Adapting Appropriation Water Law to Accommodate Equitable Consideration of Instream Flow Uses

The increasing public interest in naturally flowing streams has fostered efforts to obtain their protection under existing state water laws. In this study, the water laws of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming were examined and compared 1) with each other, and 2) against a set of aleitn criteria, to assess shortcomings in accommodating instream flow protections. It was determined that the appropriation system has the essential features of and ambodies legal principles that should allow the accommodation of instream flow values but, at this time, purchase of existing rights or the exercise of governmental reservation/withdrawal/appropriation authorities seem to be the primary options. Legislative, judicial, and adminsitrative strategies for protecting instream flows apart from the normal appropriation process were reviewed. Certain legislative and administrative strategies hold premise as supplementary to the standard appropriation procedure. Likewise, private sector strategies utilizing contracts, easements, purchase of development rights, etc., need to be more thoroughly considered. Where instream flow protections do not justify preemptive rights and strategies, and if hydrologic imperatives are properly observed, the state administered appropriation systems can accommodate the instream flow needs. However, the need for better technical information for establishing benficial need for the many instream values, and for use in projecting the biologic-hydrologic consequences of particular instream flow regimes remains a stumbling block to the accommodation process

Adapting Water Services to Urban Growth: A Case Study of Salt Lake County

Urbanizing areas thorughout the nation are considering governmental reorganization or consolidation to coordinate planning and improve the cost effectiveness of the delivery of public services. More efficient water supply and wastewater services may become important in the political debate over reorganization. However water factors figure politically, accomplished reorganizations must carefully plan for efficent provision of water services. This study profiles the structure and interactions of municipalities and water service agencies in Utah\u27s Salt Lake County during the 1970s. Both 1975 and 1978 attempts to consolidate Salt Lake City and the unincorporated areas of the county failed. The voting patterns, interest ground positions, and issues are examined. One major water issue surfaced in a concern that service jurisdictions and financial obligations were not sufficiently defined to protect the communities previously bound through water service agreements but excluded from the consolidated government. Additionally, the proposed dissolution of the County Water Conservancy District raised doubts on the division of equity in water rights and distribution facilities. Any large water development stabilizes institutional arrangements to a degree which may become a financial and legal contrainst to desired change. Overall, nonwater issues dominated the decision in this water sensitive area. This implies that water service jurisdictional alignments are set by political decisions based on nonwater considerations. Water utilities must do their best to be effective in the resulting context

Flood Damage Mitigation in Utah

Utah is subjected to flash flooding in mountain canyons, mudflows and shallow water flooding on lowlands at the canyon outlets, storm water flooding after thunderstorms in urban areas, and prolonged periods of inundation in certain lowland areas during snowmelt periods. In response to these problems, individuals are making private land use and flood proofing decisions, larger communities have storm water collection programs, three federal agencies are involved in structural flood control, and the Federal Emergency management Agency is managing a National Flood Insurance Program designed to promote community floodplain management efforts. A framework was deceloped of the dynamically interactive feedback process through whic people at various levels and from various prospectives seek the benefits of flood plain occupancy, experience floods, and respond by changin their occupancy or the flows. That framework than became the background for identifying what state government should do in Utah to correct unsatisfactory aspects o the existing flood hazard and counter measures. The data used in the analysis included magnitudes of major historical snowfall and precipitation events, estimates of 100-year flows for all 105 gaged locations with more than 20 years of record, envelope curves of 100-year flow versus drainage area for Utah basins, descriptions of the major historical floods (by order according to amount of damage 1. Salt Lake City canyons 1952 $6,74,000; 2. Ogden 1979$1,000,000; 3. Virgin River 1966 $962,000; 4. Sheep Creek (Daggett County) 1965$802,000), descriptions of the sturctural flood control projects built or being planned in Utah by the Corps of Engineers, Soil Conservation Service, and Water and Power Resources Service, data with respect to participation in the national flood insurance program of Utah\u27s 251 communitities, a survey of the flood hazard in 32 of those communitites randomly selected from a stratified sample, and a detailed evaluation of the situations in 7 of them. The study found that the flood hazard in Utah is much more concentrated in smalled basins than is so for other parts of the country and that the major problem lies at the base of the mountains where major damages are regularly being caused by flows at mountin hollows too small for hazard areas to have been mapped through the National Flood Insurance Program. Better methodology needs to be developed and applied for delinating hazard areas from mudflows and shallow water flooding on alluvial fans and other lowlands at the mountain base. Attention needs to be given to the effects of irrigation canals and bridges on the risk. Designs need to be developed that work with nature in dispersing the flood water and recharging much of it to underground aquifers instead rather than against nature in concentrating the flows in a downstream direction. State actions recommended include 1) providing a continuing forum for interaction among federal agencies and local communities, 2) providing technical support for local communitites including review of proposed designs for safety, 3) developing structural and flood proofing designs that will be effective in Utah conditions, and 4) interacting with federal agencies on behalf of the local communities

Integrating Water Resources and Land Use Planning

Information and recommendations were developed pertaining to the integrating of water resource and land use planning at a conceptual level. In the accomplishment of this goal, the report acts as a vehicle of information transfer to facilitate recognition of the interrelationships between land use and winter resources planning by practitioners in both areas. The approach that was used includes six basic components: 1) the clarification of current planning theory as it pertains to both water and land use planning, 2) analysis and review of historical and current land use planning practices, 3) review of historical and current land use planning practices, 4) identification of problems and concepts which would affect the integration of land and water planning, 5) the design of a conceptual framework (the IRUM model) which would facilitate the integration of land and water planning, and 6) a case study of a selected planning region for small scale applications of the IRUM model. In connection with the case study, a general population survey was taken to identify social and environmental values, land and water use preferences, and other conditions which would affect an integrated planning effort. The recommendations developed in the report cover institutional issues such as culture, law, and organizational arrangements, and also methodological issues such as conceptual framework development and procedural problems which will confront actual efforts to integrate land and water resource planning

Drought Management Concepts: Lessons of the 1976-1977 U.S. Drought

Three approaches to drought management are developed as generalized mathematical models. Each model is then applied to particular locations in Utah using the hydrologic/economic data from the 1976-77 drought. The modeling approaches include: (1) A multiple regression approach is used to quantify the changes in water use achieved by three common municipal sector rationing policies: (a) restrictions on time of outdoor use, (b) price increases, and (c) mandatory quantity restrictions (2) A model was presented for determing the optimal long term price schedule for rationing a stochastically variable water supply during summer peak demand season among groups of municipal water users which have different demands. (3) The third model analyzed various management policies in terms of their impact on net benefits to the agricultural and municipal sectors. The model is capable of modifying policies monthly, based upon the chaning hydrologic situation. It can vary constraints in a manner that simulates an institutional environment ranging from total freedom of price changes and water exchanges between sectors to those constraints existing during the 76-77 drought. Conclusions include: 1) Mandatory water use regulations are much more effective than price increases in reducing water use (at least in a short term drought). 2) A theoretical analysis of demand and supply functions showed that Salt Lake City\u27s pricing polity (about $0.25/1000 gallons) is very close to optimal. 3) The third model showed that very substantial losses in consumer surplus in Slat Lake County during the drought were caused by variuos institutional restrictions

Levels of Analysis in Comprehensive River Basin Planning

Since nearly every water resource managment choice has two or more sides, differences must be resolved in decision making. Equitable resolution requires an understanding of the reasons for the differences. These reasons originate in the implemented plans have physical-environmental, economic, social, cultural, and political impacts at levels ranging from local to national or international in scope. Decisions are made by individuals and groups impacted in all of these dimensions and at all of these levels; the decisions generate additional impacts; and the entire interactive process changes water management practice in ways outside the control of any one decision point or even dicision dimension. The objective of this study is to conceptualize this process in a way that will help in establishing institutional mechanisms for reconciling differences among levels of analysis. The conceptualization used viewed differences in choices being made at the various levels of analysis as associated with perspective differences having value, jurisdiction, action, and temporal elements. The possible combinations of differences within and between these elements were used to identify ten categories of institutional obstacles to efficient water planning (differences in values, conflicts between value and jurisdiction, etc.). The history of water resources planning on the Colorado River basin was then examined to identify 17 specific institutional obstacles, and a computerized policy simulation was applied to levels of analysis in the Uintah basin of Utah to identify three more. These 20 obstacles were shown to be broadly distributed over the ten categories, and the nature of the obstacles defined provides valuable insight into the common characteristics of the major institutional obstacles to water management. The priciples of logic as applicable to rationality in decision making were then used to identify two root causes of levels\u27 conflicts. If alternatives are evaluated from a single perspective, the ostensible causal relationships commonly used lead to estimates of the sum of the consequences from the parts of a water management program being far more than the total consequences of the entire program. Looked at another way, since available water resources planning tools do not properly allocate consequences from interactive processes to individual causal sources, decisions made to acheive a desired impact are not based on reliable information. In fact, different decisions made over time from a single perspective have conflicting impacts. When multiple perspectices are considered, one finds that individual values do not aggregate linearly in forming social values, many actions are not efficient in achieving preferred values, and decision makers are not able to implement their plans as desired. Real world situations combine interacting perspectives and partial contributions. Nine recommendations are made on what to do next in improving water resources planning in an interactive, nonlinear world

M87, Globular Clusters, and Galactic Winds: Issues in Giant Galaxy Formation

New VRI photometry is presented for the globular clusters in the innermost 140'' of the M87 halo. The results are used to discuss several issues concerning the formation and evolution of globular cluster systems in supergiant ellipticals like M87. (1) we find no significant change in the globular cluster luminosity function (GCLF) with galactocentric radius, for cluster masses M < 10^5 solar masses, indicating that the main effects of dynamical evolution may be only on lower-mass clusters. (2) Within the core radius (1') of the globular cluster system, the metallicity distribution is uniform, but at larger radii the mean metallicity declines steadily as Z ~ r^-0.9. (3) The various options for explaining the existence of high specific frequency galaxies like M87 are evaluated, and scaling laws for the GCSs in these galaxies are given. Interpretations involving secondary evolution (formation of many globular clusters during mergers, intergalactic globular clusters, etc.) are unlikely to be the primary explanation for high-S_N galaxies. (4) We suggest that central-supergiant E galaxies may have formed in an exceptionally turbulent or high-density environment in which an early, powerful galactic wind drove out a high fraction of the protogalactic gas, thus artificially boosting the specificComment: 67 pages, 17 figures. To appear in Astronomical Journal, in press for May 1998. Preprints also available from W.Harris; send e-mail request to [email protected]

International evidence-based medicine survey of the veterinary profession: information sources used by veterinarians

Veterinarians are encouraged to use evidence to inform their practice, but it is unknown what resources (e.g. journals, electronic sources) are accessed by them globally. Understanding the key places veterinarians seek information can inform where new clinically relevant evidence should most effectively be placed. An international survey was conducted to gain understanding of how veterinary information is accessed by veterinarians worldwide. There were 2137 useable responses to the questionnaire from veterinarians in 78 countries. The majority of respondents (n = 1835/2137, 85.9%) undertook clinical work and worked in a high income country (n = 1576/1762, 89.4%). Respondents heard about the survey via national veterinary organisations or regulatory bodies (31.5%), online veterinary forums and websites (22.7%), regional, discipline-based or international veterinary organisations (22.7%) or by direct invitation from the researchers or via friends, colleagues or social media (7.6%). Clinicians and non-clinicians reportedly used journals most commonly (65.8%, n = 1207/1835; 75.6%, n = 216/286) followed by electronic resources (58.7%, n = 1077/1835; 55.9%, n = 160/286), respectively. Respondents listed a total of 518 journals and 567 electronic sources that they read. Differences in veterinarian preference for resources in developed, and developing countries, were found. The nominated journals most read were the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (12.7% of nominations) for clinicians and the Veterinary Record (5.7%) for non-clinicians. The most accessed electronic resource reported was the Veterinary Information Network (25.6%) for clinicians and PubMed (7.4%) for non-clinicians. In conclusion, a wide array of journals and electronic resources appear to be accessed by veterinarians worldwide. Veterinary organisations appear to play an important role in global communication and outreach to veterinarians and consideration should be given to how these channels could be best utilised for effective dissemination of key research findings

Index Construction for Multiple Objective Analysis of Land and Water Use in a High Mountain Watershed

Comprehensive planning is an elusive ideal. The practical planner must sort the relevant information from the vast amounts of data that modern technology can collect. The objective of this study was to use the Upper Blackfoot watershed in the mountains of Southeastern Idaho as an arena for developing methods for construction, refinement, and application of indices needed to design land and water management schemes, compare alternatives, and influence the public in their uses of the area. A total of 21 uses were examined on 242 land units of a 160 square-mile area ranging in elevation from 6300 to 9000 feet and where the principal activities of grazing, lumbering, mining, and recreation can only be undertaken in the summer after the snow has melted. The indices considered were a reasonability index for screening out unreasonable uses at the start of the planning process, an index of use intensity for estimating an amount for reasonable uses, and an index for estimating the utility of the amount of use made from the public viewpoint. Data were collected on 42 attributes for the 343 land units and used in a linear programming model to maximize 1) economic benefits from use of the area and 2) minimize environmental disturbance. The resolution in the available use data limited the model solution to allocating uses among 18 larger land units. The primary factor limiting the modeling, however, was the lack of information for defining the interactions among the uses. The analysis provides a framework for classifying and identifying interactions beginning with the simplest case of simultaneous use by two uses in near proximity. The contribution of the study was a framework for analysis and the identification of the needs for research on the physical interactions among simultaneous uses, the perceived interactions of simultaneous users, and characterization of attributes for defining the quality of an area for a use