WMOD00398

• Project Name: Project Skywater
• Title: Precipitation Management and the Environment - An Overview of the Skywater IX Conference
• Date: 9/1/1977
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

agriculture, industry, and development, all of which would tend to reduce the available habitat.
The same high priority was accorded to effects of development on other animal habitats.
Second-priority species.-Small mammals are important as they are the food base for most
predators and rap tors, and as competitors with livestock for forage. Augmented precipitation will
favor some species and disfavor others. Changes in the abundance of relative species is difficult to
predict but the overall effects should be moderate. Land conversions will be very important for
most small mammals.
Songbirds are the special focus of many naturalists, and the ecological role of these birds is
important. Precipitation management would have an effect if it were to delay the nesting season,
increase exposure to adverse weather during nesting, or if it were to delay or reduce the
availability of important food resources such as insects and fruits. The impact might be greatest
on species whose nesting seasons are genetically timed.
For sage grouse, increased winter snow cover would tend to reduce forage, but increased
summer rainfall would tend to improve their habitat with respect to cover and forage. Nesting
mortality could be increased if heavy May and June rainstorms were increased. Land use changes
that reduce habitat pose the most serious threat.
Species composition among raptorial birds will change if a large geographic region is su bject to
habitat conversions (land use changes) as a result of precipitation management. Swainson and
ferruginous hawks are expected to give way toward red-tailed hawks, marshhawks, and American
kestrels. Great horned owls may find increased habitat in tree plantings that are associated with
human dwellings.
Conclusions.-In its summary, the animals workshop group reemphasized its concern for the
effect that development and changes in land use, potentially flowing from precipitation
management, would have on animal habitats.

Societal (Dr. W. Henry Lambright, Convener)

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The Bureau of Reclamation is seen acting as an innovator where a national policy toward
precipitation management is lacking and various barriers to its widespread adoption are present.
The goal of the societal workshop group was to identify all the components of the social system
and determine what effects precipitation management would have on them. The consumers of
precipitation management were identified as direct users and affected bystanders, in onsite,
offsite, downstream, and other settings.
Incentives and barriers.- The incentives for adoption of precipitation management are the
anticipated economic benefit, plus the environmental aspects of "clean" power and high-quality
water, and the power of a political constituency desirous of these benefits.
The principal barriers to widespread adoption of precipitation management are the"
heterogeneity of needs and concerns among potential users, lack of an adequate water-pricing
mechanism to determine who pays for what benefit, lack of demonstrated capability or a
scientific consensus supporting its validity, lack of sensitivity to people or of a mechanism for ", I
compensating the disbenefited, and that no one level of government is appropriately situated to
take action.
Institutional framework for adoption and use.-If it is to make optimal decisions, an
institutional framework must represent both users and bystanders, must cooperate with other

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