My Drought is Different from Your Drought: A Case Study of the Policy Implications of Multiple Ways of Knowing Drought

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between scientific operationalizations of drought and the politics of water management during times of drought. Drawing on a case study of the 2007–09 drought in Georgia in the southeastern United States, this paper examines how multiple ways of knowing drought were produced, circulated, and utilized by stakeholders. Moreover, this paper explores the policy implications of these multiple ways of knowing drought. Data were drawn from archival research, direct observation, and semistructured interviews with members of the green industry (self-identified members of the urban agricultural sector); state environmental regulators; and local governmental officials. Data were analyzed to examine the interplay between science and politics. This paper highlights the intersections of drought management policy and 1) scale and operationalization of drought; 2) how stakeholders know drought; and 3) societal context within which knowledge of drought is produced, circulated, and utilized. This research demonstrates how stakeholders can leverage the complexity of drought to pursue their political goals and change the way water is managed during times of drought. Even in instances where there are different knowledges of drought, stakeholders can still change the societal context, as the green industry did in Georgia in 2009. This paper argues that scientists and policymakers who work on drought management need to consider how knowledges of drought are coconstituted through interactions between science, nature, and society.