The Efficient Water Market of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District: Colorado, USA

The case study presented is focused on the use of tradable and rentable water permits designed to maximise the efficiency of the use of water resources in Colorado (USA). The State of Colorado is divided into two distinct regions: the eastern, dry plains and the western areas that start with the Rocky Mountains and extend through rugged lands to the western border of the State. Rainfall and snow are heavy on the western side of the Rockies, while the eastern slopes of the mountains (the "East Slope") and the plains are semi-arid. In order to compensate this unequal distribution of the water resources, a complicated project of water transfer has been designed. The Colorado-Big Thompson Project is the largest transmountain water diversion project in Colorado. Built between 1938 and 1957, the C-BT Project provides supplemental water to 30 cities and towns and is used to provide supplemental irrigation to 693,000 acres of north-eastern. In order to efficiently manage the "foreign water provision" ensured by the CB-t project, it was founded the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District (NCWCD). It was established in 1937 to contract with the Federal Government to build the large trans-mountain water transfer project. NCWCD is responsible for the diversion works of the project and for the allocation of water on the eastern side of the mountains

The effects of global climate change on Southeast Asia: A survey of likely impacts and problems of adaptation

Study results indicate the likelihood of significant net damages from climate change, in particular damages from sea-level rise and higher temperatures that seem unlikely to be offset by favorable shifts in precipitation and carbon dioxide. Also indicated was the importance of better climate models, in particular models that can calculate climate change on a regional scale appropriate to policy-making. In spite of this potential for damage, there seems to be a low level of awareness and concern, probably caused by the higher priority given to economic growth and reinforced by the great uncertainty in the forecasts. The common property nature of global environment systems also leads to a feeling of helplessness on the part of country governments

Moving Towards More Efficient Water Markets: Institutional Barriers and Innovations

In the western U.S., one finds a few water markets that function quite efficiently from an economic point of view. Most water markets, some operational for over a hundred years, are highly imperfect, characterized by high transaction costs, asymmetric information on buyer & seller sides, long administrative or legal processes, and excessive brokerage fees. The question is What features of the relatively efficient water markets account for their success and how many of these features can be carried over to the larger set of inefficient water markets?. What changes in the legal and institutional frameworks would be required? Examples will be presented, starting with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District\u27s market for permanent transfers as a benchmark, contrasted with major examples of inefficient transfer processes undertaken by Denver suburbs in the last several years. The functions of traditional legal doctrines/practices such as no injury, beneficial use, forfeiture through non-use, and required drying-up of irrigated land upon sale of water are evaluated from an economic point of view and seriously questioned

Water Development, Wildlife and Recreation: Panel

32 pages. Contains 5 pages of footnotes and tables and 2 pages of references. Includes a paper: Option Value: Empirical Evidence from a Case Study of Recreation and Water Quality by Douglas A. Greenley, Richard G. Walsh and Robert A. Young. A final version of this paper was published in 96(4) The Quarterly Journal of Economics (1981): 657-673