scholarly journals A dynamic water accounting framework based on marginal resource opportunity cost

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 1457-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tilmant ◽  
G. Marques ◽  
Y. Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
River System ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Water Fluxes ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Water Accounting

Abstract. Many river basins throughout the world are increasingly under pressure as water demands keep rising due to population growth, industrialization, urbanization and rising living standards. In the past, the typical answer to meet those demands focused on the supply side and involved the construction of hydraulic infrastructures to capture more water from surface water bodies and from aquifers. As river basins have become more and more developed, downstream water users and ecosystems have become increasingly dependent on the management actions taken by upstream users. The increased interconnectedness between water users, aquatic ecosystems and the built environment is further compounded by climate change and its impact on the water cycle. Those pressures mean that it has become increasingly important to measure and account for changes in water fluxes and their corresponding economic value as they progress throughout the river system. Such basin water accounting should provide policy makers with important information regarding the relative contribution of each water user, infrastructure and management decision to the overall economic value of the river basin. This paper presents a dynamic water accounting approach whereby the entire river basin is considered as a value chain with multiple services including production and storage. Water users and reservoir operators are considered as economic agents who can exchange water with their hydraulic neighbors at a price corresponding to the marginal value of water. Effective water accounting is made possible by keeping track of all water fluxes and their corresponding hypothetical transactions using the results of a hydro-economic model. The proposed approach is illustrated with the Eastern Nile River basin in Africa.

scholarly journals A dynamic water accounting framework based on marginal resource opportunity cost

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 11735-11762 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tilmant ◽  
G. Marques ◽  
Y. Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
River System ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Water Fluxes ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Water Accounting

Abstract. Many river basins throughout the world are increasingly under pressure as water demands keep rising due to population growth, industrialization, urbanization and rising living standards. In the past, the typical answer to meet those demands focused on the supply-side and involved the construction of hydraulic infrastructures to capture more water from surface water bodies and from aquifers. As river basins were being more and more developed, downstream water users and ecosystems have become increasingly dependent on the management actions taken by upstream users. The increased interconnectedness between water users, aquatic ecosystems and the built environment is further compounded by climate change and its impact on the water cycle. Those pressures mean that it has become increasingly important to measure and account for changes in water fluxes and their corresponding economic value as they progress throughout the river system. Such basin water accounting should provide policy makers with important information regarding the relative contribution of each water user, infrastructure and management decision to the overall economic value of the river basin. This paper presents a dynamic water accounting approach whereby the entire river basin is considered as a value chain with multiple services including production and storage. Water users and reservoirs operators are considered as economic agents who can exchange water with their hydraulic neighbours at a price corresponding to the marginal value of water. Effective water accounting is made possible by keeping track of all water fluxes and their corresponding hypothetical transactions using the results of a hydro-economic model. The proposed approach is illustrated with the Eastern Nile River basin in Africa.

scholarly journals A Simplified Water Accounting Procedure to Assess Climate Change Impact on Water Resources for Agriculture across Different European River Basins

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1976 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Hunink ◽  
Gijs Simons ◽  
Sara Suárez-Almiñana ◽  
Abel Solera ◽  
Joaquín Andreu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Green Water ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Water Fluxes ◽  
Water Accounting

European agriculture and water policies require accurate information on climate change impacts on available water resources. Water accounting, that is a standardized documentation of data on water resources, is a useful tool to provide this information. Pan-European data on climate impacts do not recognize local anthropogenic interventions in the water cycle. Most European river basins have a specific toolset that is understood and used by local experts and stakeholders. However, these local tools are not versatile. Thus, there is a need for a common approach that can be understood by multi-fold users to quantify impact indicators based on local data and that can be used to synthesize information at the European level. Then, policies can be designed with the confidence that underlying data are backed-up by local context and expert knowledge. This work presents a simplified water accounting framework that allows for a standardized examination of climate impacts on water resource availability and use across multiple basins. The framework is applied to five different river basins across Europe. Several indicators are extracted that explicitly describe green water fluxes versus blue water fluxes and impacts on agriculture. The examples show that a simplified water accounting framework can be used to synthesize basin-level information on climate change impacts which can support policymaking on climate adaptation, water resources and agriculture.

scholarly journals Analysing hydropower production in stressed river basins within the SEEA-W approach: the Jucar River case

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 528-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Solera ◽  
M. Pedro-Monzonís ◽  
J. Andreu ◽  
T. Estrela
Keyword(s):  
Economic Value ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Hydropower Generation ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
Water Energy Nexus ◽  
World Energy ◽  
Hydropower Production ◽  
Total Economic Value ◽  
Water Accounts

Abstract Hydropower generation represents an important contribution to meeting the challenges of today's increasing world energy needs. It uses about 44% of water in Europe, and it is the main user of water in most OECD countries. However, in most cases, the energy sector is not a water consumer. The largest part of these withdrawals is immediately returned into the environment, being able to be used by other sectors, which is its most prominent characteristic. In order to understand the water-energy nexus and the challenges that the environment and other water users face, the European Commission proposed the use of water accounts in order to measure the influence of each water user, infrastructure and management decision to the total economic value of water resources in a given basin. In this sense, the SEEA-W is the most well-known approach of hybrid accounting as it provides a standard approach to compare results between different regions. This research analyses hydropower production in the Jucar River Basin (Spain), which is currently water-stressed by consumptive demands, within the SEEA-W approach. The results demonstrate that the SEEA-W approach needs some improvement in order to represent hydropower production properly.

scholarly journals Sharing water and benefits in transboundary river basins

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Arjoon ◽  
Amaury Tilmant ◽  
Markus Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Sharing Rule ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Equitable Sharing

Abstract. The equitable sharing of benefits in transboundary river basins is necessary to solve disputes among riparian countries and to reach a consensus on basin-wide development and management activities. Benefit sharing arrangements must be collaboratively developed to be perceived not only as efficient, but also as equitable in order to be considered acceptable to all riparian countries. The current literature mainly describes what is meant by the term benefit sharing in the the context of transboundary river basins and discusses this from a conceptual point of view, but falls short of providing practical, institutional arrangements that ensure maximum economic welfare as well as collaboratively developed methods for encouraging the equitable sharing of benefits. In this study we define an institutional arrangement that distributes welfare in a river basin by maximizing the economic benefits of water use and then sharing these benefits in an equitable manner using a method developed through stakeholder involvement.We describe a methodology in which (i) a hydrological model is used to allocate scarce water resources, in an economically efficient manner, to water users in a transboundary basin, (ii) water users are obliged to pay for water, and (iii) the total of these water charges are equitably redistributed as monetary compensation to users in an amount determined through the application of a sharing method developed by stakeholder input, thus based on a stakeholder vision of fairness, using an axiomatic approach. The whole system is overseen by a river basin authority. The methodology is applied to the Eastern Nile River basin as a case study. The described technique not only ensures economic efficiency, but may also lead to more equitable solutions in the sharing of benefits in transboundary river basins because the definition of the sharing rule is not in question, as would be the case if existing methods, such as game theory, were applied, with their inherent definitions of fairness.

scholarly journals Eco-efficiency improvements in industrial water-service systems: assessing options with stakeholders

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (10) ◽  
pp. 2113-2121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Les Levidow ◽  
Palle Lindgaard-Jørgensen ◽  
Åsa Nilsson ◽  
Sara Alongi Skenhall ◽  
Dionysis Assimacopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Water Service ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Efficiency Assessment ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
Sharing Responsibility

The well-known eco-efficiency concept helps to assess the economic value and resource burdens of potential improvements by comparison with the baseline situation. But eco-efficiency assessments have generally focused on a specific site, while neglecting wider effects, for example, through interactions between water users and wastewater treatment (WWT) providers. To address the methodological gap, the EcoWater project has developed a method and online tools for meso-level analysis of the entire water-service value chain. This study investigated improvement options in two large manufacturing companies which have significant potential for eco-efficiency gains. They have been considering investment in extra processes which can lower resource burdens from inputs and wastewater, as well as internalising WWT processes. In developing its methodology, the EcoWater project obtained the necessary information from many agents, involved them in the meso-level assessment and facilitated their discussion on alternative options. Prior discussions with stakeholders stimulated their attendance at a workshop to discuss a comparative eco-efficiency assessment for whole-system improvement. Stakeholders expressed interest in jointly extending the EcoWater method to more options and in discussing investment strategies. In such ways, optimal solutions will depend on stakeholders overcoming fragmentation by sharing responsibility and knowledge.

scholarly journals Sharing water and benefits in transboundary river basins

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 2135-2150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Arjoon ◽  
Amaury Tilmant ◽  
Markus Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Sharing Rule ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Equitable Sharing

Abstract. The equitable sharing of benefits in transboundary river basins is necessary to solve disputes among riparian countries and to reach a consensus on basin-wide development and management activities. Benefit-sharing arrangements must be collaboratively developed to be perceived not only as efficient, but also as equitable in order to be considered acceptable to all riparian countries. The current literature mainly describes what is meant by the term benefit sharing in the context of transboundary river basins and discusses this from a conceptual point of view, but falls short of providing practical, institutional arrangements that ensure maximum economic welfare as well as collaboratively developed methods for encouraging the equitable sharing of benefits. In this study, we define an institutional arrangement that distributes welfare in a river basin by maximizing the economic benefits of water use and then sharing these benefits in an equitable manner using a method developed through stakeholder involvement. We describe a methodology in which (i) a hydrological model is used to allocate scarce water resources, in an economically efficient manner, to water users in a transboundary basin, (ii) water users are obliged to pay for water, and (iii) the total of these water charges is equitably redistributed as monetary compensation to users in an amount determined through the application of a sharing method developed by stakeholder input, thus based on a stakeholder vision of fairness, using an axiomatic approach. With the proposed benefit-sharing mechanism, the efficiency–equity trade-off still exists, but the extent of the imbalance is reduced because benefits are maximized and redistributed according to a key that has been collectively agreed upon by the participants. The whole system is overseen by a river basin authority. The methodology is applied to the Eastern Nile River basin as a case study. The described technique not only ensures economic efficiency, but may also lead to more equitable solutions in the sharing of benefits in transboundary river basins because the definition of the sharing rule is not in question, as would be the case if existing methods, such as game theory, were applied, with their inherent definitions of fairness.

Identification of sibling species in the genus Eucyclops from water-bodies of Ukraine and Russia using crossbreeding studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 61-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. I. Monchenko ◽  
L. P. Gaponova ◽  
V. R. Alekseev
Keyword(s):  
Cryptic Species ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Species Complex ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Water Bodies ◽  
Similar Species ◽  
Basin Water ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
Baltic Sea Basin

Crossbreeding experiments were used to estimate cryptic species in water bodies of Ukraine and Russia because the most useful criterion in species independence is reproductive isolation. The problem of cryptic species in the genus Eucyclops was examined using interpopulation crosses of populations collected from Baltic Sea basin (pond of Strelka river basin) and Black Sea basin (water-reservoires of Dnieper, Dniester and Danube rivers basins). The results of reciprocal crosses in Eucyclops serrulatus-group are shown that E. serrulatus from different populations but from water bodies belonging to the same river basin crossed each others successfully. The interpopulation crosses of E. serrulatus populations collected from different river basins (Dnipro, Danube and Dniester river basins) were sterile. In this group of experiments we assigned evidence of sterility to four categories: 1) incomplete copulation or absence of copulation; 2) nonviable eggs; 3) absence of egg membranes or egg sacs 4) empty egg membranes. These crossbreeding studies suggest the presence of cryptic species in the E. serrulatus inhabiting ecologically different populations in many parts of its range. The same crossbreeding experiments were carries out between Eucyclops serrulatus and morphological similar species – Eucyclops macruroides from Baltic and Black Sea basins. The reciprocal crossings between these two species were sterile. Thus taxonomic heterogeneity among species of genus Eucyclops lower in E. macruroides than in E. serrulatus. The interpopulation crosses of E. macruroides populations collected from distant part of range were fertile. These crossbreeding studies suggest that E. macruroides species complex was evaluated as more stable than E. serrulatus species complex.

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