Posts Tagged ‘water use’

Water Rights: South Africa

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

December 2010 article: “Valuing Improvements in The Water Rights System in South Africa: A Contingent Ranking Approach,” by Stijn Speelman, Stefano Farolfi, Aymen Frija, and Guido Van Huylenbroeck.

This study carried out a contingent ranking experiment to study how smallholder irrigators in South Africa would value potential changes in water rights. It is based on detailed information regarding irrigation activities, income sources, and institutional aspects of water management.

The study demonstrates that contingent ranking is a promising tool to measure the effect of improving water rights along different dimensions. Although this sector of smallholder irrigators in South Africa is considered important for poverty reduction in rural areas, it clearly struggles with problems of low water use efficiency and insufficient cost recovery. Taking into account this context, it is highly relevant to evaluate the expected impact of water right reforms on this specific stakeholder. Overall, the estimations of the willingness to pay (WTP) indicate that farmers experience significant inefficiencies in the current water rights system, with significant economic gains attached to the improvement of the water rights. Tackling these inefficiencies will not only be favorable for the efficiency of water use of smallholder irrigators, but given the size of the benefits, it can also add significantly to the government objective of cost recovery. With a higher WTP for water, there is more room for government to increase water prices and reach a higher level of cost recovery.

Policy makers can clearly use such results to guide water right reforms. Besides the information on the economic gains, it gives them direct information concerning the priorities of a target group. This knowledge can help government to increase support for the interventions.

[Please note: I have quoted and paraphrased freely from the article, but the interpretation is my own!]

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Water User Associations in China

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

August 2010 Article: Water Governance and Water Use Efficiency: The Five Principles of WUA Management and Performance in China, by Jinxia Wang, Jikun Huang, Lijuan Zhang, Qiuqiong Huang, and Scott Rozelle.

The overall goal of this paper is to better understand the emergence of water user associations (WUAs) in China and assess if they are adhering to the practices spelled out by the Five Principles, a set of recommended practices that are supposed to lead to successful WUA operation. Using four sets of different types of villages to examine implementation and performance, the authors found that World Bank-supported WUA villages (‘‘Bank villages’’) can be thought of as operating mostly according to the Five Principles. For example, the Bank villages were endowed with a more reliable water supply; were set up and were operating with a relatively high degree of farmer participation; and leaders were more consultative and the process more formal.

Good intentions and good theory do not automatically make for a successful development strategy. The “Five Principles” — reliable water supply, legal status and participation, hydrologic boundaries, measured deliveries, equitable charges — are theoretically good ideas. The authors note, however, “Surprisingly, given the high profile that the World Bank’s WUA projects have assumed, in fact, there has never been a rigorous evaluation conducted by an independent research team.” I liked this paper because it holds theoretically good ideas up to the cold hard light of facts. In this case, the authors found applying these principles really did lead to better outcomes. Better late than never, I suppose.

[Please note: I have quoted and paraphrased freely from the article, but the interpretation is my own!]

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For want of a drink

Friday, May 28th, 2010

The Economist issue of May 22-28, 2010 contains a special report, “For Want of a Drink,” about the world’s water crisis. While not much in the report should be new to JAWRA readers, it was nice to see a major news outlet produce an analysis with some fairly good science.

The report correctly grasped the connectivity between surface and ground water. Lining a canal, for example, may seem like “saving” water, but not if the leakage is replenishing a stressed aquifer. The report also noted water usually is priced too low for normal market investment to succeed, and that allocation mechanisms must be sensitive to political realities. Worthwhile reading.

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Energy production and water

Monday, May 24th, 2010

June 2010 Article: Future U.S. Water Consumption: The Role of Energy Production, by Deborah Elcock.

This article is a great example of why one has to look at all aspects of an issue — take a multidisciplinary approach. Biofuels may offer some advantages over non-renewable sources, but they are not a free lunch!

The article investigates how meeting domestic energy production targets for both fossil and renewable fuels may affect future water demand. It combines projections of energy production with estimates of water consumption on a per-unit basis for coal, oil, gas, and biofuels production, to estimate and compare the domestic US freshwater consumed. The findings identify an important potential future conflict between renewable energy production and water availability that warrants further investigation and action to ensure that future domestic energy demand can be met in an economically efficient and environmentally sustainable manner.

[Please note: I have quoted and paraphrased freely from the article, but the interpretation is my own!]

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