Resilience in an urban socioecological system: water management as a driver of landscape 

and biodiversity in the Fresno‐Clovis Metropolitan Area, California.
Project Summary

Intellectual Merit: Urban land and water management decisions result from dynamic interactions
between institutional and individual level factors. Landscaping and irrigation at any particular residence,
for example, is a product of geography, hydrology, soil, and other local environmental conditions, the
homeowners’ cultural preferences, socioeconomic status, neighborhood dynamics, as well as zoning laws,
market conditions, city policies, and county/state/federal government regulations. Since land and water
management are key determinants of habitat for other species, urban biodiversity is strongly driven by the
outcome of interactions between these variables. This project will address the significance of water as a
key variable in the Fresno Clovis Metropolitan Area (FCMA), shaping current patterns of landscape and
biodiversity. This is additionally important because Fresno is making changes in water management, by
installing water meters (like Clovis has done) in an effort to reduce overall water use. Over the next two
years, we will analyze current patterns of water use in the FCMA, which can serve as a baseline before
water-metering is fully implemented in Fresno. We will focus on: 1) institutional policy and decision
making, 2) individual homeowner decision making, 3) landscape structure at multiple spatial scales, and,
4) patterns in the distribution of plant and bird diversity in the FCMA. Within a GIS framework, the
project will analyze the above interactions using a variety of data obtained from: 1) aerial imagery;
surveys of 2) institutions (city/county offices), 3) and individuals; 4) field surveys of habitat and plant
diversity, and 5) bird census conducted by volunteer citizens for the Fresno Bird Count (http://
fresnobirds.org/). The hypothesis that metering will reduce water usage will be tested by analyzing the
effect of Fresno’s introduction of water meters compared to Clovis, in a comparative Before-After-
Control-Impact experimental framework.
Broader Impact: The research will be conducted by faculty and students from CSU-Fresno, UC-Davis,
UC-Merced, and USDA-Forest Service working in close partnership with the planning, public utilities,
and water departments of Fresno, Clovis, and Fresno County, California Dept. of Fish & Game, Audubon
Society, and citizen participants. Student participation in the project through course-driven activities,
independent studies, and graduate research, will enhance their critical thinking skills and equip them to
apply academic knowledge to real world problems of natural resource governance. The project will also
advance public engagement with science through citizen scientists helping measure biodiversity, survey
respondents providing data on water use patterns and landscaping decisions. In addition to publication in
scholarly journals, project results will be disseminated to all agencies/stakeholders involved, and the
general public, via: an online data and map portal; local news media; presentations at local fora, e.g., the
Central Valley Café Scientifique, Fresno Audubon Society, Archop; and events at local schools, public
libraries, and urban parks. Insights generated into the dynamics of the FCMA as a coupled socio-
ecological system (SES )should help guide future policy and planning for governing not only water, but
other resources as well, towards greater sustainability even as the region prepares for greater urban
growth. Results will also inform broader theory development to understand urban SES’s, with the FCMA
serving as a model system, especially for cities in the arid regions of the US and elsewhere in the world.
The theoretical framework developed to understand the governance dynamics of water should be
applicable to other natural resource governance systems in other SES’s throughout the world. Future
effort in this ULTRA will expand these analyses to other aspects of natural resource governance in the
FCMA, and develop and test new fundamental theory about the dynamics of urban coupled human and
natural systems, and related theory in various disciplines.

Katti et al 2009