ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF WATERSHED PROJECTS - AN OVERVIEW METHODOLOGY AND APPLICATION1

ABSTRACT: Deforestation and intensive land use on a global scale has resulted in watershed deterioration and threatened municipal and irrigation reservoirs. Watershed rehabilitation programs must allocate funds to priority projects. A tool for decisionmakers is presented which provides a four-step overview economic analysis by the integration of physical and biological considerations. The overview tool is applied to a current proposed watershed project in Morocco.     

AESTHETIC PREFERENCE FOR WATER RESOURCE PROJECTS: AN APPLICATION OF Q METHODOLOGY1

ABSTRACT Many of the resources generating aesthetic and visual benefits are publically owned and their optimum use and development depends upon public investment. Traditionally, public investment decisions have been couched in economic terms requiring quantitative measurement of benefits and costs. Since many of the benefits these resources provide are not consumed when they are enjoyed, the total contribution of the resource is imperfectly measured in the usual market sense. Thus, if the provision of these public goods is left to the conventional market mechanism, less than socially optimal investment may occur. This study was designed to investigate whether aesthetic preferences related to water projects could be determined, and whether they differ among different groups of people. A Q sort of 44 photographs of a wide variety of water development projects was conducted with two groups, i.e., photographers (aesthetic man) and town assessors (economic man). The resultant analysis identified two significant factors. Factor 1 provided insight into a hypothesis of nature dominant or man dominant scenes. Factor 2 indicated that the respondents had a negative preference for projects which were in varying stages of completion or appeared to be polluted. Preferences were consistent between the two groups tested. The test revealed that people do not necessarily equate only naturalness with aesthetic appeal, but will accept development as aesthetic, provided that it is designed to complement the natural landscape.     

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.     

THE EFFECT OF PRICE ON LONG RUN WATER SUPPLY BENEFITS AND COSTS1

ABSTRACT The long-term effects of presently used and alternatively proposed water pricing policies were studied using some tools of operations research and economics. A discrete deterministic dynamic programming model was structured and operated to determine the optimal water supply capacity expansion paths for a hypothetical residential community with a given water pricing policy. The objective of the model was the maximization of future discounted consumers'surpluses plus producer's revenues net of the long-run cost of supply. State variables were the size of system capacity in MGD and stage variables were the times of feasible capacity increase in years. Demand curves, population sizes, and growth rates for various economic sectors of the community were assumed known, as well as short-run production and capital construction costs. Several policies, including constant unit rates, decreasing or increasing block rates and summer differential rates were tested. It was concluded that price plays a major role in the short-run allocation and long-run planning and conservation of water supplies. Conservational pricing policies were advocated as means of lowering the long-run cost of water, using the water price-demand function as a planning tool. Further research in these areas was recommended.