16 pages, Plagued by recent and historic drought, the need for water storage and management solutions in California is apparent. As a potential solution, the Sites Reservoir project offers an opportunity to a state eager to conserve and better manage water. The Sites Reservoir project involves complexities from a variety of standpoints and stakeholder perspectives. This study investigated the frames and sources used by The Sacramento Bee to communicate about the Sites Reservoir project over a 10-year period. The most frequently used frames throughout the dataset were “policy and government” and “water conscious,” and the sources most frequently utilized for information about the project in the articles were elected officials, government agency representatives, and nonprofit representatives. The findings suggest water management is linked with political activities and supports the assertion that the media tend to focus on the role of policy and political opinion in water management issues. At the same time, the findings suggest the need for water solutions is evident, given the prominence of the “water conscious” frame. Future studies should evaluate frames over time, and investigate the potential nuance between frames used to communicate about water management in different areas of the United States facing water management issues.
28 pages, We analyse gender differences in the response of smallholder farmers to droughts, taking the duration and severity of the even t into account. Using a novel weather shock measure that combines spatial rainfall data with detailed cropping calendars, survey data from Uganda and standard econometric techniques, we find that adverse weather events provide an opportunity for women to enter the commercial crop market by allocating land from subsistence to income generating crops. This counterintuitive pattern is, in part, explained by the greater propensity of men to allocate time to non-agricultural activities in the event of weather shocks.
17 pages, For news media on the earth's driest continent, changes in the health and politics of Australia's largest river system, the Murray-Darling, have been a major national focus for decades. In recent times, climate crisis, drought and policy failure have combined to threaten its future, putting the issue under intense public scrutiny. This article offers a critical discourse analysis of specialist rural radio coverage of the issue in 2018–19. It identifies the discourses that the Country Hour program presents and considers the voices and viewpoints that are absent. Two critical discourse moments are analyzed: an ecological disaster in which more than one million fish died, and #watergate – a pre-election scandal over commercial water rights. We map the strategies and roles of Country Hour journalists and other social actors in legitimating the “productive use” of the river system above all else, politicizing the issue and shifting responsibility for the river's wellbeing.
17 pages, California is severely exposed to drought and damage due to the climate change and drought belt, which has a major impact on agriculture. So, after the drought crisis, there are various reactions from farmers. The extent of the damage caused by the socioeconomic, environment and the extent of the resistance of farmers to this crisis is manifested in a variety of ways. Recognizing the population’s resilience and the involved human groups is a tool for preventing a catastrophe-based increase in life-threatening areas in high-risk areas. Sometimes the inability to manage this phenomenon (especially under the climate change) leads to farmers’ desertification and agricultural land release, which itself indicates a low level of resilience and resilience to the crisis. The recent drought under the climate change condition in California and the severity of the damage sustained by farmers continue to be vulnerable. The present study seeks to prioritize and prioritize resilience of farmers to the crisis under the climate change. This study simulated drought condition with using PDSI value for current and future time period. In order to calculate PDSI values, the climatic parameters extracted from CMIP5 models and downscaled under the scenario of RCP 8.5. Also in order to understand the resilience of the agriculture activities under the climate change, this study was performed using statistical tests and data from the questionnaire completed in the statistical population of 320 farmers in the Tulare region in California. The findings of the research by t test showed that the average level of effective factors in increasing the resilience of farmers in the region is low. This is particularly significant in relation to the factors affecting government policies and support. So that only the mean of five variables is higher than the numerical desirability of the test and the other 15 variables do not have a suitable status for increasing the resilience of the farmers. Also, the results of the Vikor model showed that most of the impact on their resilience to drought and climate change was the development of agricultural insurance, the second important impact belongs to drought monitoring system, climate change and damage assessment, and variable of attention to knowledge is in third place of the important factor.
