an image that illustrates a possible future in policy and research due to human changes in the atmospheric water cycle. Credit: Patrick Keys and Fabio Comin
The work includes striking artist-created imagery that juxtaposes traditional science fiction narratives, as well as alternative storytelling forms such as first-person journal entries. Keys said the package offers a broad way – grounded in science – to build a shared understanding of future water management activities and issues.
“Stories are everywhere and are an integral part of human life,” he said. “They tell you something different than a graph in a research paper. They allow you to explore how people might feel or respond to these kinds of changes. This kind of work gives people agency and an opportunity to consider these changes regardless of their background or level of understanding.”
The research for this work came in three separate phases, according to Keyes. First, he used computational text analysis to find recurring themes in journal abstracts on the current state of atmospheric water cycle research. He then sorts the data – identifying clusters of recurring terms according to a network of common economic commodity principles for discussion. The goal, he said, was to better describe the ways in which humans and institutions might interact with the atmospheric water cycle in the future. Specifically: how actors in the future, such as states or private actors, may ultimately act to protect their resources or how they may leverage advantages to gain access to water as an essential natural resource in the future.
It is these relationships and interactions that Keys wanted to explore in the third part of this study and where science fiction comes into play.
Scientific research through fiction
With a better grasp on the potential future relationships of water management in this space, Keys asked experts to imagine a world decades in the future where activities like cloud seeding were common and the long-term consequences were clearer.
The result was an exercise in science fiction with the specific purpose of exploring reality and predicting even the strangest possible outcomes.
An artist has created a picture that illustrates a possible future in policy and research due to human changes in the atmospheric water cycle. Credit: Patrick Keys and Fabio Comin
“I think we have a sense that some futures are more likely than others, but we need to understand that to adequately cover the possible paths our world could take, models alone may not cut it,” he said. “Especially when we’re talking about things that are hard to quantify, like culture or perception, that may end up playing a big part in actual outcomes.”
To create the narratives Kees hosted a series of workshops with interdisciplinary water experts from all fields and backgrounds and led them in a ‘future thinking’ approach. The experts did not keep silent on the discipline and topic during the exercise, hoping to stimulate even more creativity. Ultimately, 10 story-based scenarios were developed and are included in the paper. Keys also worked with artist Fabio Comin over the course of a year to create the accompanying images.
Keys is based in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in the Walter Scott Jr. College of Engineering. He had several collaborators on the paper, including postdoc Rekha Warrier of the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Department at CSU. Other researchers came from the University of California, Davis, the University of California, Los Angeles, the Stockholm Resilience Center and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Keyes said he is now using similar approaches for another project with the Colorado Water Center. He added that one of his goals with the two projects was to spark conversations around the water cycle in what is becoming a key moment for action in the world.
“These scenarios have the potential to raise interesting questions about policy, regulation and enforcement – what all of that might look like,” he said. “This approach can also help us identify some of the aspects that we might not notice and understand everything better.”
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