WATER MARKETS AND DECENTRALIZED WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES1

ABSTRACT: Because of its importance and the perceived inability of private sector sources to meet water demands, many countries have depended on the public sector to provide water services for their populations. Yet this has resulted in many inefficient public water projects and in inadequate supplies of good quality and reliable water. Decentralization of water management, including the use of water markets, cannot solve all of these water problems, but it can improve the efficiency of water allocation. When given adequate responsibility and authority, water user associations have effectively taken over water management activities at a savings to tax payers. Moreover, water markets add the potential benefit of improving water efficiency within a sector as well as providing a mechanism for reallocating water among sectors. The key question involves developing innovative mechanisms for reducing the transaction costs of organizing water users and of making water trades. Water rights need to be established which are recorded, tradable, enforceable, and separate from land if markets are to operate effectively. Also, institutions are needed that effectively resolve conflicts over water rights, including third party impacts and water quality concerns.     

THE LAW OF THE COLORADO RIVER: COPING WITH SEVERE SUSTAINED DROUGHT1

ABSTRACT: The waters of the Colorado River are divided among seven states according to a complex ‘Law of the River’ drawn from interstate compacts, international treaties, statutes, and regulations. The Law of the River creates certain priorities among the states and the Republic of Mexico, and in the event of a severe sustained drought, the Law of the River dictates the distribution of water and operation of the elaborate reservoir system. Earlier work indicated that there is remarkable resilience in the system for established uses of water in the Lower Basin of the Colorado River. This work shows, based on an application of the Law of the River using computer modeling of operations of facilities on the Colorado River, that there may be serious environmental consequences and related legal restraints on how the water is used in times of shortage and that the existing legal and institutional framework governing the Colorado River does not adequately address all the issues that would be raised in a severe sustained drought. Several possible legal options for dealing with drought in the context of the Law of the River are identified.     

MITIGATING IMPACTS OF A SEVERE SUSTAINED DROUGHT ON COLORADO RWER WATER RESOURCES1

ABSTRACT: We evaluated the effects of institutional responses developed for coping with a severe sustained drought (SSD) in the Colorado River Basin on selected system variables using a SSD inflow hydrology derived from the drought which occurred in the Colorado River basin from 1579–1616. Institutional responses considered are reverse equalization, salinity reduction, minimum flow requirements, and temporary suspension of the delivery obligation of the Colorado River Compact. Selected system variables (reservoir contents, streamflows, consumptive uses, salinity, and power generation) from scenarios incorporating the drought-coping responses were compared to those from Baseline conditions using the current operating criteria. The coping responses successfully mitigated some impacts of the SSD on consumptive uses in the Upper Basin with only slight impacts on consumptive uses in the Lower Basin, and successfully maintained specified minimum streamflows throughout the drought with no apparent effect on consumptive uses. The impacts of the coping responses on other system variables were not as clear cut. We also assessed the effects of the drought-coping responses to normal and wet hydrologic conditions to determine if they were overly conservative. The results show that the rules would have inconsequential effects on the system during normal and wet years.     

Theory in practice: the anatomy of a borough plan

This paper focuses on the development plan activities of the London Boroughs and simply seeks to explain the relatively limited progress that has been made in the preparation and adoption of statutory local plans, by showing how production was constrained as local planners were caught up in the shifting ground of contemporary planning theory. The author suggests that uncertainty about the acceptable scope and content of local plans, at a time when planners were being encouraged to extend the emphasis of their work beyond the purely physical, led to serious problems as planners began to experiment with new approaches to local planning but failed to appreciate the operational implications of each approach.     

Ecological approach to resource survey and planning for environmentally significant Areas: The ABC method

A resource survey and planning method for parks, reserves, and other environmentally significant areas (ESAs) is presented in the context of a holistic balanced approach to land use and environmental management. This method provides a framework for the acquisition, analysis, presentation, and application of diverse ecological data pertinent to land use planning and resource management within ESAs. Through the independent analysis and subsequent integration of abiotic, biotic, and cultural or ABC information, land areas within an ESA are identified in terms of their relative environmental significance and environmental constraints. The former term encompasses wildlife, historic, and other resource values, while the latter term reflects biophysical hazards and sensitivities, and land use conflicts. The method thus calls for a matching of an ESA's distinctive attributes with appropriate land use and institutional arrancements through an analysis of available acts, regulations, agencies, and other conservation and land use management mechanisms. The method culminates with a management proposal showing proposed park or reserve allocations, buffer areas, or other land use controls aimed at preserving an ESA's special ecological qualities, while providing for resource development. The authors suggest that all resource management decisions affecting ESA's should be governed by a philosophical stance that recognizes a spectrum of broad land use types, ranging from preservation to extractive use and rehabilitation.     

Determination of optimum minimum flow from a dam by using energy analysis

The proposed restoration of an abandoned hydroelectric dam on the Quinebaug River, Connecticut, is studied using energy analysis. The analysis considers the effects of alternative minimum flow releases, ranging from 0 to 34 cubic meters per second (cms), on the total energy flow of the affected system. The principal system components affected by differing minimum flows are hydroelectric power generation, aquatic habitat, and gross aquatic ecosystem productivity.The minimum flow alternative resulting in the highest annual energy flow in the affected system is considered optimal. From this purely analytical point of view, the optimum minimum flow is 0 cms, due to the short length and low productivity of the regulated reach, and the lack of floodplain interactions.Simulations of longer and more productive river reaches were conducted. For very short, unproductive reaches, in the absence of a floodplain, the contribution of aquatic community productivity to total system energy flow is negligible compared to hydroelectric generation. Optimum minimum flows are higher for longer and more productive reaches. For such cases the operation of hydroelectric dams could reduce total system energy flow because the energy supplied by hydroelectric generation may be offset by losses in aquatic productivity due to diminished riverine habitat.     

Evaluation and valuation of wildlife resources

Issues of resource conservation and development are essentially about choice between alternative uses of land. Resource evaluation in rural planning has usually been based on assessments of land quality or capability in relation to a variety of alternative uses. In the case of wildlife, choices have to be made as to whether the wildlife resource is worth conserving at all and if so, which sites should be used. Considerable efforts have been made to rationalise, improve and make explicit the way in which choices are made, and this paper reviews the current position and draws attention to issues and developments which could lead to improvements in current practice.     

Local economic development — the changing public/private sector relationship

The paper examines changing approaches to local economic development in the period since 1974. Initially, it proposes an ‘orthodox’ model of local economic development policies which emphasised the provision of a better industrial fabric, and of financial assistance to small, inner city firms. It suggests three recent directions of change in emphasis from this orthodox model: help in the creation of new entrepreneurs; replacement of public sector by private sector action; local authority shareholding in local firms by use of Enterprise Boards. Each approach makes different assumptions about the public/private sector relationship, the last two involve a more explicitly ideological stance on this issue.     

The grassroot development planning process: the role of physical planning in the rural environment

The concern of this paper is with the spatial consequences of development in a given rural setting and the way in which physical planning fits into the revival of a dying rural area, particularly in Third World Countries. It is based on experience derived from Dekinal in Benue State, Nigeria and endeavours to define a rural area by briefly discussing its characteristics and highlighting its problems. It proposes a comprehensive development planning process to induce development based on available resources.     

Modeling channel management impacts on river migration: a case study of Woodson bridge state recreation area,Sacramento river,California, USA

Understanding how hydraulic factors control alluvial river meander migration can help resource managers evaluate the long-term effects of floodplain management and bank stabilization measures. Using a numerical model based on the mechanics of flow and sediment transport in curved river channels, we predict 50 years of channel migration and suggest the planning and ecological implications of that migration for a 6.4-km reach (river miles 218–222) of the Sacramento River near the Woodson Bridge State Recreation Area, California, USA. Using four different channel management scenarios, our channel migration simulations suggest that: (1) channel stabilization alters the future channel planform locally and downstream from the stabilization; (2) rock revetment currently on the bank upstream from the Woodson Bridge recreation area causes more erosion of the channel bank at the recreation area than if the revetment were not present; (3) relocating the channel to the west and allowing subsequent unconstrained river migration relieves the erosion pressure in the Woodson Bridge area; (4) the subsequent migration reworks (erodes along one river bank and replaces new floodplain along the other) 26.5 ha of land; and (5) the river will rework between 8.5 and 48.5 ha of land in the study reach (over the course of 50 years), depending on the bank stabilization plan used. The reworking of floodplain lands is an important riparian ecosystem function that maintains habitat heterogeneity, an essential factor for the long-term survival of several threatened and endangered animal species in the Sacramento River area.