Showing papers on "Water scarcity published in 1986"

Economic Factors Shaping Western Water Allocation

Abstract: Although most of the continental United States west of the 100th meridian is classified as arid or semiarid, water resources in the region have historically been treated as if they were relatively abundant. The perception of abundant water has been fostered largely by policies and institutions developed in an earlier era to facilitate the settlement of the West. These policies and institutions have persisted to current times in part because of their ability to insulate water users from a portion of the real cost of water. However, the perception of abundance masks the fact that western water resources are subject to increasing physical scarcity. Although somewhat outdated, the Second National Assessment of the U.S. Water Resources Council provides evidence of the depth and extent of this scarcity. Two crude measures of physical scarcity for the nine major hydrologic basins of the West are presented in table 1. In the first column, the sum of consumptive and in-stream uses is reported as a percentage of average annual runoff from precipitation. In the second column, total use is reported as a percentage of dry year runoff, where dry years are defined by a hydrologic frequency of I in 5. The figures show that in an average year, use levels in five of the nine basins exceed renewable supplies. In dry years, use levels in all basins exceed renewable supplies. The differences between annual use and annual runoff are accounted for by pumping groundwater at rates which exceed the rate of recharge. While the mining of groundwater may be economically justifiable, it cannot be sustained over the long run. Thus, in many areas of the West, existing levels of water use cannot continue indefinitely without supplemental sources of supply. The patterns of western water use are heavily dominated by irrigation, which accounts for a little over 90% of total consumptive use and 84% of total withdrawals. Municipal and industrial uses account for 6.6% of consumptive use (9% of withdrawals), while mineral and energy production make up the remaining 3.4% of consumptive use (7% of withdrawals) (U.S. Water Resources Council). Irrigation's share of withdrawals has remained relatively constant over the last three decades despite an increase of almost 9 million acres of irrigated land. This is explained primarily by the fact that during this period water use in the nonagricultural sectors grew for the first time at rates comparable to the growth rate of irrigation uses (Frederick). The current picture of western water resou c s, then, is one characterized by increasing physical scarcity and use patterns that are overwhelmingly dominated by the agricultural sector. In the remainder of this paper, some of he economic forces acting on western water resources are identified and analyzed, and a case study is presented to illustrate that the intensifying water scarcity may be largely attributable to institutions which promote both allocative inflexibility and the perception of abundance.

Global Water Issues

Abstract: Five critical global water-related issues are discussed. First is the issue of climatic changes and drought. Unfortunately, the opportunities to construct major irrigation projects are very limited in arid Africa (the region of several catastrophic droughts) and their radius of influence is small. Practical solutions are a long way off. A second area is that of soil erosion and sedimentation. Engineers and scientists are making progress, but this is a relatively new area of research. Next, the world's outdated irrigation systems must be modernized. There is so little water remaining to exploit that cultivating new land is possible only through water savings by the existing users. In much of Asia, surface irrigation has an overall efficiency of about 30% compared to about 37% in the U.S. and 60% for well-managed systems. Pollution and water quality has been a concern in industrialized nations for many years. But developing nations are beginning to be worried about their drinking water. Irrigation is causing pollution from salinity. Groundwater pollutions from many sources is also becoming a problem worldwide. Finally, support for the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade is urged, especially from developed nations such as the U.S., which have resources to offer other nations.

Some aspects of climate and economic activities in the Arab Gulf states

Abstract: The study attempts to determine the effects of weather and climate on different economic activities. Various climatic parameters were analysed and their influence on economic resources and operations were discussed. As in other fragile desert ecosystems, economic activities in the Arab Gulf States are significantly influenced by water scarcity and heat.

China's water crisis: the case of Tianjin (Tientsin)

Abstract: Despite having the fifth largest surface run-off in the world, China is currently faced with a major problem of seasonal and regional water shortages. Though the country is still in the early stages of economic growth, the developmental potential of North China is already being constrained by inadequate water supplies. Tianjin, a municipality with a population of 7.76 million, highlights the problem of and perhaps the solution to the water crisis. Within the municipality the shortage of water has caused a switch from wetland to dryland crops and has rendered industrial production liable to interruption and seasonal suspension. Overpumping of ground-water supplies has caused a significant lowering of the water-table with adverse repercussions, including land subsidence. In an endeavour to overcome the regional water shortage, the Chinese are attempting to engineer the inter-basin transfer of water. Thus five times in the past decade water has been transferred from the Huang He (Yellow R.) to Tianjin. Currently the city is being supplied from the Luan He diversion scheme and in the future, water will be transferred some 1150 km from the Chang Jiang (Yangtze R.). The massive northward transfer of 30 km3 a year may trigger off some important environmental changes. IN ABSOLUTE TERMS, China's water resources are huge; the annual run-off ranks fifth in the world, behind Brazil, the USSR, Canada and the USA. However, the population is also huge (1008 million in 1982*), and thus the per capita annual run-off of 2600 m3 is only one-fifth of the world average and only 13.5 per cent of the level enjoyed in the USSR. Furthermore, China suffers a major imbalance in water resources, both in time and space. On a seasonal basis, the monsoon climate generates summer floods and springtime drought, while on a regional basis, the substantial decline in rainfall from south to north and from east to west, results in a water surplus in the south-east and a water deficiency in the north and west (Figure 1). So great are the regional differences that while the Chang Jiang and other drainage basins in southern China discharge 75 per cent of China's total surface run-off, the rivers of the North China Plain?the Huai He, Huang He, Hai He and Luan He?account for only 5 per cent of the country's total discharge. Across the North China Plain the availability of water per unit of land is only 14 per cent of the national average, and the 'People's Daily' now contends that the major constraint on economic development in this region is the shortage of water. The problem has national as well as regional significance, for the North China Plain is one of the nation's key economic areas, holding some 30 per cent of the country's population and almost 37 per cent of the cultivated land. Table I offers some comparative economic and hydrological data for the river basins of the north, centre and south. The economic development which has occurred in China since the Communists came to power in 1949 has generated a substantial demand for water. Total water use has risen from 103 km3 in 1949 to 477 km3 in 1978. Although agriculture still accounts for nearly 90 per cent of China's water consumption, it is in the industrial and domestic sectors that demand is growing most rapidly. Over the past 30 years, agricultural demand increased three-fold, domestic demand seven-fold, general industrial demand eleven-fold and that of the thermal power stations by a factor of 60. Thus it is in the major urban-industrial centres of North China that the water crisis has had its greatest impact. In these areas, acute seasonal water shortages have caused the reduction and even suspension of industrial production and necessitated the

Water Forum '86: World Water Issues in Evolution

Abstract: These proceedings for Water Forum '86 include papers presented at the second conference in which the water-oriented divisions of the American Society of Civil Engineers have combined forces in a state-of-the-art forum of engineers, academics and practitioners from all over the world. The theme of the Conference was World Water Issues in Evolution. The need to efficiently use, protect, manage, and test surface and groundwater is emphasized. Broad topis include water supply, water quality, and water resources development and management. Groundwater, rivers, and reservoirs are covered. Environmental considerations, hydrology, irrigation, flood control, droughts and water treatment are also covered. The use of computers in water resources management is reviewed.

Reallocating Water in the West

Abstract: Water is on the move in parts of the arid West from old uses to new uses. As the cost of developing additional water supplies becomes unacceptable in many areas, water scarcity is coming to mean that new uses can be served only if existing uses are cut back, become more efficient, or are retired. The West is leaving the era of initial water allocation and development and entering an era of reallocation and more efficient management. Most of the water transfers are from irrigated agriculture to cities, but some are from consumptive uses to in-stream uses. Legal reforms are needed to facilitate the reallocation of water from lower economic uses to higher ones, through water marketing and other means, and to encourage water conservation.

Water planning priorities and conflicts in The Hunter Valley, NSW

Abstract: SUMMARY This paper examines the ability of society to develop and allocate water resources during a time of major drought and industrial growth. Water shortage in the upper Hunter became apparent between 1979 and 1983. Even the well watered Newcastle metropolitan area experienced domestic and commercial restrictions. Strategies to deal with the immediate problems in inland areas included temporary water restrictions, cessation of issue of new irrigation licences, institution of volumetric water allocation to agriculture and appeals for public cooperation. Government was placed under pressure to provide sufficient industrial water, maintain supplies to agriculture and distribute water resource information to private and public sector decision makers. Major regional water planning initiatives were almost as slow to eventuate as those for social infrastructure provision. Such crises are likely to recur. Questions remain as to the desirability and sufficiency of current allocative mechanisms to cope with the ...

Needed: A New Water Policy

Abstract: During the spring of 1985, officials in New York City and its environs declared a drought emergency, asking millions of residents to curtail water usage, and in some cases rationing supplies, to avoid a critical shortage of drinking water. In the southern High Plains, depletion of an underground water reserve threatens a lucrative farming economy, and much farmland has already been taken out of irrigation. In the growing Sunbelt cities of the Southwest and Southeast, water tables are falling precipitously. By this time Americans should have realized that large areas of the United Statesa nation with a per capita water supply 20 percent above the world averageface a water shortage.

An approach to estimating the potential production benefits from improved irrigation water management for rice

Abstract: Production benefits of improved allocation of irrigation water are often difficult to measure. In situations of irrigated wet rice cultivation, bothex post estimates of such benefits andex ante estimates of the maximum potential benefits of further improvements in allocation of a given water supply are possible using a conceptual framework which (1) functionally relates weekly water supplies to weekly measures of average water shortage on individual paddy fields; (2) aggregates the weekly water shortage measures into a seasonal water shortage index; and (3) relates, via a production function, the seasonal water shortage index to yields. An empirical application of this framework estimates the potential increase in production from further improvements in water allocation in one Philippine irrigation system to be negligible.

Management Options for Australia’s Water Resources

Abstract: Security of water supply has always been an important consideration in the economic and social evolution of Australia and continued development of water resources has been accepted as the logical approach to chronic water scarcity. This pervasive developmental approach is now being challenged and attitudes to water are undergoing critical scrutiny as Australia’s water economy moves into the mature phase. The most feasible options for augmenting water supplies have been exhausted and financial constraints, competition for scarce public funds and serious environmental questions have brought about a marked decline in expenditure on water-related programs. Further development of water resources is now seen as the exception rather than the rule and management of existing supplies is proposed as the most rational response to water inadequacy for rural, urban and industrial users.

The Overlooked Farm Crisis: Our Rapidly Depleting Water Supply

Abstract: In the last forty years, farmers have pumped massive amounts of water from the Ogallala Aquifer. While the need for water continues to grow, the amount available decreases rapidly. In some areas, farmers are consuming the groundwater at more than twice the rate of natural recharge. Part I of this note analyzes the water shortage problem of the Ogallala Aquifer. Part II discusses the possibility of an interbasin transfer of water from the Great Lakes to remedy the Great Plains water crisis and the legal considerations involved in such a transfer. Part III outlines some state and federal legislation recently proffered to protect the Great Lakes water as well as legislation to aid the Ogallala Aquifer. Finally, Part IV concludes that state management policies promoting water conservation would handle the problem better than an interbasin transfer of water.

Irrigation practices: peasant-farming settlement schemes and traditional cultures

Abstract: Science has been highly successful in soil conditioning, plant breeding, and in pest and disease control, but has not yet turned its full attention to making the best use of water for irrigation. As water becomes scarcer worldwide so the need for more efficient water use becomes a necessity for peasant agriculture. It is to this theme that this paper principally addresses itself. In SE Asia flooded rice irrigation occupies some 70 Mha and is expanding at such a rate that water is becoming increasingly expensive to provide. In these circumstances there is a need to look critically at the methods of irrigating and growing rice. The practice of transplanting seedlings and whether rice could be grown equally as successfully in non-flooded conditions requires investigation. The way ahead is being provided by the economies forced on farmers who pump water from their own boreholes. Although the Dumoga project in north Sulawesi, Indonesia, has not yet reached the point of farm development where water shortage is a problem, that time will come; and the scientific programme that is already underway in the area (under the auspices of the ‘Project Wallace’ expedition) could usefully be expanded to include the technical and sociological problems involved in water allocation. Similar studies would also benefit hill irrigation in Nepal, Peru, the Philippines and similar mountainous areas. Excessive soil saturation and poor water control are frequent causes of catastrophic landslides and soil loss from erosion. In those arid zones with a tradition of irrigation and access to oil revenues, better water control can be achieved by the introduction of combined manual and electronic control systems. In Iraq, for example, these systems will help to make the best use of the restricted waters of the Euphrates basin. Scientific advance in irrigation methods is more difficult to foresee in the arid sub-Saharan areas, where the adoption of techniques already successfully applied elsewhere is likely to be the prime necessity.

Irrigation practices: peasant-farming settlement schemes and traditional cultures

Abstract: Science has been highly successful in soil conditioning, plant breeding, and in pest and disease control, but has not yet turned its full attention to making the best use of water for irrigation. As water becomes scarcer worldwide so the need for more efficient water use becomes a necessity for peasant agriculture. It is to this theme that this paper principally addresses itself. In SE Asia flooded rice irrigation occupies some 70 Mha and is expanding at such a rate that water is becoming increasingly expensive to provide. In these circumstances there is a need to look critically at the methods of irrigating and growing rice. The practice of transplanting seedlings and whether rice could be grown equally as successfully in non-flooded conditions requires investigation. The way ahead is being provided by the economies forced on farmers who pump water from their own boreholes. Although the Dumoga project in north Sulawesi, Indonesia, has not yet reached the point of farm development where water shortage is a problem, that time will come; and the scientific programme that is already underway in the area (under the auspices of the ‘Project Wallace’ expedition) could usefully be expanded to include the technical and sociological problems involved in water allocation. Similar studies would also benefit hill irrigation in Nepal, Peru, the Philippines and similar mountainous areas. Excessive soil saturation and poor water control are frequent causes of catastrophic landslides and soil loss from erosion. In those arid zones with a tradition of irrigation and access to oil revenues, better water control can be achieved by the introduction of combined manual and electronic control systems. In Iraq, for example, these systems will help to make the best use of the restricted waters of the Euphrates basin. Scientific advance in irrigation methods is more difficult to foresee in the arid sub-Saharan areas, where the adoption of techniques already successfully applied elsewhere is likely to be the prime necessity.

The Provisioning of Water in Emergencies: A Research Assessment,

Abstract: : This assessment of the provisioning of water during and after national or civil exergencies has four goals: (1) to determine if emergencies can result in water shortages, (2) to determine if the unavailability of water can seriously impact communities, (3) to determine if the understanding of water shortage impacts has been incorporated into the programs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and (4) to suggest research needs regarding emergency water preparedness, consistent with the interests of FEMA. Case histories and the discussions of emergency preparedness needs of utilities contained in the literature suggest that several modern water systems. Major emergencies can cause flow reductions resulting in severe impacts to communities including the inability to effectively control the spread of fire, health threats from sewage not transported to treatment facilities, loss of income, from sewage not transported to treatment facilities, loss of income, business disruption, increased water system repair and administration costs, loss of water revenues, and possible relocation of the affected population. Recommended improvements to FEMA programs that influence the preparedness and response of water systems are provided.