Planning water resources development in an uncertain climate future: a hydro-economic simulation framework applied to the case of the Blue Nile

This research developed an integrated framework for conducting economic assessment of water resources infrastructures in the context of climatic and development uncertainty. Two levels of simulation make up the framework: the hydrological, based around the river basin routing model; and the economic, which utilizes Monte Carlo simulation methods to simulate the net present value of projects given variation in economic model parameters. A number of linkages between climate and the performance of the system were included: changes in runoff, reservoir evaporation rates and crop water requirements, as well as economic changes in the value of water, energy and carbon offsets. The framework was made operational for a real-world planning application in the Nile Basin. It was first used to study in detail the effect of the climate linkages on the economics of a single proposed hydropower dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. An illustrative climate scenario, drawn from the set of emissions futures considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was used for this evaluation. Several climate change linkages were found to have important effects on the system and the economics of the project: climate-perturbed runoff, increases in crop water requirements due to higher temperatures, and changes in the value of energy and carbon offsets. The research was then extended to evaluate the costs and benefits of constructing alternative configurations of Blue Nile hydropower dams, for four possible water withdrawal conditions and a range of climate scenarios. The effects of project design and operational features were also evaluated. The analysis showed that: 1) many projects provide positive net benefits across a range of conditions; 2) increased system water withdrawals have a significant negative impact on the economics of Blue Nile dams; and 3) results are most sensitive to assumptions about discounting and future inflows. Also, the infrastructure with the best economic outcomes is dependent on the unknown future climate of and water use in the system. An approach was therefore developed for comparing the relative performance of alternatives, and comparative metrics were used to identify alternatives with relatively low risks and high upside across a range of plausible future situations

Estimating the Private Benefits of Vaccination Against Cholera in Beira, Mozambique: A Travel Cost Approach

The paper reports the results of a study that estimates households' private demand for cholera vaccines based on their travel behavior. We take advantage of an unusual natural experiment. In January 2004, more than 41,000 residents in Beira, Mozambique received two doses of the new-generation oral recombinant toxin B subunit killed whole-cell rBS-WC cholera vaccine during the first vaccination trial to test its effectiveness in an endemic cholera zone of Africa. The trial was designed to target about 22,000 residents in the Esturro neighborhood; nine outposts were established there to distribute vaccines free of charge. Due to the high demand for the vaccines, the trial was modified so that citizens from outside Esturro could also be vaccinated. About 30,000 outsiders came, resulting in long queues and an average waiting time of about 85 minutes per dose. We obtained information from the complete database of vaccinated individuals collected at the Esturro vaccination outposts, as well as household information collected from a sample of city-wide, in-person interviews conducted in the summer of 2005, to estimate travel cost models of the revealed demand for cholera vaccines among households informed of the trial. We estimated standard and zero-inflated household count models of vaccine demand and dichotomous choice models for the head of the household. To our knowledge, this is the first application of the travel cost method to estimate vaccine demand. Our travel cost analysis showed that distance traveled and time spent in acquiring vaccines were critical determinants of coverage levels in the population. The quantity of vaccines obtained by households decreased as travel cost — in time and transport expenses — rose. Our best estimates of per capita willingness to pay for cholera vaccination are about US$1. These travel cost estimates are sensitive to the assumed value of time spent acquiring vaccines, and are somewhat lower than those obtained using the contingent valuation method (about US$1.40 per capita).Master of Science in Environmental Engineerin

Experimental evidence on promotion of electric and improved biomass cookstoves.

Improved cookstoves (ICS) can deliver "triple wins" by improving household health, local environments, and global climate. Yet their potential is in doubt because of low and slow diffusion, likely because of constraints imposed by differences in culture, geography, institutions, and missing markets. We offer insights about this challenge based on a multiyear, multiphase study with nearly 1,000 households in the Indian Himalayas. In phase I, we combined desk reviews, simulations, and focus groups to diagnose barriers to ICS adoption. In phase II, we implemented a set of pilots to simulate a mature market and designed an intervention that upgraded the supply chain (combining marketing and home delivery), provided rebates and financing to lower income and liquidity constraints, and allowed households a choice among ICS. In phase III, we used findings from these pilots to implement a field experiment to rigorously test whether this combination of upgraded supply and demand promotion stimulates adoption. The experiment showed that, compared with zero purchase in control villages, over half of intervention households bought an ICS, although demand was highly price-sensitive. Demand was at least twice as high for electric stoves relative to biomass ICS. Even among households that received a negligible price discount, the upgraded supply chain alone induced a 28 percentage-point increase in ICS ownership. Although the bundled intervention is resource-intensive, the full costs are lower than the social benefits of ICS promotion. Our findings suggest that market analysis, robust supply chains, and price discounts are critical for ICS diffusion

Water Quality Threats, Perceptions of Climate Change and Behavioral Responses among Farmers in the Ethiopian Rift Valley

This work aims to assess water quality for irrigated agriculture, alongside perceptions and adaptations of farmers to climate change in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER). Climate change is expected to cause a rise in temperature and variability in rainfall in the region, reducing surface water availability and raising dependence on groundwater. The study data come from surveys with 147 farmers living in the Ziway–Shala basin and water quality assessments of 162 samples from groundwater wells and surface water. Most groundwater samples were found to be unsuitable for long term agricultural use due to their high salinity and sodium adsorption ratio, which has implications for soil permeability, as well as elevated bicarbonate, boron and residual sodium carbonate concentrations. The survey data indicate that water sufficiency is a major concern for farmers that leads to frequent crop failures, especially due to erratic and insufficient rainfall. An important adaptation mechanism for farmers is the use of improved crop varieties, but major barriers to adaptation include a lack of access to irrigation water, credit or savings, appropriate seeds, and knowledge or information on weather and climate conditions. Local (development) agents are identified as vital to enhancing farmers’ knowledge of risks and solutions, and extension programs must therefore continue to promote resilience and adaptation in the area. Unfortunately, much of the MER groundwater that could be used to cope with declining viability of rainfed agriculture and surface water availability, is poor in quality. The use of saline groundwater could jeopardize the agricultural sector, and most notably commercial horticulture and floriculture activities. This study highlights the complex nexus of water quality and sufficiency challenges facing the agriculture sector in the region, and should help decision-makers to design feasible strategies for enhancing adaptation and food security

The cost of cooking a meal. The case of Nyeri County, Kenya

Energy for cooking is considered essential in achieving modern energy access. Despite this, almost three billion people worldwide still use solid fuels to meet their cooking needs. To better support practitioners and policy-makers, this paper presents a new model for comparing cooking solutions and its key output metric: the 'levelized cost of cooking a meal' (LCCM). The model is applied to compare several cooking solutions in the case study area of Nyeri County in Kenya. The cooking access targets are connected to the International Workshop Agreement and Global Tracking Framework's tiers of cooking energy access. Results show how an increased energy access with improved firewood and charcoal cookstoves could reduce both household's LCCMs and the total costs compared to traditional firewood cooking over the modelling period. On the other hand, switching to cleaner cooking solutions, such as LPG- and electricity, would result in higher costs for the end-user highlighting that this transition is not straightforward. The paper also contextualizes the results into the wider socio-economic context. It finds that a tradeoff is present between minimizing costs for households and meeting household priorities, thus maximizing the potential benefits of clean cooking without dismissing the use of biomass altogether

Post-Construction Support and Sustainability in Community-Managed Rural Water Supply

Executive Summary This volume reports the main findings from a multi-country research project that was designed to develop a better understanding of how rural water supply systems are performing in developing countries. We began the research in 2004 to investigate how the provision of support to communities after the construction of a rural water supply project affected project performance in the medium term. We collected information from households, village water committees, focus groups of village residents, system operators, and key informants in 400 rural communities in Bolivia, Ghana, and Peru; in total, we discussed community water supply issues with approximately 10,000 individuals in these communities. To our surprise, we found the great majority of the village water systems were performing well. Our findings on the factors influencing their sustainability will, we hope, be of use to policy makers, investors, and managers in rural water supply

Spectral Decomposition of Regulatory Thresholds for Climate-Driven Fluctuations in Hydro- and Wind Power Availability

Abstract Climate-driven fluctuations in the runoff and potential energy of surface water are generally large in comparison to the capacity of hydropower regulation, particularly when hydropower is used to balance the electricity production from covarying renewable energy sources such as wind power. To define the bounds of reservoir storage capacity, we introduce a dedicated reservoir volume that aggregates the storage capacity of several reservoirs to handle runoff from specific watersheds. We show how the storage bounds can be related to a spectrum of the climate-driven modes of variability in water availability and to the covariation between water and wind availability. A regional case study of the entire hydropower system in Sweden indicates that the longest regulation period possible to consider spans from a few days of individual subwatersheds up to several years, with an average limit of a couple of months. Watershed damping of the runoff substantially increases the longest considered regulation period and capacity. The high covariance found between the potential energy of the surface water and wind energy significantly reduces the longest considered regulation period when hydropower is used to balance the fluctuating wind power