Understanding Your Risk and Impacts

 Case Studies and Scenario Building

Case studies and scenario building are techniques that can provide additional understanding of how drought has affected or could affect your activities. These methods can be used to understand changing drought impacts and vulnerability as well as determine the possible effects of implementing drought mitigation actions.

Case Studies
A case study involves collecting and presenting detailed information about a situation in order to provide as complete an understanding of an event or situation as possible. These studies are generally more qualitative and focus on understanding the “how” and “why” questions of the situation or event. Therefore, they are a good way to document how drought affects an area or activity, the underlying reasons why the impacts occurred, and the effects of existing mitigation actions. For an example of a vulnerability case study conducted on a drought event, see: Drought and Ranching in Arizona: A Case Study of Vulnerability

Scenario Building
Scenario building involves exploring a range of possible futures to better understand potential cause–and-effect relationships. According to Warrick et al. (2003), scenarios can be developed by considering the current situation and drivers that propel the present into the future, or by designing a snapshot of a future time and working backward to determine how that state can be achieved. In the case of drought, scenarios can be developed highlighting how changing vulnerability factors (e.g., population increase, a reduction in water supply, climate change, etc.) could influence the effects of drought and potential effects of proposed drought mitigation actions.

Scenarios as a Tool in Water Management: Considerations of Scale and Application
A book chapter describing the scenario building process in United Kingdom water management

Reference
Warwick, C.; Bakker, K.; Downing, T.; and Lonsdale, K. 2003. “Scenarios as a tool in water management: Considerations of scale and application”, in Alsarhan, A.S.; and Wood, W.W. (eds.). Water Resources Perspectives: Evaluation, Management and Policy. Elsevier, Amsterdam.