The Impact of a Climate Change Narrative on Stated Preferences for Sustainable Groundwater Policy: A Choice Experiment in California

Wclimate change is not due to human activity and that even if climate change is real, the government should not interfere as capitalism will naturally cause markets to correctly compensate to a warming world.

Hollingsworth JD Candidate

ater is in every product we make, every food we eat and in every process for energy creation. Recognizing this, it does not become di cult to see how many might argue that “no other challenge is more fundamental to more global problems than water security” (Larson, 2020, pg. xii). Water security is what many central Californians do not have. The Central Valley supplies over 25% of the nation’s food and to sustain production as well as a burgeoning population, the aquifer system at the heart of California is one of the most pumped in the country (USGS, 2022). This has resulted in a loss of trillions of gallons of groundwater (NASA, 2022). The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was passed in 2014 to respond to concerns of unsustainable groundwater withdrawal. This state agenda has led many to overlook the partisan and geographical divides that result in weak support for water and climate change policy in the state. While those living in the Central Valley are particularly a ected by drought and are most likely to see supply of water as an increasingly big problem (PPIC, 2022), regional representatives oppose government intervention and environmental legislation and vote against bills that seek to protect the quality of waterways and aim to invest in water infrastructure.

Due to the politicization of climate change, evidence of how climate change framing impacts policy preferences for increased sustainable groundwater is critical to inform policymakers about how to communicate to stakeholders and the public in a way that increases support for policies like SGMA and compliance to them. Although literature points to cultural values and beliefs as shaping climate change risk perception, evidence is lacking about how a climate change narrative influences stated preferences for managing groundwater (West, Kovacs, & Nayga Jr., 2022, p. 61). More specifically, a study looking at the e ect of a climate change frame on individualists in California has yet to be conducted. An individualist is defined as one who views nature as resilient and is skeptical of government intervention to mitigate environmental risks (Jones and Song, 2014, pg. 450). An individualist tends to be more susceptible to narratives that

This study aimed to study the groundwater policy preferences of individualists in California through a stated preference discrete choice experiment. The survey elicited responses from 1,007 residents living in 276 towns and cities across the state and 140 residents from the Central Valley specifically. Respondents were randomly assigned into two groups—a control and treatment group—and were given prompts that framed the choice experiment. The control group was provided with a prompt emphasizing the need to address water insecurity due to the overconsumption of groundwater. The treated group was provided with a frame emphasizing the need to address climate change. These prompts were followed by a choice experiment aimed at eliciting willingness to pay for increases in beneficial water attributes such as increased groundwater quantity. Identical questions aimed at gauging a respondent’s level of opposition to government involvement in natural resource management and knowledge of and belief in climate change were asked in both the control and treatment groups. These questions were used to determine whether a respondent could be categorized as an individualist. 384 California residents, including 58 Central Valley residents, were tagged as individualists and their responses were analyzed through multinomial logistic regression.

A comparison of the regression results for individualist respondents revealed that culturally incongruent messaging escalates opposition to a promoted groundwater policy. Individualists exposed to a climate change frame were less willing to pay for a policy increasing groundwater quantity than if they were exposed to a water security frame. The results show how depoliticizing critical water resource management and adjusting the national and state discourse to emphasize water security can avoid the emboldened opposition that an incongruent, climate change narrative can cause. Jones and Song (2014) showcase how individualists are positively influenced by an egalitarian cultural story frame that focuses on the moral issue of overconsumption that needs correcting to protect the community’s interests. A focus on water security is that narrative about overconsumption of a shared critical resource. It focuses on wells drying up, the buying of bottled water to fulfill basic needs and the passing down of parched property. It is a story that speaks to the intimate and daily reality of a central, rural Californian.