Overview

Humanity is modifying the atmospheric branch of the water cycle, via land-use change, deliberate weather modification, and via climate change. But there are currently not mechanisms for managing or governing these flows of water.

In this work, we introduce a new approach for classifying atmospheric water flows as an economic good (e.g., something that is shared like a 'common pool good', or something that is privately held like a 'private good'). Then, we explore this classification, using structured futures methods, which resulted in story-based future scenarios (see below)

This approach led us to identify particular policy implications and research frontiers for this topic, with an emphasis on revealing a pathway toward more thoughtful management of atmospheric water.

Journal Article & media

The article is published Open Access in the journal Global Sustainability. In April 2024, CSU SOURCE ran a story describing the work, and has been covered in other outlets, such as Popular Science. 

Stories and Art

The ten stories developed by the author team are found below, together with commissioned artwork that illustrate the stories. Click the titles or artwork below to check-out these stories.

(Individual story authors are indicated on each story page; the artwork was created by Fabio Comin.)