Evaluating Alternative Water Allocation Strategies for Maximizing Returns to Irrigation for Wheat in the Texas Panhandle under Declining Water Availability

Author(s):  
W. Arden Colette ◽  
Lai K. Almas
Author(s):  
Zack Darby ◽  
Neelam Chandra Poudyal ◽  
Adam Frakes ◽  
Omkar Joshi

Municipal drawdowns at public reservoirs can negatively impact recreational uses on site. Therefore, sustaining recreation requires understanding how users relate themselves with the reservoir and the resource therein, and how they will respond to circumstances and policies impacting the resource. Researchers use placedbased theory, particularly sense of place (SOP), to assess the user community’s perspective on the natural resource or recreation site of interest. This study utilized visitor survey data (n=282) from Canton Reservoir in Oklahoma to assess visitors’ sense of place (SOP), and to evaluate the relationship of SOP with their acceptability of alternative water allocation strategies and future intention of visiting the reservoir under depleted water conditions. Visitors had a high level of SOP with the reservoir and supported protective water allocation strategies that either favor the retention of water on-site or ensure a fair distribution between recreation and municipal use. Results suggest a positive relationship between visitors' SOP and their intended trips to the reservoir even under depleted water conditions. The findings highlight the psychological, functional, and emotional benefits associated with the recreational use of the Canton Reservoir, which will in turn help managers make more informed and balanced decisions about water conservation and allocation. Insights from this study will also contribute in literature on the sense of place and protective norms and offers several implications for the management of public reservoirs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. 2150012
Author(s):  
Sahar Farid Yousef

More than one-quarter of the world’s population lives in water-scarce areas, while most countries share at least one transboundary river. If water scarcity is this prevalent, should we expect riparian countries to fight over the water allocation of shared rivers? To answer this question, I develop a modified one-shot three-stage river-sharing game where countries can resort to force to solve their water allocation problem. Using backward induction, I solve for the probability of the downstream country initiating conflict against the upstream country and the likelihood of the latter responding with force to the former’s hostile actions. I test the model empirically using a set of all upstream–downstream riparian dyads with available data from AQUASTAT and the Correlates of War Project for the years 1960–2010. The main contribution of this paper is that it demonstrates how upstream and downstream riparian countries differ in their decision to use force against the other country when experiencing water scarcity. I find that water scarcity increases the likelihood of the downstream country initiating the conflict, but it has no effect on the upstream country’s likelihood of responding with force. If history is a predictor of the future, then the results imply that as more riparian countries become water-scarce, militarized conflicts between upstream and downstream countries are likely to increase, especially if there is heterogeneity in water availability between the riparian dyad.


Al-Burz ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
Shaheen Usman Kakar ◽  
Dr. Mumtaz Ali Baloch ◽  
Dr. Shahida Habib

  Water is of basic substance for Human development, the water brought environment, economy, civilization, livelihood provisions and well being for the society. Comprehensively understanding factors affecting the availability of water for household the water consumption behavior are required to be designed for efficient and effective water uses. To address the issue we randomly investigated 200 households in five different populated towns of Quetta city. The primary data was collected through household questionnaire survey and observation. On the other hand, secondary data included books, journal articles and websites. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The findings of this study revealed that type of family, monthly income, major source of water, presence of garden at household and responsible factor of water shortage are significantly correlated with water availability. The survey concludes that the available water resources provided by the government are not enough for the daily household usage resultantly the respondents struggle hard to managed alternative water resources as per their requirement. The paper recommend to bring  awareness for the public sector about their right to water and provision of water sources is core responsibly of Government, especially to draw a policy for new constructions of water resources or by the remodeling of water and sanitation systems.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Sordo-Ward ◽  
Alfredo Granados ◽  
Ana Iglesias ◽  
Luis Garrote ◽  
María Bejarano

We evaluated different management alternatives to enhance potential water availability for agriculture under climate change scenarios. The management goal involved maximizing potential water availability, understood as the maximum volume of water supplied at a certain point of the river network that satisfies a defined demand, and taking into account specified reliability requirements. We focused on potential water availability for agriculture and assumed two types of demands: urban supply and irrigation. If potential water availability was not enough to satisfy all irrigation demands, management measures were applied aiming at achieving a compromise solution between resources and demands. The methodological approach consisted of estimation and comparison of runoff for current and future period under climate change effects, calculation of water availability changes due to changes in runoff, and evaluation of the adaptation choices that can modify the distribution of water availability, under climate change. Adaptation choices include modifying water allocation to agriculture, increasing the reservoir storage capacity, improving the efficiency of urban water use, and modifying water allocation to environmental flows. These management measures were evaluated at the desired points of the river network by applying the Water Availability and Adaptation Policy Analysis (WAAPA) model. We simulated the behavior of a set of reservoirs that supply water for a set of prioritized demands, complying with specified ecological flows and accounting for evaporation losses. We applied the methodology in six representative basins of southern Europe: Duero-Douro, Ebro, Guadalquivir, Po, Maritsa-Evros, and Struma-Strymon. While in some basins, such as the Ebro or Struma-Strymon, measures can significantly increase water availability and compensate for a fraction of water scarcity due to climate change, in other basins, like the Guadalquivir, water availability cannot be enhanced by applying the management measures analyzed, and irrigation water use will have to be reduced.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zehao Yan ◽  
Mo Li

Agricultural water scarcity is a global problem and this reinforces the need for optimal allocation of irrigation water resources. However, decision makers are challenged by the complexity of fluctuating stream condition and irrigation quota as well as the dynamic changes of the field water cycle process, which make optimal allocation more complex. A two-stage chance-constrained programming model with random parameters in the left- and right-hand sides of constraints considering field water cycle process has been developed for agricultural irrigation water allocation. The model is capable of generating reasonable irrigation allocation strategies considering water transformation among crop evapotranspiration, precipitation, irrigation, soil water content, and deep percolation. Moreover, it can deal with randomness in both the right-hand side and the left-hand side of constraints to generate schemes under different flow levels and constraint-violation risk levels, which are informative for decision makers. The Yingke irrigation district in the middle reaches of the Heihe River basin, northwest China, was used to test the developed model. Tradeoffs among different crops in different time periods under different flow levels, and dynamic changes of soil moisture and deep percolation were analyzed. Scenarios with different violating probabilities were conducted to gain insight into the sensitivity of irrigation water allocation strategies on water supply and irrigation quota. The performed analysis indicated that the proposed model can efficiently optimize agricultural irrigation water for an irrigation district with water scarcity in a stochastic environment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 3071-3086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Yan ◽  
Mingtian Yao ◽  
Fulco Ludwig ◽  
Pavel Kabat ◽  
He Qing Huang ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Ralph Wurbs

Effective water resources management requires assessments of water availability within a framework of complex institutions and infrastructure employed to manage extremely variable stream flow shared by numerous often competing water users and diverse types of use. The Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) modeling system is fundamental to water allocation and planning in the state of Texas in the United States. Integration of environmental flow standards into both the modeling system and comprehensive statewide water management is a high priority for continuing research and development. The public domain WRAP software and documentation are generalized for application any place in the world. Lessons learned in developing and implementing the modeling system in Texas are relevant worldwide. The modeling system combines: (1) detailed simulation of water right systems, interstate compacts, international treaties, federal/state/local agreements, and operations of storage and conveyance facilities; (2) simulation of river system hydrology; and (3) statistical frequency and reliability analyses. The continually evolving modeling system has been implemented in Texas by a water management community that includes the state legislature, planning and regulatory agencies, river authorities, water districts, cities, industries, engineering consulting firms, and university researchers. The shared modeling system contributes significantly to integration of water allocation, planning, system operations, and research.


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