Climate Variability and Water Infrastructure: Historical Experience in the Western United States

Zeynep K. Hansen, Gary Libecap and Scott E. Lowe

No 15558, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Greater historical perspective is needed to enlighten current debate about future human responses to higher temperatures and increased precipitation variation. We analyze the impact of climatic conditions and variability on agricultural production in five semi-arid western states. We assemble county-level data on dams and other major water infrastructure; agricultural crop mixes and yields; precipitation and temperature; soil quality, and topography. Using this extensive data set, we analyze the impact of water infrastructure investments on crop mix and yields in affected counties relative to similarly-endowed counties that lack such infrastructure. We find that water infrastructure smoothes agricultural crop production and increases the likelihood of a successful harvest, especially during times of severe drought or excessive precipitation.

JEL-codes: N5 N51 N52 Q25 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
Note: DAE EEE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Climate Variability and Water Infrastructure: Historical Experience in the Western United States , Zeynep K. Hansen, Gary D. Libecap, Scott E. Lowe. in The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present , Libecap and Steckel. 2011

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15558.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Climate Variability and Water Infrastructure: Historical Experience in the Western United States (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15558

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15558

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().