STOPPING THE DRAIN: THIRD-PARTY RESISTANCE TO WATER MARKETING IN CALIFORNIA

Growth of the water market since the early 1990s has generated controversy in California's source regions over two types of transfers - those drawing on native groundwater reserves and those resulting from crop idling. Given incomplete state-level protections for third parties who may suffer adverse effects of water sales, local authorities have responded with their own measures. In particular, many rural counties have adopted ordinances restricting groundwater exports. Some communities have restricted farmers' right to fallow land for the market. Original data on water market flows and local ordinances are used to analyze the impact of county trade restrictions on water sales and water exports. County ordinances have reduced water exports by nearly20 percent and water sales by nearly 15 percent since the mid 1990s and have shifted some exports to local buyers. Several policy options are available for mitigating third-party effects in less trade-restrictive ways. For groundwater protection, a more efficient solution lies in the establishment of local groundwater management systems. Recent test cases will provide useful guidance on the practical difficulties of implementing a transfer tax to compensate communities for the impacts of fallowing.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Show Me the Water Plan: Urban Water Management Plans and California’s Water Supply Adequacy Laws

This Article reviews the effectiveness of California’s strategy of using enabling legislation and passive enforcement to encourage more integrated local water and land use planning. To shed light on the effectiveness of the current policy framework, the Article begins with a critical overview of the Urban Water Management Planning process, drawing on a detailed analysis of plans submitted in the early 2000s. It then evaluates how water supply assessments are proceeding, with a particular emphasis on steps used to identify adequacy, drawing on telephone surveys of land use authorities and water utilities conducted by the author in 2004 and 2009. A concluding section highlights shortcomings in the current system and suggests steps that could improve California’s planning process

SLIDES: Water Planning in California: Past, Present, Future

Presenter: Ellen Hanak, Senior Fellow and Director, PPIC Water Policy Center, Public Policy Institute of California 13 slide

Driving Change: Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled in California

Assesses benefits and challenges of a 2008 strategy to integrate higher-density development, investments in alternatives to solo driving, and pricing incentives, as well as the state's experience with implementing it. Includes policy recommendations

Who Should Be Allowed to Sell Water in California? Third-Party Issues and the Water Market

This study examines the issue of third-party effects of water transfers in California from the economic, institutional, and legal perspectives. It also evaluates potential mechanisms for resolving the conflicts between those wishing to trade in water and the wider community. Drawing on a range of data sources, including a new database on water transfers and an extensive set of interviews with water users and county officials, the analysis aims to answer the following questions: How has resistance to water transfers affected California's water market to date, and what are the likely effects of that resistance? What distinguishes cases where conflicts have been successfully resolved from the stalled deals? Are revisions of state water law a necessary or desirable means for dealing with third-party issues, or should solutions be left to local institutions? We begin with some background on the water market and the rise in local resistance to it

SLIDES: Water Planning in California: Past, Present, Future

Presenter: Ellen Hanak, Senior Fellow and Director, PPIC Water Policy Center, Public Policy Institute of California 13 slide

Climate change and asset prices: hedonic estimates for North American ski resorts

We use a hedonic framework to estimate and simulate the impact of global warming on real estate prices at North American ski resorts. To do so, we combine data on resort-area housing prices from two sources--data on average prices for U.S. Census tracts across a broad swath of the western U.S. and data on individual home sales for four markets in the western U.S. and Canada, each available over multiple decades--with detailed weather data and characteristics of ski resorts in those areas. Our OLS and fixed-effects models of changes in house prices with respect to medium-run changes in the share of snowfall in winter precipitation yield precise and consistent estimates of positive snowfall effects on housing values in both data sources. We use our estimates to simulate the impact of likely climate shifts on house prices in coming decades and find substantial variation across resort areas based on climatic characteristics such as longitude, elevation, and proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Resorts that are unfavorably located face likely large negative effects on home prices due to warming, unless adaptive measures are able to compensate for the deterioration of conditions in the ski industry.Environmental protection ; Housing - Prices ; Skis and skiing

Transitions for the Delta Economy

Details threats to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, policy proposals to improve environmental management and water supply reliability, how these changes will affect land and water conditions, and implications for the area's and regional economies