Managing beyond water: utilizing community well-being interviews in the Upper Yakima River Basin, USA, for climate change adaptation

In contemporary, natural resources dependent and specialized communities, community well-being is connected to the environment. Understanding the local connections between community well-being and the environment can provide a more complete understanding of how to manage social-ecological systems and promote community resilience. Herein, we combine semi-structured community well-being interviews with hydrologic modeling using the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model to suggest climate adaptation pathways for a diverse set of community interests. We found that community well-being across the Yakima River Basin was connected to water, snow, and the environment through recreation opportunities, aesthetics, livelihoods, and having clean water and air. Additionally, many community members noticed changes in snowpack conditions and were aware that snow conditions affect water resources and local agriculture. We identified that community concerns, resilience, and innovation centered around preserving the Yakima Valley’s historic and future potential as a regional and global agricultural and recreational hub. We discussed two case studies that highlight how climate adaptation plans can be expanded to include other groups, resources, and governance foci. The first case is about the social aspect of sustained days of high heat and the second is about an expressed false sense of security with snowmelt. We do this by incorporating modeled future projections of consecutive high heat days and snowmelt timing. By integrating well-being interviews with hydrologic modeling, we show how we can create more climate-adapted and resilient social-ecological systems that can preserve and maximize well-being in the context of changing environmental conditions. Other natural resources dependent communities also have connections between community well-being and the environment, thus a similar approach can be used in future research to explore the location-specific context.