Laura Bakkensen

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Journals/Publications

• Bakkensen, L. A., Bernat, R. F., Eden, S., & Megdal, S. B. (2023).

  Stakeholder Opinions on the Issues of the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District and Policy Alternatives

  . Water. doi:10.3390/w15061166
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  Arizona has been at the forefront of groundwater management since the establishment of the Groundwater Management Act in 1980. The Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD) is a groundwater management mechanism that facilitates development in regions of Central Arizona where the use of groundwater is limited by law. Several stakeholders have raised concerns about some of the CAGRD’s operations; however, stakeholders have yet to agree on the definition of the problems, let alone how the CAGRD might be improved. This study uses statistical and inductive thematic content analysis of a survey to determine (1) the CAGRD issues that stakeholders view as problems and (2) whether opinions differ significantly among different stakeholder groups. This study also uses deductive thematic content analysis to examine semi-structured interviews with CAGRD experts in order to find potential solutions to the CAGRD-related issues that are considered problems by stakeholders. The survey results show that long-term uncertainties related to the availability of renewable water supplies and hydrologic disconnect, where groundwater pumping and replenishment take place in different sub-basins, are stakeholders’ chief concerns. Sector affiliation and CAGRD membership status are associated with stakeholders’ opinions on some, but not all, questions. The potential policy changes offered address problems identified by stakeholders. This research will inform forthcoming policy discussions regarding groundwater management in Central Arizona as the state’s decision makers look to improve the CAGRD in the context of water scarcity exacerbated by climate change.
• Adeel, Z., Alarc'on, A. M., Bakkensen, L., Franco, E., Garfin, G. M., McPherson, R. A., M'endez, K., Roudaut, M. B., Saffari, H., & Wen, X. (2020). Developing a comprehensive methodology for evaluating economic impacts of floods in Canada, Mexico and the United States. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 50, 101861.
• Bakkensen, L., & Ma, L. (2020). Sorting Over Flood Risk and Implications for Policy Reform. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
• Bakkensen, L., & Schuler, P. J. (2020). A Preference for Power: Willingness to Pay for Energy Reliability Versus Fuel Type in Vietnam. Energy Policy.
• Bakkensen, L., Ding, X., & Ma, L. (2019). Flood Risk and Salience: New Evidence from the Sunshine State. Southern Economic Journal.
• Hanlon, J., Olivier, T., Bakkensen, L., & Schlager, E. (2018). Institutional design for a complex commons: variations in the design of credible commitments and the provision of public goods. Public Administration.
• Wen, X., Mendez, K., McPherson, R. A., Garfin, G. M., Franco, E., Cabrera-Rivera, O., Bakkensen, L., & Adeel, Z. (2021). Challenges in and Opportunities for International Collaboration: Costing Flood Damages and Losses across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
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  AbstractFlooding, including inland and coastal flooding, is one of the most devastating and costly natural hazards in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Understanding the true and comprehensive economic costs of floods is central to addressing their impacts, allocating adequate resources for monitoring and preparedness, and building resilient communities. Recent research conducted by the authors indicated that flood-costing methods vary greatly among federal and sub-national jurisdictions across the three North American countries. Because the rigor and consistency of existing datasets across the three countries vary significantly, it is also difficult to determine the economic impacts of cross-border events. To fully understand and respond to this challenge, a collaborative trinational research project supported by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) brought together experts and representatives from governmental agencies, academia and research community, Indigenous communities, and industry stakeholders. Several findings from the project pertain to international collaboration around flood-related sciences in North America. We found that working across disciplines and economic sectors requires harmonizing of terminology and concepts and concerted efforts to overcome any linguistic barriers. We also confirmed that the level of scientific achievement in this field does not automatically translate into on-the-ground application in a uniform and cohesive manner. Further, the differences in data collation and analysis methods across the three countries are an impediment to developing cohesive and mutually complementary responses to intense flooding events. We argue that creating comprehensive, consistent, and cohesive data gathering and analysis is crucial to increased collaboration on responding to floods between Canada, Mexico, and the United States; the CEC project offers specific, policy-relevant recommendations about how such collaborative approaches can be created.
• Bakkensen, L., Fox-Lent, C., Read, L., & Linkov, I. (2017). Quantifying and Validating Resilience in the Context of Natural Disasters. Risk Analysis.
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  The paper is collaborative work with researchers at the Risk and Decision Science Team in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
• Seo, N. N., & Bakkensen, L. (2017). Is Tropical Cyclone Surge, Not Intensity, What Kills So Many People in South Asia?. Weather, Climate, and Society.
• Bakkensen, L. A., & Mendelsohn, R. O. (2016). Risk and Adaptation: Evidence from Global Hurricane Damages and Fatalities. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
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  I submitted a substantially updated version of the first chapter of my doctoral thesis to the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, a top field journal in Environmental Economics.
• Seo, S. N., & Bakkensen, L. (2016). Did Adaptation Strategies Work? High Fatalities from Tropical Cyclones in the North Indian Ocean and Future Vulnerability Under Global Warming. Natural Hazards.
• Bakkensen, L., & Larson, W. (2014). Population matters when modeling hurricane fatalities. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
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  I was lead author on a peer-reviewed comment published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The project was both submitted and published in Fall 2014.
• Mendelsohn, R., Emanuel, K., Chonabayashi, S., & Bakkensen, L. (2012). The impact of climate change on global tropical cyclone damage. NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE, 2(3), 205-209.
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  One potential impact from greenhouse-gas emissions is increasing damage from extreme events. Here, we quantify how climate change may affect tropical cyclone damage. We find that future increases in income are likely to double tropical cyclone damage even without climate change. Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of high-intensity storms in selected ocean basins depending on the climate model. Climate change doubles economic damage, but the result depends on the parameters of the damage function. Almost all of the tropical cyclone damage from climate change tends to be concentrated in North America, East Asia and the Caribbean-Central American region. This paper provides a framework to combine atmospheric science and economics, but some effects are not yet modelled, including sea-level rise and adaptation.
• Bakkensen, L. (2007). Student-Perspective Sources of Environmental Learning in South Korea. Journal of the Korean Geographical Society.
• Hazlett, D., & Bakkensen, L. (2005). Global Trade in CO2 Permits: A Classroom Experiment. Perspectives in Economic Education Research.

Others

• Adeel, Z., Alarcon, A. M., Bakkensen, L., Franco, E., Garfin, G. M., McPherson, R. A., Mendez, K., Roudaut, M., Saffari, H., & Wen, X. (2021, July). Developing a Comprehensive Methodology for Evaluating Economic Impacts of Floods in Canada, Mexico, and the United States: Extended Abstract.. Commission for Environmental Cooperation. http://www.cec.org/publications/developing-a-comprehensive-methodology-for-evaluating-economic-impacts-of-floods-in-canada-mexico-and-the-united-states/
• Wen, X., Rae, L. M., Alarcon-Ferreira, A., Saffari, H., Franco, E., Mendez, K., Bakkensen, L., Garfin, G. M., McPherson, R., & Adeel, Z. (2021, August). CEC Policy Brief on Flood Costing. Understanding the Comprehensive Economic Impact of Floods in Canada, Mexico, and the United States (v.2). Commission for Environmental Cooperation. http://www.cec.org/publications/cec-policy-brief-on-flood-costing-understanding-the-comprehensive-economic-impact-of-floods-in-canada-mexico-and-the-united-states/