Savannah Hobbs

Dr. Pompeii

GEOG 318

March 17, 2017

CA Drought Vulnerability

There have been several papers written looking into how the drought effects the

economic level of California. If the drought water supplies from 2014 stay the same, in 2017 it is

predicted that the effects of the drought will be 6% worse than the drought was in 2015

(Howitt). Ground water is consistently being depleted during the drought, the less water there

is, the less crops can be grown possibly leads to less jobs needed and an increase in poverty.

Research has shown that the San Joaquin Valley is the region with the highest rates of

unemployment and poverty in the United States (Christian-Smith). Although there was job loss

in the San Joaquin Valley, the jobs were not lost in the agriculture sector according to Christian-

Smith. Between 2005-2010, all cities in the San Joaquin Valley had an increase in

unemployment from 8-10% in 2005 to 16-19% in 2010. Research has been contradicting when

looking at the poverty and unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley. In a study at UC Davis, the

research has shown that the ongoing drought has not caused an increase in unemployment or

an increase in the poverty (Avalos). The same study did find that some counties did have an

increase in unemployment, 4 counties had a decrease in the unemployment percentage;

Fresno, Kern, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus. This background made it difficult because they

contradict each other. I decided to ask the question, how did the CA Drought, at its peak,
interact with socioeconomic factors? I used the data to answer this question and produce three

original maps of California.

The data used was from the drought monitor for California on September 2, 2014.

According to research, September 2014 was the driest month and year California experienced

during the drought. Also used was the 2010 Census Tracts from the United States Census

Bureau. The Census Tracts were downloaded into its own geodatabase with several factors of

how each tract was measured. I decided to consider the data represented by percent of people

and families living below the poverty line for the past 12 months, percent of population who

had only attained a High School diploma, and lastly I considered percent of population who

identified as either White, Black, Hispanic or Asian. I wanted to find how poverty and the

drought interacted with education level and race identification. In order to look at these

interactions, I had to join the attribute tables of the census tracts with the drought monitor.

The difficulty with joining the two tables is two different levels of the drought level could be

going through one tract. I determined that the least skewed data would come from averaging

the drought monitor levels. After the two tables were joined, I made a vulnerability field by

multiplying Drought Monitor average by the percent living below the poverty line. I used

graduated colors to show the most vulnerable tracts in black and the least vulnerable in light

grey. From there I took the top 8 most vulnerable tracts with scores between 300-400. I then

selected out the 8 most vulnerable tracts and looked at education level by using a graduated

symbol and the symbols had a graduated color to make it more distinct between the different

tracts. Then I took the same 8 vulnerable tracts and put a pie chart showing the percentage of
race each person identified as. Lastly I went into layout view to add a legend and title as well as

labels to show the city each tract was located in.

I was able to change the data I received by making it original by joining the drought

monitor index to the percent living below the poverty line and creating a vulnerability index.

This allowed me to see what parts of cities are most vulnerable to the drought and poverty. I

could then represent the most vulnerable cities by showing graduated symbols of which

vulnerable tract has the lowest and highest percent of people with only a high school degree. I

was then able to represent four different races into a pie chart for each vulnerable tract. I made

the race data original by combining multiple races from different columns of the attribute table.

The results I found for the top 8 most vulnerable tracts were found in the following 8

cities; Coalinga (1), Napa (2), Palmdale (3), Long Beach (4), Boyle Heights (5), Porterville (6),
Westwood (7), and Downtown Los Angles (8).

Based off previous research I was expecting to find all or most of the tracts to be in San Joaquin

Valley. But I believe that the results I found are still convincing. When thinking of Napa, most

would not think that the city would be number two for vulnerability of poverty and the

drought. But when looking at a satellite image of the tract, I could see that portion of Napa is

not the richer area. This is where, I can only assume, the less educated live who work at

vineyards harvesting grapes for wine sales. Although Napa isnt thought of as an agriculture

city, I believe this tract is where the population agriculture works live. According to Census
Reporter, 15% of the population under the age of 18 in Napa are living below the poverty line.

As well as 9% of seniors over the age of 65 are living in poverty. 10.6% of the total population in

Napa are living below the poverty line. This data shows that even though Napa may not seem

as though poverty exists, it still does. The same goes for Long Beach, a city that most of the

class was shocked to see on the map as well. But again, when looking at the satellite image of

the tract, it was densely populated area in an industrial area. The people living here most likely

work in factories in Long Beach with a lower education level. In Long Beach, the 19.2% of the

total population is living below the poverty line (Census Tracts). When looking at the percent of

high school graduates, Napa, Coalinga, Porterville and Downtown Los Angeles had the percent
of the population with a high school diploma between 11-36%.
I did not look at other educational levels so it makes it hard to predict if these cities have higher

percentages in college degrees or higher percentage of population with less than a high school

degree. I found the results from the map hard to understand in finding a correlation between

the drought and poverty vulnerability and then looking at education level and race

identification.

If I had more time and resources to work on this project, I would want to make a new

vulnerability index based on other factors. After my presentation, I decided that I should
consider making a new vulnerability index by combining the drought monitor and education

level of the population that did not attain a high school diploma. This I found 4 most vulnerable

tracts and they make more sense to the previous research I have seen before. All the tracts

were in cities that are in the Central Valley. If I could continue to work on this project I would

like to do what I did for my original maps by looking at the top 4 vulnerable cities and use

graduated symbols for the tracts to see which ones have the highest poverty rate and identified

race. I would also like to look at how unemployment factors in the vulnerable cities to see how

the populations jobs are affected by the drought. There are hundreds of other factors the

census tracts database had. I would also want to play around with different vulnerability scales

with the drought monitor to compare the different cities the most vulnerable tracts come up in.

If I had more time I would have also liked to look at different time periods of the drought and

look at the vulnerability when the drought first began and look at the drought in 2016 when the

drought was ending.

 Works Cited

Avalos, Antonio. Impact of the Drought in the San Joaquin Valley of California- The Economic

Impact of the Drought in the California San Joaquin Valley: An Expanded Look.

University Initiatives (2015): 58-74.

Census Profile: Long Beach, CA. Census Reporter. Web. March 12, 2017.

Census Profile: Napa, CA. Census Reporter. Web. March 12, 2017.

Christian-Smith, Juliet, Morgan C. Levy, and Peter H. Gleick. Impacts of the California Drought

from 2007-2009. Pacific Institute (2011): 59-64.

Data Access and Dissemination Systems (DADS). American FactFinder- Search. American

FactFinder Search. Oct 5, 2010. Web. March 14, 2017.

Howitt, Richard E., Duncan MacEwan, Josu Medelln-Azuara, Jay R. Lund, Daniel A. Sumner

(2015). Economic Analysis of the 2015 Drought for California Agriculture. Center for

Watershed Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, 16 pp.