Valuing environmental water pulses into the Incomati estuary: Key to achieving equitable and sustainable utilisation of transboundary waters (original) (raw)
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Environmental Values and Water Policy
Australian Geographical Studies, 2003
The emergence of water markets has heralded the prospect of increased efficiency in the use of the resource for extractive purposes such as irrigated agriculture. The separation of water title from land title has allowed trades from lower to higher values uses of water and higher water prices have increased interest in the use of capital as a substitute for water volume. However, water markets have not encompassed all elements of demand for the resource. Notably, demands for the environmental public goods provided by river flows have not been revealed in markets. To fill this void, State Governments have instituted regulations requiring 'environmental flows' to be quarantined from the market allocation process. This policy has triggered negative responses from irrigators who have been able to extract less water (or fear that they will) and from conservationists who argue that the environmental flows are insufficient to create healthy river ecosystems. Lobby groups have found that the process of determining environmental flows is a prospective site for rent seeking. To avoid policy being driven by rent seeking, information on the costs and benefits of environmental flows is required. Whilst the costs of environmental flows are readily assessed through reference to market data on irrigators' surpluses foregone, the benefits must be estimated through the use of non-market, stated preference valuation techniques. These techniques-including contingent valuation and choice modellingremain controversial both inside and outside the economics profession. Some argue that they should not be used on ethical grounds. Others argue that they cannot be used on technical grounds. These arguments are discussed in this paper, using the context of the water policy debate. The evidence is that stated preference techniques are being used, and applications have been performed in Australia in the context of riverine health. However their use remains restricted relative to the scale of the Australian natural resource management task. Some possible explanations for this limited uptake are provided along with some suggested ways forward.
Two watersheds, one in north western Syria and the other in south east Zimbabwe are looked at. Both locations are water scarce and food insecure. In both areas field work has found households making multiple and highly productive uses of small amounts of water. These are usually small-scale, informal systems of water use. Within both watersheds, there are also large-scale irrigation schemes. These large systems are much more formal, and are viewed as the providers of national food and economic security. But, research indicates that water is used more productively in the smaller, more informal systems. These small schemes also create far fewer environmental costs and externalities. They also provide most of the inputs which maintain household food, water and income security on a day to day basis. Due to various resource constraints, both regions need to develop water management strategies whereby water is treated much more as an economic good. In the Syrian watershed, the problem is to not only improve the supply of potable water, but also to arrest a declining water table. In the Zimbabwean watershed, the problem again is not only to improve the supply of potable water, but also to meet stringent cost recovery targets in the water supply sector. It has been suggested that both regions need to move towards more realistic valuation strategies for water. In both locations, some formal charges for water currently exist, but these prices do not pass on the economic cost of using the water to the consumer. The challenges inherent in adjusting the management systems of water in these two watersheds to reflect the water's economic value are examined. There are several institutional, cultural and property rights related difficulties. A key issue is striking the balance between ensuring access to water to promote food and income security and valuing the water to incorporate its environmental, opportunity and scarcity costs. The similarities in the difficulties faced and the recommendations suggested for each location are assessed. The paper discusses whether economic systems for water resource management are bound to be unique to each environmental, cultural and political location, or could (and should) economic research and experience on water resource valuation in such locations be generalised?
GLOBAL ISSUES IN WATER POLICY, 2011
Sustainability and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Long-Term Effects, focusing on Climate Change. Applied Micro-Econometrics: measurement of preferences under uncertainty. Experimental Economics: Lap experiments in valuing public goods. Non-Market Valuation: Choice experiments, hedonic price analysis, contingent valuation. Agricultural Economics and Finance. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Natural Resources Management and Policy. She is currently associate editor in seven academic journals, including the journal of Environment and Development and Economics-ejournal (electronic-journal of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy). She has published eight edited books and more than a hundred articles in edited volumes and academic journals (including leading journals such as:
Water Management and the Valuation of Indirect Environmental Services
1999
Comprehensive water basin and watershed planning and management require valuation of the intermediate ecological services provided to the water resources themselves. Valuation of forest cover in the augmentation of water resources is discussed in the context of aggregate economic planning, water-basin or sectoral planning, and conservation project evaluation. The importance of valuing intermediate non-market goods is illustrated for each planning tool in the context of an illustrative example of the Pearl Harbor/Ko'olau watershed in Hawaii. In the context of water allocation and investment in waterworks, considerations of full income valuation imply that the value of water should incorporate the risk of watershed degradation contingent on the expected conservation effort. What appear to be new objectives of economic planning, such as sustainable development, do not require new criteria but rather the augmentation of existing methods of income accounting and project valuation to include the values on
Tradeoffs between Water Uses and Environmental Flows: A Hydroeconomic Analysis in the Ebro Basin
Water Resources Management
Environmental water uses and their social values have been mostly overlooked in traditional water management over the last few decades, and recently, the maintenance of environmental flows has been considered a key issue in water policies. Addressing the more sustainable management of water resources involves introducing new water allocation policies. However, these policies are often associated with tradeoffs across sectors, stakeholders, and spatial locations. This study aims to evaluate the tradeoffs and political economy aspects of allocating water among economic water uses and environmental flows in water-scarce river basins. An empirical analysis has been conducted in the Ebro River basin (Spain) as a case study, where an intense debate on the environmental flow allocation of the Ebro mouth is taking place. The study uses a hydroeconomic model that includes the major water uses in the Ebro to analyze the effects of different water allocation policies under combinations of water availability and environmental flow scenarios. The results of this study highlight the importance of assessing the opportunity costs and political implications of reallocating water from economic activities to the environment under impending climate change impacts. Moreover, the results indicate that well-functioning water allocation policies should be not only economically efficient but also socially acceptable to reduce the likelihood of failure of water reallocation to the environment.
Water as an Economic Good: A solution or a problem
1998
IIMI's mission is to foster and support sustainable increases in the productivity of irrigated agriculture within the overall context of the water basin. In serving this mission, IIMI concentrates on the integration of policies, technologies and management systems to achieve workable solutions to real problems-practical, relevant results in the field of irrigation and water resources.
The Value of Water: Economics of Water for a Sustainable Use
The following work deals with a very controversial but nevertheless very important topic in the sustainable management of water as a natural resource: the value of water and the macroeconomics of water. Population growth, increasing demand, climate change and declining water supplies present a short- and medium-term outlook where water stress and shortages may keep arising. Water stress is a situation that arises “… when water demand is more important than the amount available for a specified period or when it is restricted by its low quality.” This in turn “… causes deterioration of resources fresh water in terms of quantity (aquifer overexploited, dry rivers, etc.) and quality (eutrophication, organic matter pollution, saline intrusion, etc.).” (UNEP, 2012) If global patterns continue, we can see that we are headed into an increasingly complex landscape where water mismanagement increasingly compromises water availability. Added to this we have the phenomenon of climate change, which is already having an impact on water systems and cycles globally. This is why we must change the ethnocentric approach of our current development model, where resources are exploited without regard for the future. This analysis will use another approach based on sustainable development, and will go beyond ideological approaches and economic or political agendas, to treat water management and the macroeconomics of water pragmatically. Life on the planet depends on our success to manage our water resources in an efficient, responsible and fair manner; this paper provides the general guidelines and practical recommendations to do so.
The Economics of Water Resource Allocation: Valuation Methods and Policy Implications
GLOBAL ISSUES IN WATER POLICY, 2010
In this chapter a 'watershed economics approach' that could be applied in Cyprus is proposed which is composed of two important stages. In Stage I economic valuation techniques are used to establish the economic value of the competing demands for surface and groundwater, incorporating where necessary an analysis of water quality. The valuation exercise allows the objective balancing of demands based upon the equi-marginal principle to achieve economic efficiency. In Stage II a policy impact analysis is proposed which addresses issues of social equity and the value of water for environmental/ecological purposes. The analysis is undertaken within the confines of the watershed; the most natural unit for the analysis of water allocation and scarcity since it determines the hydrological links between competing users and thus the impacts of one user upon another. The methodology is encapsulated by a case study of the Kouris watershed in Cyprus.