Water stress, Water Transfer and Social Equity in Northern China: Implications for Policy Reforms

human development, water, sanitation

Environmental Systems I - University of Illinois, Urbana

Undergraduate course in environmental systems at University of Illinois, Urbana in Fall 2012

Does efficient water management matter?: physical and economic efficiency of water use in the river basin

With growing water scarcity and increasing competition across water-using sectors, the need for water savings and more efficient water use has increased in importance in water resources management. Improvement in the physical efficiency of water use is related to water conservation through increasing the fraction of water beneficially used over water applied, while enhancing economic efficiency is a broader concept seeking the highest economic value of water use through both physical and managerial measures. Physical and economic efficiency measures are both useful indicators for water management at the irrigation system and river basin level. However, the relationship between physical efficiency and economic efficiency is not always clear and the values of these measures may indicate different directions for water policy and investments in irrigation. Open research questions include, for example: does enhancement of physical water use efficiency always lead to improved economic water use efficiency? How does the change in responsiveness of water allocation and irrigation technology to economic incentives affect physical and economic irrigation efficiency? What is the impact on physical and economic efficiency of various structural and nonstructural improvements? To explore these issues, an integrated economic-hydrologic river basin model is applied to the Maipo River Basin in Chile. A series of modeling scenarios are defined and policy implications from physical and economic efficiencies for basin-wide irrigation water management are analyzed.Irrigation Economic aspects., Water resources development., Water conservation., Chile.,

Risk Perception and Altruistic Averting Behavior: Removing Arsenic in Drinking Water

Self protection and altruism are crucial behavioral factors in determining the effectiveness of public policies aimed to improve human health from environmental hazards. This paper examined people’s arsenic mortality risk perception in the drinking water for themselves and their children using the Bayesian learning framework. A two-stage structural model within the random utility framework was developed to model the household’s risk averting behavior with respect to arsenic-related mortality risk. The empirical results indicate that parents engage in a form of mixed altruism. Parents are willing to spend more to make a trade-off between their risk and their children’s risk.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Hydrologic Observation, Model, and Theory Congruence on Evapotranspiration Variance: Diagnosis of Multiple Observations and Land Surface Models

This paper reconciles the state-of-the-art observations and simulations of evapotranspiration (ET) temporal variability through a diagnostic framework composed of an observation-model-theory triplet. Specifically, a confirmed theoretical tool, Evapotranspiration Temporal VARiance Decomposition (EVARD), is used as a benchmark to estimate ET monthly variance (σ2ET) across the contiguous United States (CONUS) with inputs including hydroclimatic observations, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-based terrestrial water storage, four observation-based products (ETRSUW by the University of Washington, ETRSMOD16 from MOD16 Global Terrestrial ET Data Set, ETFLUXNET upscaled from of fluxtower observations, and ETGLEAM from Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model), and four operational land surface models (LSMs: MOSAIC, NOAH, NOAH-MP, and VIC). Five experiments are systematically designed to evaluate and diagnose possible errors and uncertainties in ET temporal variance estimated by the four observation-based ET products and the four LSM simulations. Based on the results of these experiments, the following diagnostic hypotheses regarding the uncertainty of the observation-based ET products are illustrated: ETRSUW captures the high σ2ET signals in the Midwest with negligible bias and moderate uncertainty over the contiguous United States; ETFLUXNET systematically underestimates σ2ET over CONUS but with the lowest level of uncertainty; ETRSMOD16 has medium bias with the highest level of uncertainty, and the spatial distribution of high σ2ET signal from ETRSMOD16 is different from other estimates; ETGLEAM has slight negative bias and medium uncertainty, and σ2ET in the West Coast is smaller than that from ETVARD. Regarding the LSMs, it is found that any of the four LSMs can be the best depending on a certain set of reference observations. The study reveals that LSMs have shown a reasonably worthy, though not perfect, capability in estimating ET and its variability in regions/aquifers with limited human interference. However, RS-based observations and theoretical estimates suggest that all the four LSMs examined in this study are not able to accurately predict the ET variability in regions/aquifers heavily influenced by human activities like Central Valley and High Plains aquifers; they all underestimate ET variability along the West Coast due to seasonal vegetation responses to Mediterranean climate and human water use. In addition, LSMs underestimate intraannual ET variance in California and the High Plains with underestimated terrestrial storage change components in ET variance, due to the inappropriate representation of groundwater pumping and its impact on ET and other hydrologic processes. This paper urges advancing hydrologic knowledge by finding congruence among models, data, and theories

Global water outlook to 2025

"... Based on a global model of supply and demand for food and water, this report shows that if current water policies continue, farmers will indeed find it difficult to meet the world's food needs. Hardest hit will be the world's poorest people. The results from the model used in this report also show the consequences of changing the course of water policy. Further inattention to water-related investments and policies will produce a severe water crisis, which will lead in turn to a food crisis. A commitment to sustainable use of water, through appropriate policies and investments, however, will lead to a more water- and food-secure world. Water may be a scarce resource, but humans have developed many ways of using it more efficiently — that is, getting more from each unit of water. But water-saving policies, practices, and technologies are of no help if they are not used. Inappropriate incentives and institutions often hinder effective use of water. This report spells out the future results of our current choices." Authors' Introduction

Water and food to 2025

The world's farmers will likely need to produce enough food to feed 8 billion people by 2025, and to do so they must have enough water to raise their crops. Yet farmers are already competing with industry, domestic water users, and the environment for access to the world's finite supply of water. Will available freshwater meet the rapidly growing demands for household, industrial, and environmental needs and still provide enough water to produce food for a burgeoning population? New research from IFPRI shows what steps policymakers and water users can take now to help ensure that water scarcity will not result in worsening hunger for the world's poorest people.

Climate change impacts on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from comprehensive climate change scenarios

Climate change impacts vary significantly, depending on the scenario and the Global Circulation Model (GCM) chosen. This is particularly true for Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses a comprehensive climate change scenario (CCC) based on ensembles of 17 GCMs selected based on their relative performance regarding past predictions of temperature and precipitation at the level of 2o x 2o grid cells, generated by a recently developed entropy-based downscaling model. Based on past performance, the effects of temperature and precipitation across the 17 GCMs are incorporated into a global hydrological model that is linked with IFPRI's IMPACT water and food projections model to assess the effects of climate change on food outcomes for the region. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the paper finds that the CCC scenario predicts consistently higher temperatures and mixed precipitation changes for the 2050 period. Compared to historic climate scenarios, climate change will lead to changes in yield and area growth, higher food prices and therefore lower affordability of food, reduced calorie availability, and growing childhood malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa.Climate change, hydrology, crop yield, food security,

Can water allocation in the Yellow River basin be improved?: Insights from a multi-agent system model

In 1999, the Government of China enforced a cross-provincial, quota-based Water Allocation Agreement that was developed in 1987 and titled Unified Water Flow Regulation (UWFR) to ensure that flow to the Yellow River mouth would not be cut off. This policy was in line with the refocus of the Government, over the last decade, on sustainable water use and keeping the Yellow River healthy. The policy enforcement ended more than two decades of flow-cutoffs, that is, periods when the Yellow River did not reach the Bohai Sea at its mouth, during an increasing number of days every year.Water allocation, river basin management, multi-agent system,