The Changing Southwest provides a broad picture of the social, economic, and land-use patterns and trends for the region—the driving forces that influence the exposure and sensitivity of humans and the environment to climate change—and highlights the key laws and agencies that deal with natural resources management, climate assessments, and climate-related policies in the region.
Citation:
Theobald, D. M., W. R. Travis, M. A. Drummond, and E. S. Gordon. 2013. “The Changing Southwest.” In Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States: A Report Prepared for the National Climate Assessment, edited by G. Garfin, A. Jardine, R. Merideth, M. Black, and S. LeRoy, 37–55. A report by the Southwest Climate Alliance. Washington, DC: Island Press.
David M. Theobald (National Park Service)
William R. Travis (University of Colorado)
Mark A. Drummond (U.S. Geological Survey)
Eric S. Gordon (University of Colorado)
Key Findings
The Southwest is home to a variety of natural landscapes that are important to the region’s climate and that respond uniquely to climate change.
Complex patterns of land ownership and management across landscapes will make it difficult to coordinate decision making about climate changes.
Rapid population growth and urban expansion across the region will increase demand for water and other natural resources.
Decisions about climate-change adaptation will need to consider many geographic scales, different time frames, and multiple governing entities.
The Southwest economy has grown rapidly since the 1970s, with the finance-insurance-real estate-service sector showing the most growth.
Figure Gallery
Figure 3.1: Important physiographic and ecoregional features of the Southwest. Water basin names are in upper-case, ecoregional names in lower-case. Source: ESRI ArcDate v10.
Figure 3.2: Land cover types in the Southwest. See Appendix Table A3.1 for classifications. Source: USGS (2010).
Figure 3.3: The proportion of land cover types found in the Southwest. See Appendix Table A3.1 for classifications. Source: USGS (2010).
Figure 3.4: Spatial patterns of ownership and land cover types, arrayed along elevation gradients, are two critical aspects that hint at the complexities of coordinating adaptation strategies in the Southwest. All data up to 2010 taken from the US Census Bureau, with state specific projections from: AZ Dept. of Economic Security, CA Dept. of Finance, CO State Demographer’s Office, NV State Demographer’s Office, NM Bureau of Business and Economic Research, UT Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, and UT State Demographer’s Office.
Figure 3.5: Rapid population growth in the Southwest is expected to continue. The current (2010) population is 56 million, and an additional 19 million people are projected to be living in the region by 2030. Source: US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (http:// www.bea.gov/regional/ index.htm).
Figure 3.6: The Southwestern economy grew rapidly from the 1970s through 2008, with a decline commencing with the recession. The strongest economic sectors were finance, insurance, real estate, and services, followed by construction and manufacturing, trade, and government. The more traditional natural resource economies remain important but provide only a small portion of the GDP of the region (shown in millions of dollars). Note that previous to 1998 income by industry were defined using the Standard Industrial Classification, and in 1998 and after were defined using the North American Industry Classification System. This definitional change resulted in a slight downtick in Construction and manufacturing, Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, and Transportation and public utilities, and the up-tick in Finance, insurance, real estate, and services. Longer-term trends (>5-10 years) remain robust to this definitional change. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.html)
Figure 3.7: Percent of total state area affected by net change in land use and land cover types from 1973 to 2000 for the six Southwestern states. See Appendix Table A3.2 for class descriptions. Source: USGS land cover trends project (http://landcovertrends.usgs.gov); Loveland et al. (2002).
Figure 3.8: The pattern of urban, exurban, and rural residential development for 2000 and forecast for 2050. Source: Bierwagen et al. (2010).