Who or what makes rainfall? Relational and instrumental paradigms for human impacts on atmospheric water cycling

Lisa Tanika, Charles Wamucii, Lisa Best, Elisabeth G Lagneaux, Margaret Githinji, Meine van Noordwijk

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Human impacts on water cycles (HIWC) can include modification of rainfall. Spatial and temporal variation in rainfall, with implications for ‘water security’, has been attributed to multiple causal pathways, with different options for human agency. Ten historical paradigms of the cause of rainfall imply shifts from ‘nature controlling humans’ to ‘human control over nature’ and ‘human control over other humans’. Paradigm shifts have consequences for human efforts, interacting with social–ecological systems, to appease spirits, please rainmakers, expose ‘rainfakers’, protect forest, plant trees, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, apply cloud seeding, or declare rainfall modification an illegitimate tool in warfare. The ‘instrumental’ and ‘relational’ values of atmospheric water cycling depend on cognitive paradigms of rainfall causation as represented in local, public/policy, or science-based ecological knowledge. The paradigms suggest a wide range of human decision points that require reinterpretation of rationality for any paradigm shift, as happened with the forest–rainfall linkages.
Original languageEnglish
Article number101300
JournalCurrent Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Volume63
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2023
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We acknowledge Marielos Peña-Claros and Gert Jan Hofstede from Wageningen University & Research and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.

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