A PROPOSED APPROACH TO COORDINATION OF WATER RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS1

ABSTRACT: The planning and developing of water resources to meet the country's needs for water supply, flood control, hydroelectric power, irrigation, and navigation now needs to take more account of environmental needs and regulations. Water resource development is often beneficial to the environment, but may also be harmful, as in cases involving salmon and various other endangered species. As a national objective, the environment must be preserved and in some cases restored; but how can this be done consistent with other national objectives, relating to life and welfare of human beings? This problem has aroused the concern of many engineers and water scientists. As a result, a national conference on this subject was held in Chicago in June 1998, as an integral part of ASCE's Annual Conference on Water Resources Planning and Management and the Annual Conference on Environmental Engineering. At the conclusion of that conference, a post-conference meeting was held by a group of prominent water resource practitioners. It was concluded at this meeting that action should be taken by our government to establish a new form of interagency approach, involving the states, as a means of coordination in cases of national importance.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PLAN OF STUDY – AN INTERAGENCY APPROACH TO MULTIOBJECTIVE PLANNING AND EVALUATION OF WATER AND LAND RESOURCE USE1

ABSTRACT The paper presents a systems approach for planning and evaluating alternative plans for resource use incorporating the concepts of multiobjective planning and evaluation (MOPE). The need for multidisciplinary input and strong interagency cooperation in planning for resource use is related to the logical and orderly completion of the planning steps. The paper briefly describes MOPE, emphasizing two important concepts: (1) the relationship of the study problems and objectives to national social objectives, and (2) the display of alternative solutions showing tradeoffs. Several important characteristics of a plan of study which implements MOPE are presented and discussed. A proposed MOPE analytical system is discussed in detail. The MOPE analytical system is divided into eight interdependent subsystems that describe data collection, use, analysis, and results. A linear program (L.P.) model is proposed to analyze the present and future demand relationships for natural resources. The model will also evaluate the interaction of agriculture, forestry, and recreation with the resource base of the basin, considering National Economic Development, Environmental Quality, and Regional Development.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING APPLIED TO WATER RESOURCE PLANNING1

ABSTRACT The growing social consciousness and concern with human well-being has resulted in numerous water resource use and control programs, the results of which must be measured not in the customary monetary terms, but rather in terms of social and human welfare. Interdisciplinary research offers the greatest promise of yielding fruitful results in establishing planning methodology that would result in a maximum utilization of funds available for water resource programs. Working with the various social science disciplines, accountants have begun research in social measurement thus opening the door to a new field of accountancy known as socio-economic accounting. The development of social accounting systems will improve water resource management by projecting heretofore unmeasureable social values into the management decision making process.     

BUFFER STRIPS TO PROTECT WATER SUPPLY RESERVOIRS: A MODEL AND RECOMMENDATIONS1

ABSTRACT: Buffer strips are undisturbed, naturally vegetated zones around water supply reservoirs and their tributaries that are a recognized and integral aspect of watershed management. These strips can be very effective in protecting the quality of public potable water supply reservoirs by removing sediment and associated pollutants, reducing bank erosion, and displacing activities from the water's edge that represent potential sources of nonpoint source pollutant generation. As part of a comprehensive watershed management protect for the State of New Jersey, a parameter-based buffer strip model was developed for application to all watersheds above water supply intakes or reservoirs. Input requirements for the model include a combination of slope, width, and time of travel. The application of the model to a watershed in New Jersey with a recommended buffer strip width that ranges from 50 to 300 feet, depending upon a number of assumptions, results in from 6 to 13 percent of the watershed above the reservoir being occupied by the buffer.     

APPLICATION OF A SINGLE RESERVOIR OPERATION POLICY TO A RAIN WATER CISTERN SYSTEM1

The operation policy for a single reservoir is applied to a rain water cistern system because the functions of a cistern are similar to a simple single reservoir. Since the cistern is a closed system, water loss is negligible. In this study, a dynamic programming analysis has been made to study the effects of the probable weekly rainfall and the water storage in the cistern towards the water consumption policy. The result of this study indicates that the water consumption rate should be adjusted into a lower rate when the water storage in the cistern is low and/or when the expected probable weekly rainfall is low if the owner of the cistern does not want to risk the chance of an empty cistern. The demand for a reliable method for forecasting weekly rainfall is evident in this study.     

ADMINISTRATION OF GROUND WATER AS BOTH A RENEWABLE AND NONRENEWABLE RESOURCE1

ABSTRACT: Ground water is intended to be administered in many western states as a flow or renewable resource. In Idaho, this administration is based on the appropriation doctrine of water rights. Two generalizations may be made concerning ground water. First, water artificially discharged from an aquifer system must deplete the total resource by that amount; water consumptively pumped from a well must be derived from either increased recharge, decreased discharge or a decrease of water in storage. Second, the annual rate of recharge to a ground-water system is often only a small percentage of the total resource in storage. Ground water may be divided into flow and stock portions. In those basins where the second generalization is true, most ground water may be classified as stock. However, only the flow portion of ground water may be developed if utilization of the resource is to be enjoyed over an infinite period. Data from the Raft River Basin in Idaho indicate that the flow and stock characteristics of ground water are time dependent. The resource exhibits the characteristics of both a renewable and nonrenewable resource. As a result, present administrative techniques do not provide for effective management of the resource.     

AN APPLICATION OF NETWORK THEORY TO WATER MANAGEMENT IN POULTRY PROCESSING1

ABSTRACT This paper summarizes a study employing a systems approach for analyzing one class of modifications within a poultry processing plant. The modifications considered were changes in water-flow arrangements and process characteristics to reduce water intake of the plant and waste-treatment costs. The object of the study was to develop a technique or techniques by which a combination of proposed modifications could be chosen to minimize water flow through the plant. Existing and proposed flows were represented as a network, and linear programming was used to solve the minimum-flow problem for the network. Application of the technique was made to an existing, typical plant in Durham, N.C. Results of the application showed fresh water intake could be reduced by 45% to 51%, and furthermore that annual returns of 62% to 494% could be obtained on investment in the optimum modification sets, as fresh water costs varying from 10 cents to $1.00 per 1000 gal. Types of modifications of a poultry processing plant are classified by types, and the relative importance and effectiveness of each type are discussed.     

RELATIVE REGIONAL VULNERABILITY OF WATER RESOURCES TO CLIMATE CHANGE1

ABSTRACT: Changes in global climate may alter hydrologic conditions and have a variety of effects on human settlements and ecological systems. The effects include changes in water supply and quality for domestic, irrigation, recreational, commercial, and industrial uses; in instream flows that support aquatic ecosystems, recreation uses, hydropower, navigation, and wastewater assimilation; in wetland extent and productivity that support fish, wildlife, and wastewater assimilation; and in the frequency and severity of floods. Watersheds where water resources are stressed under current climate are most likely to be vulnerable to changes in mean climate and extreme events. This study identified key aspects of water supply and use that could be adversely affected by climate change, developed measures and criteria useful for assessing the vulnerability of regional water resources and water dependent resources to climate change, developed a regional database of water sensitive variables consistent with the vulnerability measures, and applied the criteria in a regional study of the vulnerability of U.S. water resources. Key findings highlight the vulnerability of consumptive uses in the western and, in particular, the southwestern United States. However, southern United States watersheds are relatively more vulnerable to changes in water quality, flooding, and other instream uses.     

APPLICATION OF LINEAR SYSTEM'S THEORY AND LINEAR PROGRAMMING TO GROUND WATER MANAGEMENT IN KANSAS1

ABSTRACT: A ground water management model based on the linear systems theory and the use of linear programming is formulated and solved. The model maximizes the total amount of pound water that can be pumped from the system subject to the physical capability of the system and institutional constraints. The results are compared With analytical and numerical solutions. Then, this model is applied to the Pawnee Valley area of south-central Kansas. The results of this application support the previous studies about the future ground water resources of the Valley. These results provide a guide for the ground water resources management of the area over the next ten years.     

ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE RIVERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MISSOURI RIVER1

ABSTRACT: The technocratic approach for managing the Missouri River and other large rivers is not effective in resolving conflicts among competing uses of water and dealing with uncertainty about how river ecosystems respond to alternative management actions. Adaptive management offers an alternative way to address these and other issues. It has the potential to alleviate management gridlock and provide lasting solutions to management of the Missouri River and other large river ecosystems. In passive adaptive management, simulation models and expert judgment are combined to select a preferred management action. While passive adaptive management is relatively simple and inexpensive to use, it does not necessarily provide reliable information for making management decisions. Active adaptive management uses statistically designed experiments to test assumptions or hypotheses about ecosystem responses to management actions. It is best carried out by a collaborative working group. Active adaptive management has several advantages, but the inability to satisfy certain prerequisites for successful application makes it more difficult to implement in large river ecosystems. A second‐best approach is proposed here to select, implement, monitor, and evaluate a preferred management action and retain that action provided ecological conditions improve and socioeconomic indicators do not fall below established acceptability limits.     

REAPPRAISAL OF WATER SUPPLY RESOURCES IN DELAWARE RIVER BASIN USING SYNTHETIC HYDROLOGY1

ABSTRACT The 60's drought (1961 1966) which hit the Northeastern United States, had its center over the Delaware River Basin and caused water supply shortages to New York City, Philadelphia, and many other towns and industries in the Basin. Until this event occurred, the existing water supply sources and those planned for the future had been considered adequate, as they were designed for the worst drought of record (usually the 1930-31 drought). In view of this “change in hydrology,” the Delaware River Basin Commission authorized a study (DRBC Resolution 67-4) to re-evaluate the adequacy of existing and planned water supply sources of the Delaware River Basin and its Service Area (New York City and northern New Jersey). Synthetic hydrology is a tool which can be used to overcome many of the limitations of the traditional approach. By analyzing generated streamflow traces in this study, it has been determined that there is a definite relationship between the accumulated rainfall deficiency during the drought and the return periods associated with various durations of runoff in the drought. This indicated that generated traces can be used to standardize the hydrology over an area where the intensity of drought varied. This represented an important facet in the study, because it provided a means to equalize the effects of this drought over the study area, and gave the Delaware River Basin Commission more information so that it could better plan and manage its water resources equitably, not only for the people within the Basin, but for the New York City and northern New Jersey areas as well. Synthetic hydrology was used to determine yield-probability relationships for 50-year periods, and storage-yield-frequency relationships for existing and planned water-supply reservoirs. It was also used to determine yield-probability relationships for reservoir systems within the Basin. In the study, it was determined that monthly streamflow traces and uniform draft rates could be used in yield analysis because of the magnitude of the reservoirs and because seasonal variations of draft rate are small in the study area. Although it was found that with the streamflow generating models (first order Markov) in common use today, it is not possible to definitely determine the actual frequency of a very severe historic drought, it is possible to place a drought in perspective by using synthetic hydrology. The study showed that it is a useful tool in determining water availability over a basin and is useful in studying water management problems such as interbasin transfers, and reservoir systems operations.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL TO EVALUATE HYDROLOGIC RISK IN WATER RESOURCE SYSTEM DESIGN1

In this paper, a procedure for analyzing a water resource system with special emphasis on evaluation of acceptable economic risk due to occasional failures to deliver water is proposed. The basic methodology includes the development of a simple mathematical model which describes the physical hydrologic and economic characteristics of a single reservoir irrigation and city water supply system and an evaluation of economic benefits of the system with full and partial deliveries of water. The system is simulated for various combinations of decision variables (system magnitudes) and an optimum design is obtained by response surface technology. Emphasis is placed on the basic model and methodology although, in order to introduce some realism, the procedure is applied to data based on the existing reservoir system on the South Concho River in West Central Texas.     

IMPERVIOUSNESS: A PERFORMANCE MEASURE OF A DELAWARE WATER RESOURCE PROTECTION AREA ORDINANCE1

ABSTRACT: The New Castle County Resource Protection Area Technical Advisory Committee (RPATAC) requested that the University of Delaware utilize impervious cover estimates to evaluate the performance of the Water Resource Protection Area (WRPA) ordinance. This 1991 ordinance was the first in Delaware to protect the quantity and quality of drinking water supplies by limiting new development in WRPAs ‐ such as areas of ground water recharge, wellhead protection, drainage above reservoirs (reservoir watersheds), and limestone aquifers ‐ to a maximum 20 percent impervious cover. The research used geographic information system (GIS) techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of the ordinance in attaining its objective. The analysis indicated that 138 new developments were proposed in WRPAs since the ordinance was approved in 1991. The composite impervious cover of the 231 square kilometers of WRPAs in New Castle County is 15 percent, less than the 20 percent code requirement, ranging from 7 percent in recharge areas to 41 percent in several wellhead protection areas. To further protect drinking water supplies, the study results indicate, New Castle County should discourage code variances for applications in the more developed WRPAs, those where impervious cover already exceeds 20 percent, and should acquire parks and open space to protect the healthier WRPAs where impervious cover is currently less than 20 percent.     

MULTIPLE CRITERIA SCREENING OF A LARGE WATER POLICY SUBSET SELECTION PROBLEM1

ABSTRACT: A new screening approach is applied to a large‐scale multiple criteria water management problem to remove actions that cannot possibly be in the best subset. An inherent advantage of the approach is its ability to identify inferior actions by examining them individually, rather than within subsets. In a case study involving the selection of actions to address high water levels in the Great Lakes‐St. Lawrence Basin, two statistical indicators, the mode and the mean, are used to aggregate the opinions of experts and representatives of interest groups on the impacts of actions according to various criteria. Application of the screening approach shows that some of the proposed actions can be removed as they can never be in the optimal subset, thereby reducing the size of the problem.     

AN INTERPRETATIVE ANALYSIS OF FAMILY AND INDIVIDUAL ECONOMIC COSTS DUE TO WATER RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT1

ABSTRACT This article reports information on the economic costs not covered by resettlement procedures to forced migrants from a flood-control reservoir. Data come from a sample of 200 families relocated due to construction of the Carr Fork Reservoir in the Coal Regions of Eastern Kentucky (Knott County). Responses indicated that economic costs were greater than the monetary settlement provided by the Corps of Engineers and that economic loss was not randomly distributed among the relocated persons. Analysis showed that persons who were more likely to be victims of greater economic costs due to relocation were landowners, older families with one or two members, persons with lower incomes and persons who were long time residents of the area. It is suggested that change angencies not only include property purchased by necessity in the cost-benefit ratio, but also other costs that have a direct affect on the welfare of the target population. In addition, it is suggested that case workers visit migrants during and after the relocation process to assist in solving various adjustment problems.     

USE OF CLIMATE PREDICTIONS TO DECIDE A WATER MANAGEMENT PROBLEM1

ABSTRACT: Seasonal precipitation predictions were utilized in a water management decision with major economic, societal, and political ramifications. A summer (1984) drought had created a situation calling for possible fall season use of state waters from two major multipurpose reservoirs with an ensuing effect on water price negotiations. Choices facing management and use of water from the reservoirs were to invoke expensive water restrictions with a 33 percent chance of being right, do nothing (66 percent chance of wrong outcome), or use the precipitation predictors (for above normal fall rain) having a 50 percent chance of error. Hydrologists chose to follow the precipitation predictions, which proved to be accurate for the fall of 1984, helping to reveal the long-term value of using well understood climate predictions in water management.     

FROM FLOW TO FISH TO DOLLARS: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO WATER ALLOCATION1

This paper details a case study of economic and natural system responses to alternative water management policies in the Cache La Poudre River basin, Colorado, 1980–1994. The case study is presented to highlight the value and application of a conceptual integration of economic, salmonid population, physical habitat, and water allocation models. Five alternative regimes, all intended to increase low winter flows, were investigated. Habitat enhancements created by alternative regimes were translated to population responses and economic benefits. Analysis concluded that instream flows cannot compete on the northern Colorado water rental market; cooperative agreements offer an economically feasible way to enhance instream flows; and establishing an instream flow program on the Cache La Poudre River mainstem is a potentially profitable opportunity. The alliance of models is a dynamic multidisciplinary tool for use in professional settings and offers valuable insight for decision-making processes involved in water management.     

A RETROSPECTIVE BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS OF WATER RESOURCE PROJECTS IN THE CUMBERLAND RIVER BASIN1

ABSTRACT: A retrospective benefit-cost analysis of major water resources projects in the Cumberland River basin was conducted. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' projects selected were Dale Hollow, Wolf Creek, Center Hill, and J. Percy Priest Reservoirs. The ex-post performance of the evaluated reservoirs were compared to the ex-ante estimates. Benefits and costs for each project were deflated to their base year and respective average annual values for each of these components were calculated. An ex-post benefit-cost ratio was determined for each project, as well as the combined system. The benefit-cost ratio for each project surpassed unity. The actual ratio as compared to the ex-ante estimate for each project is as follows: Dale Hollow, 1.24 to 1.46; Wolf Creek, 1.40 to 1.53; Center Hill, 1.17 to 2.02; and J. Percy Priest, 1.45 to 1.6. The internal rate of return was also determined for each project. The results obtained for each project are tabulated and discussed with consideration given to factors effecting the economic evaluation of the projects.     

EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION MODELS FOR APPLICATION TO WATER RESOURCES PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: A research project was undertaken for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to determine the relative utility and effectiveness of four well-known multicriteria decision making (MCDM) models for applications in realistic water resources planning settings. A series of experiments was devised to examine the impact of rating and ranking procedures on the decision making behavior of users (e.g., planners, managers, analysts, etc.) when faced with situations involving multiple evaluation criteria and numerous alternative planning projects. The four MCDM models tested were MATS-PC, EXPERT CHOICE, ARIADNE, and ELECTRE. Two groups of analysts and decision makers were tested. One group consisted of experienced U.S. Army Corps planners, while the other was comprised of graduate students. Based on a series of nonparametric statistical tests, the results identified EXPERT CHOICE as the preferred MCDM model by both groups based largely on ease of use and understandability. ARIADNE fostered the largest degree of agreement within and among the two groups of individuals tested. The tests also lend support to the claim that rankings are not affected significantly by the choice of decision maker (i.e., who uses any of these MCDM models) or which of these four models is used.     

DINOSAUR NATIONAL MONUMENT: THE EVOLUTION OF A FEDERAL RESERVED WATER RIGHT1

ABSTRACT: Dinosaur National Monument, in northwestern Colorado, has become a test case in the establishment of a federal reserved water right to instream flows. For the first time, the Interior Department was forced to rigorously defend its claims in a watershed where the federal government did not control the upstream reaches. Inadequate quantification of minimum flow requirements, court orders, and an apparent Congressional ban on the spending of Water Resources Program funds by the Park Service to quantify its water rights have already placed the Service in a difficult position to protect instream flows for maintaining the ecological integrity of the Monument. As late as 1983, administrators of the Park Service were divided over their legal strategy, many wanting to pursue a policy of claiming “natural, historic” flows rather than “minimum” flows. The conditional right to instream flows panted to the Park Service in 1978 was subject to quantification within five years. That deadline has been extended, but it is not likely that the case will reach final settlement this decade. Until the design and conduct of federal water rights quantifications better integrate public policy and law with science, the principle lesson from Dinosaur may have to be repeated.