Access to safe, affordable water is a necessity for human health and well-being. But when droughts strike areas that are already water-stressed, water providers are forced to enact measures to curtail water usage or invest in supplies from more expensive sources, which can increase costs for consumers. According to a recent study from the Fletcher Lab at Stanford University, published in Nature Water, these measures can disproportionately affect water bills for low-income households, making water more costly for the most vulnerable people.
Researchers examined how different types of drought, various resilience strategies, and household behavior can affect the affordability of water. (Image credit: Shutterstock/Piyaset)
“A low-income household often has a different response to curtailment measures and surcharges because of how much water they used before the drought,” said Benjamin Rachunok, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford and is now an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. “This can lead to different affordability outcomes for low- and high-income people, even if the same processes and policies are being applied to everyone.”
The researchers found that in some cases, low-income households end up seeing bills rise during droughts, while high-income households see their bills drop. Their work illuminates the interconnected mechanisms that affect affordability and may be able to help water planners and policymakers better understand the potential impacts of long- and short-term drought responses.
Modeling drought response
Drawing on public data from the 2011 to 2017 drought in California, the researchers built a model to examine how different combinations of drought length and severity, various resilience strategies, and household behavior can affect the affordability of water.
“The standard way of thinking about the connection between water scarcity and affordability has been to look at the cost of supplying water and how that cost is passed on to users through rate design,” said Sarah Fletcher, senior author of the paper and an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in Stanford Engineering and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “But in order to fully understand the impacts of drought on water affordability, we have to include people’s behavioral responses to how the drought is unfolding and the restrictions that are put in place.”
When there is a water shortage, providers often ask consumers to cut back on their water usage, while applying a drought surcharge to bills to make up for lost revenue. Fletcher and Rachunok found that high-income households can cut back significantly, lowering their average water bill even with the addition of a surcharge. Lower-income households, however, tend to have less flexibility in their water usage. Even when they are able to curtail their water use, the drop does not make up for the additional cost of the surcharge.
Water utilities may also invest in infrastructure, such as desalination or water-recycling plants, to increase their water supply. The model showed that in all drought scenarios, these projects increase costs and reduce affordability for low-income households.
“Affordability is a key part of water access,” Fletcher said. “If we think about water security as including affordability for low-income populations, then some of the expensive technological measures that we often consider might actually harm water security by making water unaffordable for a larger number of people.”
An affordable future
Water is typically considered affordable when it does not exceed between 2% and 4% of a household’s income. While the cost of supplying water is the primary driver of water bills, even a small bill increase during droughts could make it difficult for some households to afford the water they need.
By providing insight into the mechanisms that affect affordability, Fletcher and Rachunok hope to help cities evaluate different approaches for long-term water supply planning. They are continuing to investigate how rate structures and other drought management techniques affect people’s behavior and are working to develop a generalized approach to help regulators make the best decisions for an uncertain future.
“We have a changing climate and changing water needs,” Fletcher said. “We have to develop approaches that allow us to adapt in robust ways so that we can still have water systems that are reliable, cost effective, and provide all the services that we need. And we should really be centering the needs of vulnerable communities as we do that adaptation.”
Fletcher is the Lee and Kitty Price center fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
This work was funded by the Stanford Impact Labs and the UPS Endowment Fund at Stanford University.
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FAQs
Here are just a few different examples of economic impacts: Farmers may lose money if a drought destroys their crops. If a farmer's water supply is too low, the farmer may have to spend more money on irrigation or to drill new wells. Ranchers may have to spend more money on feed and water for their animals.
How does drought affect households? ›
Drought can lead to decreased water quantity and quality, increased incidence of illness or disease, increased mortality rates, and adverse mental health outcomes as livelihoods are challenged. During drought conditions, fuels for wildfire, such as grasses and trees, can dry out and become more flammable.
What are at least 2 effects of drought in an ecosystem? ›
The environmental consequences of drought include losses in plant growth; increases in fire and insect outbreaks; altered rates of carbon, nutrient, and water cycling; and local species extinctions.
How does increased drought affect us? ›
Droughts may lead to higher water costs, rationing, or even the decimation of important water sources like wells, as a drought did in a rural California community in 2021.
Can drought cause poverty? ›
The increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires and droughts threaten lives in these front-line communities, driving people from their homes and jeopardizing food sources and livelihoods. All these effects increase the likelihood of more conflict, hunger and poverty.
What is the best solution for drought? ›
Construct New Infrastructure
- Build infrastructure needed for aquifer storage and recovery. ...
- Diversify options for water supply and expand current sources. ...
- Increase water storage capacity. ...
- Install low-head dam for saltwater wedge and freshwater pool separation.
Droughts bring the most risk to areas with high-pressure weather systems that are already prone to desertification. Developing countries are also more vulnerable to the socio-economic effects of drought due to a large percentage of their population being employed in the agriculture industry.
Are there any positive effects of drought? ›
But some positives to come from the drought include changes in recycling and conservation practices, as well as technological advances in purifying polluted groundwater and converting saltwater into freshwater in energy efficient ways.
How do you live through a drought? ›
Indoor Water Conservation Tips During a Drought
- Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other similar waste in the trash rather than the toilet.
- Take short showers instead of baths. ...
- Avoid letting the water run while brushing your teeth, washing your face or shaving.
Depending upon how severe the conditions get and how long they last, drought can devastate crops, dry out forests, reduce food and water available for wildlife and livestock, restrict recreational activities, and stress businesses and economies.
Drought is characterized by a lack of precipitation—such as rain, snow, or sleet—for a protracted period of time, resulting in a water shortage. While droughts occur naturally, human activity, such as water use and management, can exacerbate dry conditions.
What are 2 facts about droughts? ›
However, drought can have drastic and long-term effects on vegetation, animals, and people. Since 1900, more than 11 million people have died and more than 2 billion people have been affected by drought. Drought is also one of the costliest weather-related disasters.
What are four harmful effects of drought? ›
The possible public health impacts of drought include:
- compromised quantity and quality of drinking water;
- increased recreational risks;
- effects on air quality;
- diminished living conditions related to energy, air quality, and sanitation and hygiene;
- mental health effects related to economic and job losses;
The country that was most at risk from drought in 2020 was Somalia, with an index score of five out of a possible five. Many of the most at risk countries were in Africa, including Zimbabwe, Djibouti, and South Africa.
Which two continents have the highest water scarcity? ›
The most water-stressed regions are the Middle East and North Africa, where 83% of the population is exposed to extremely high water stress, and South Asia, where 74% is exposed.
How does lack of water affect the economy? ›
They spend hours, multiple times per day, waiting in long lines at community water kiosks or walking to distant sources like rivers and ponds to find it. This is time spent, and income not earned. An estimated $260 billion is lost globally each year due to lack of basic water and sanitation.
Do droughts cause inflation? ›
A drought shock, on the other hand, results in an immediate increase in headline inflation above its initial level, which lasts over the long term and amounts to about 1.5 percentage points compared to if the shock had not occurred.
How does drought affect lives and business? ›
Examples of other impacts include costs to homeowners due to loss of residential landscaping, degradation of urban environments due to loss of landscaping, agricultural land fallowing and associated job loss, degradation of fishery habitat, and tree mortality with damage to forest ecosystems.
What are the negative impacts that desertification has on the economy? ›
It threatens sustainable development and the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Desertification can result in the loss of soil fertility, biodiversity, and water resources, leading to increased poverty, food insecurity, and conflict.
