When Policy Is the Hazard: Institutional Legitimacy and Climate Risk Attribution Among Farmers in Water Stressed California

Abstract

This study examines how farmers perceive and respond to climate policy risk in the context of drought and argues that understanding such responses is as important as understanding farmer reactions to the biophysical impacts of climate change. Drawing on a 5-year longitudinal case study in California's Tulare Lake Basin, we analyze farmers' climate risk perceptions, adaptive behaviors, and responses to water governance policy through an integrated theoretical framework. We organize our analysis around three propositions: that climate risk perception is institutionally mediated; that adaptive capacity is socially structured; and that perceived policy legitimacy mediates the relationship between risk awareness and adaptive action. Our findings show that farmers consistently attribute water scarcity to governance failures rather than biophysical climate change, effectively decoupling drought experience from climate attribution, and that perceived procedural fairness, institutional flexibility, and governance responsiveness are stronger predictors of adaptive engagement than biophysical risk exposure or individual climate change beliefs. Findings of the analysis underscore the need for procedurally just and contextually sensitive natural resource governance frameworks to support agricultural resilience in water-stressed regions.