Integration of hydrological and economic approaches to water and land management in Mediterranean climates: an initial case study in agriculture

A distinction is commonly drawn in Hydrology between ‘green’ and ‘blue water’ in accounting for total water availability in semi-arid regions. The criterion underlying this classification is important for successful water management, because it reveals how much natural water is and/or could be used by households, industry and, especially, agriculture. The relative share of green and blue water is generally treated as a constant. In recent years, a growing hydro-geological literature has focused on a phenomenon that significantly affects the stability of the green/blue water ratio. This is the increase in land cover density and its impact on runoff in regions with a Mediterranean climate, such as the Ebro Basin in Spain. We seek to carry this knowledge over into the parameters of disciplines concerned with the economic valuation of water and territorial resources, and translate it into the language used by water management professionals in the expectation that this contribution will improve the way we assess and account for real water availability. The heart of the matter is that the increasing density of forest cover produces both positive and negative environmental and economic impacts, presenting new economic and environmental problems that must be examined and assessed in a hydrological-economic context. We will show that these positive and negative effects are sufficiently important to merit attention, whether they are measured in physical or economic terms. Finally, we make an initial proposal for the economic valuation of some of the effects produced by these hydrological changes.blue water; green water; hydro-economic framework; water resources accounting

Blind spots in water management, and how natural sciences could be much more relevant

Estimates of crop evapotranspiration (ET) to measure the freshwater use indicator water footprint (WF) have undoubtedly been popular and implemented (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2004), as well as the more recent extension to subnational regions and watersheds (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2010a; Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012)..

La rama oscense de los Compañero (apuntes biográficos)

La familia Compañero, que se documenta en Huesca desde finales del siglo XV hasta el primer cuarto del siglo XVII, ocupa un lugar preeminente entre la aristocracia mudejar, y posteriormente morisca, del Altoaragón y de otros lugares, como Zaragoza y Calanda, donde llegaron desde Huesca. Emparentados con otras notables familias, como los Çafar, mantuvieron una intensa actividad económica, con lo que acumularon una inmensa fortuna que les permitió gran movilidad geográfica y un papel político protagonista. Esto, unido a su fidelidad al Islam, los condujo a una feroz persecución por parte de la Inquisición, que acabó aniquilando a la familia, como lo demuestra la precaria situación económica de los últimos descendientes.The Compañero's family, which is documented in Huesca from the end of the 15th century until the first quarter of the 17th century, occupies an outstanding place among the Mudejar aristocracy, thereafter Moorish, in the Altoaragón and other places, as Zaragoza and Calanda, arriving there from Huesca. Related by marriage to other important families, as the Çafar's, they kept an intense economic activity, which let them accumulate an immense fortune. This allowed them great geographical mobility and a protagonist political role. All these facts and their loyalty to the Islam drove them to a ferocious persecution by the Inquisition, which finished annihilating the family, as the precarious economic situation of the last descendants demonstrates

Developing the food, water, and energy nexus for food and energy scenarios with the World trade model

The food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus has gained increased attention, resulting in numerous studies on management approaches. Themes of resource use, and their subsequent scarcity and economic rents, which are within the application domain of the World Trade Model, are ripe for study, with the continuing development of forward- and backward-facing economic data. Scenarios of future food and energy demand, relating to supply chains, as well as direct and indirect resource uses, are modelled in this paper. While it is possible to generate a substantial number of economic and environmental scenarios, our focus is on the development of an overarching approach involving a range of scenarios. We intend to establish a benchmark of possibilities in the context of the debates surrounding the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21) and the Green New Deal. Our approach draws heavily from the existing literature on international agreements and targets, notably that of COP21, whose application we associate with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP). Relevant factor uses and scarcity rent increases are found and localized, e.g., on the optimal qualities of water, minerals, and land. A clear policy implication is that, in all scenarios, processes of energy transition, raw material use reduction, and recycling must be strengthened

Implementing integrated water resources management in the Ebro River Basin: From theory to facts

In this article, we analyze how successful the implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in the Ebro river catchment (in Spain) has been. Our main aim is to show some gaps between theory and practice. This implies analyzing the political dimensions of governance and their change and reflecting on the interface between governance and technical knowledge about water. We highlight problems, such as the lack of institutional coordination, blind spots in technical information and path dependences. Actual water management has led to plans for further irrigation even though water availability is, and is expected to continue, shrinking due to climate change and other local factors. To overcome these mismatches, we propose further synchronization, innovative ways of public participation and knowledge sharing between institutions and researchers. As a showcase, we portray a practical real example of a desirable institutional arrangement in one sub-catchment

Testing the SDG targets on water and sanitation using the world trade model with a waste, wastewater, and recycling framework

In this article, we employ an extended world trade model and rectangular choice of technology (WTM/RCOT) framework, which minimizes global factor costs subject to satisfying final demand and respecting region-specific factor constraints, to calculate the economic costs of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water and sanitation. We estimate how achieving these goals will affect factor use, trade balances, scarcity rents, and production in 19 regions of the world, drawing on an expanded database developed from the GTAP9 database, the developed model involves 64 technology columns and 74 rows of factors of production. On a theoretical level, this model contributes to the existing literature on the topic by using endogenous cost estimates that consider shifts in production and factor scarcity rents and by considering recycling and wastes within an input-output model, in which wastes can be modelled as input resources as well as waste outputs. We find that the additional factor costs of meeting the water and sanitation targets of the SDGs exceed US$100 billion annually, with a total cost of US$3.3 trillion from 2015 to 2030. These figures are similar to other recent works on the subject despite methodological differences. It also suggests that the worldwide SDG targets can be achieved with moderate costs relative to the total global GDP, especially in comparison to the high estimated cost of inaction. Predictably, in areas working toward water and sanitation SDGs (areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, regions in South Asia, etc.), factor use costs increase, but not commensurately with the growth of coverage some regions, such as areas of South America, notably have higher factor use costs along in proportion to the coverage. Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa, which needs the highest increase in coverage, will not likely have as large increases in factor uses and would barely get scarcity rents. In general, regions with higher SDG targets will require further trade, especially additional imports of inputs such as chemicals and energy products. This trade will increase factor earnings in factor rich regions such as the European Union, Japan, and Korea. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.This work was started having support by US National Science Foundation CNH grant # 1115025 , “Impacts of Global Change Scenarios on Ecosystem Services from the World's Rivers

The Multiplicity of Madness: Ambiguity in Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse.

Este trabajo trata de analizar la película El Faro (2019), de Robert Eggers, y ofrecer una visión de sus múltiples interpretaciones. En concreto, analiza su valor como una película ambigua, que resiste que haya una única lectura sobre ella. Dicha ambigüedad se consigue proporcionando a la audiencia un entorno casi perteneciente a otro mundo y unos símbolos con diferentes connotaciones. Además, el descenso hacia la locura de los dos únicos y principales personajes también abre el debate de cuánto de lo que estamos viendo está sucediendo realmente. El Faro hace las veces de ensayo sobre el significado, la obsesión y la locura y hace que la audiencia se cuestione lo que está viendo y conoce con el fin de encontrar una respuesta a las preguntas que la propia película lanza. Al final, la belleza de la película surge de que todas sus posibles interpretaciones son al mismo tiempo válidas y no limitan la existencia del resto.<br /

Theoretical and empirical characterization of water as a factor:Examples and related issues with the world trade model

This article originates from the theoretical and empirical characterization of factors in the World Trade Model (WTM), see Duchin (2005). It first illustrates the usefulness of this type of model for water research to address policy questions related to virtual water trade, water con-straints and water scarcity. It also illustrates the importance of certain key decisions regarding the heterogeneity of water and its relation to the technologies being employed and the prices obtained. With regard to WTM, the global economic input-output model in which multiple technologies can produce a “homogeneous output”, Steenge et al. (2018) showed that two different mechanisms should be distinguished by which multiple technologies can arise, i.e., from “technology-specific” or from “shared” factors, which implies a mechanism-specific set of prices, quantities and rents. We discuss and extend these characterizations, notably in relation to the real-world characterization of water as a factor (for which we use the terms technology specific, fully shared and “mixed”). We propose that the presence of these separate mechanisms results in the models being sensitive to relatively small variations in specific numerical values. To address this sensitivity, we suggest a specific role for specific (sub)models or key choices to counter unrealistic model outcomes. To support our proposal we present a selection of simulations for aggregated world regions, and show how key results concerning quantities, prices and rents can be subject to considerable change depending on the precise definitions of resource endowments and the technology-specificity of the factors. For instance, depending on the adopted water heterogeneity level, outcomes can vary from relatively low-cost solutions to higher cost ones and can even reach infeasibility. In the main model discussed here (WTM) factor prices are exogenous, which also contributes to the overall numerical sensitivity of the model. All this affects to a large extent our interpretation of the water challenges, which preferably need to be assessed in integrated frameworks, to account for the main socioeco-nomic variables, technologies and resources

Double concentration explaining the outstanding increase in Spanish crop production

Aim of study: To evaluate the changes in Spanish agricultural production since 1950s in a context of intense transformations in terms of the regional and crop composition. Area of study: Spanish provinces during the second half of the twentieth century. Material and methods: We use index decomposition analysis to evaluate the changes in the value and volume of crop production, as well as the role of product composition and the regional distribution of production. Main results: Spanish agriculture have focused on certain regions in the south or in the east of Spain. Some products like vegetables or fruits have a positive prices and composition effects, encouraging the production in these provinces. Research highlights: We found a ‘double concentration’: Spanish agriculture has increasingly tended to produce high value-added pro-ducts, such as vegetables, fruit and olive oil. On the other hand, crop production is concentrated in the southern and eastern provinces of Spain

Restricting water withdrawals of the thermal power sector: An input-output analysis for the northeast of the United States

As water scarcity and pollution of sources become increasingly severe and widespread, competition over this resource intensifies. Unlike much of the rest of the world, thermal power plants in the US are the biggest users of water due to heavy reliance on once-through cooling technology. This cooling technology withdraws large amounts of water and discharges it back almost in its entirety but at higher temperatures. These water withdrawals are increasingly subjected to legislation intended to reduce the effects of thermal pollution. We utilize an interregional input-output model for quantifying the money costs and the shifts in the distribution of power production by state and by technology when withdrawals and discharges of fresh water are restricted. This model allows for the choice among alternative power generation technologies with different cost structures within each state. We analyze a Baseline scenario for 2010 and alternative scenarios that impose constraints on water withdrawals and inter-state power transmission. Based on an annual analysis, we conclude that this region can satisfy its electric power requirements while fully complying with legislated water restrictions at moderate cost by compensating the curtailment of output from some plants by otherwise unutilized capacities of other plants in the region. When we revisit the analysis using a monthly time step, however, sharp seasonal variations exhibit a strong impact on economic costs. In the summer months, intra-state transmission does not suffice, and regional demand cannot be met in the absence of substantial inter-state transmission. © 2018This study is based on work supported by U. S. National Science Foundation Award No. 1049181 , “A Regional Earth System Model of the Northeast Corridor: Analyzing 21st Century Climate and Environment.