Present and future of the water deposits in Calakmul, Mexico: Analysis of the behaviour of inhabitants facing climate change

Since a couple of decades, climate change has turned into one of the most relevant issues of research, from predictable climate variation, to the effects and capacities of resilience and adaptation that are occurring in different ecosystems and human settlements. This research, through experimental economy, had the purpose of knowing the behavior of the Calakmul community in Mexico in relation with the consumption of water from the water deposits (a common use resource), as a result of the decrease in rains, caused by climate change. The game that was conceived to analyze this research is supported by experimental economy that analyzed the behavior of people concerning the use of water from the water deposits and its relation with wild animals; it had 5 different processing’s (with different scenarios regarding lack of water and wild animals) and it was practiced with 180 inhabitants from three communities in Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico. Furthermore, each player fulfilled a survey and a group interview session was made to each group of study. The obtained results show that in scarce water scenarios (BL+A, BL+S1, BL+S2) the amount of decisions related to extracting water from the water deposits increases, compared to the scenarios in which there is no lack of water (4%, 15.6%, and 15.8%, respectively). On the other hand, through analyzing the standard deviations, it is shown that in scenarios of scarcity, rates of inequality amongst the communities increase. In addition, the importance of creating tools that could improve or increase the capital stock rate inside and amongst the communities was verified; not only regarding the use and preservation of water from the water deposits, but for the development of the population. One interesting strategy that is retrieved from the experiment’s results is that when there was communication amongst players, regardless of the scenario and processing, there was a decrease in water consumption from the water deposits and wild animals were considered in their analysis for decision-making. Concerning wild animals, it is shown that there is a dependency between the use of animals and the inhabitants of Calakmul, this situation is difficult because there is no altruism that works towards preserving the water deposits focusing on wild life, because more than 80% of the participants get a provisional service to consume, raise or sell these wild animals. Finally, 45% of the adaptation strategies concerning climate change correspond to variations in afforestation and 38% in inactivity; this allowed us, during the presentation of results made before relevant institutions and figures from the area, to analyze and incorporate in an agreement committee 32 actions distributed in six general topics: training, infrastructure, regulation, restructuring, politics, and community organization towards a good use and preservation of the water deposits from Calakmul.