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Homework answers / question archive / A topic of research should be chosen
A topic of research should be chosen. It can be either a research paper or a startup concept. Once the topic is finalized, the draft research questions (based on which objectives of the study will be formed) must be developed (not more than three). Each selection must be discussed in detail with logic and rationale. Reasons for the topic should be discussed first followed by discussion on selection of each of the research questions.
Research and summary
The vulnerability and resilience certain community-based irrigation systems
Introduction and background information
The purpose of this research project is to examine specific community-based irrigation systems known as acequias in the Rift Valley of Ohio. An acequia is one of the community irrigation that the Ohio people practice. The irrigation systems are practiced by farmers led by a Mayor and two other commissioners. The acequia irrigation uses earthen ditches to covey and supply, and distributes water to the farms in the vast field (Gunda et al., 2018). The acequias in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico can be described as the descendants of Spanish colonists. They were all stated by the Spanish colonists who managed to settle in those places. The Spanish colonists settled in an area known as the Southwestern United States in the early ages of about the 17th century.
Research questions
(1) Which biophysical features of the acequias irrigation system that the communities have in the past or historically enabled the farmers to maintain and sustain the collective action required to remain as community-based irrigation systems over the period?
(2) Are the acequias vulnerable or resilient to the many different types of novel destructions impacting them in the current time?
(3) How do the acequias communities' social features affect farmers to sustain the general action required to persist as community-based irrigation systems in the historical time?
Research design
The embedded case study included two primary components: Rift Valley acequias and statistical analyses of each acequia and the members involved.
Analysis units and analytical strategy for each one:
Analysis units |
Analytical strategy |
Rift Valley |
Modeling method is quantitative |
Acequias |
Analysis model is statistical |
Acequia group by year |
Analysis model is statistical |
Members of the acequia |
Analysis model is statistical |
Observation units, analysis associated units, and sampling methodology for each acequia:
Analysis units |
Observation units |
Sampling method |
RV, Acequias |
Leaders interviews |
Snowball and purposive |
RV, Acequias |
Documents from court testimony |
exhaustive |
RV, Acequias |
Documents of repartimentio |
exhaustive |
RV, Acequias |
Soil data by NRCS and SSURGO |
exhaustive |
RV, Acequias |
Assessor data by Ohio county |
exhaustive |
RV, Group by year, RV Acequias |
Imagery from Landsat |
purposive |
RV, Group by year, Acequias |
Survey of Acequia members |
purposive |
RV, Members of Acequias |
USGS stream-gauge data |
convenience |
RV: means Rift Valley
Discussion
The primary purpose of the acequias project is to give a clear focus on various community-based irrigation systems that are named Acequias that have historically been in the Ohio Rift valley for hundreds of years. The above research questions help to give guidance to the discussed project. The first question brings the curiosity about the conditions that have propelled the farmers in the communities of interest to maintain the collective action and unity needed to keep themselves in the times of calamities such as drought and during scarcity of resources for those many hundreds of years.
Unity and collective responsibility or actions are very vital for the success of the project. The ESS scholars examined the collective action as an overall outcome for the community-based irrigation systems. It played a significant role in affecting whether the ecological equilibrium was constant or was fluctuating. The other question was directly inquiring about the vulnerability, or the resilience, of the acequias' compatibility with the new and modern destructions and disturbances that have mainly come from integration and high economic growth in the region (Romero, 2021). The communities are using many resources for them to adapt to current conditions from the persistence of centuries.
The acequias community-based irrigation project adopted the research design that is called an embedded case study. Through the adopted research design, the embedded case study identification involves the units of analysis used in the project and the applied analytical strategies for each one. The total number of Rift Valley used in the case study added up to 41 acequias. The development of a qualitative model at this level involved the analytical strategy that describes the patterns of various groups' interaction amongst the farmers themselves both within the communities and between acequias communities.
The applied quantitative model is a quantitative model that involves the social-ecological framework application. In addition, the project summary involves a statistical analysis to help scrutinize and examine variations and differences in vegetation index measured by a series of Landsat images over a period across the acequias in the communities of the research study. Lastly, the examined data from a survey of the research study acequia members and the group's statistical analysis conducted over time is shown in the cox. From the final analysis, five acequia groups constructions were based and dictated by the main rivers that acted as the source of water for them, feeding each acequia in the valley; the measurements were taken for each year for the five groups of acequias in the research study (Romero, 2021).
The last table helps to connect each of the acequias units' analysis from the previous units-table of data sources and observation sources used to determine the essential features of the used units, elaborating the sampling methods used for the applied references. Multiple data sources are applied and used for each analytical team used, which is popular in ESS analysis (Kaminska, 2020). In summary, uniting the data information in the used tables helps bring out the basic structure that combines the essential elements of a research project.