Adaptation to the Effects of Suburbanization and Drought in Central Massachusetts

Central Massachusetts receives more than 1100 mm of precipitation each year on average, with little inter-annual variation. Despite this, water supply shortfalls have become increasingly common, demanding responses (adaptations) from community water systems. This paper examines the process of adapting to drought in a ten-town study area. A grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis was used. Methods consisted of archival work and interviews, which investigated how structural and agent-based forces affect adaptation to drought. Suburbanization revealed itself as a major stress on water systems, jeopardizing and complicating efforts to adjust to water shortages. Structural forces and local actors both had significant influence over adaptive capacity, with the strongest and most comprehensive improvements coming from those efforts that incorporated the input and knowledge of local actors into the structural context of their decisions