IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v233y2025ics0921800925000692.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Snowmaking's slippery slope: The effect of mountain reservoirs on water demand

Author

Listed:
  • Cognard, Jonathan
  • Berard-Chenu, Lucas
  • Schaeffer, Yves
  • François, Hugues

Abstract

Snowmaking is the primary adaptation of winter tourism to climate change and requires increased water use in winter. However, water withdrawals during this period coincide with the mountain low-flow period, which can potentially cause conflicts with other human uses and ecosystems. To address concerns about water availability, the number of reservoirs is increasing. Ski lift operators promote these reservoirs as environmentally beneficial under their ‘ecological engagement’ commitments, arguing that they reduce the impact of snowmaking by shifting some water withdrawals to periods outside the low-flow season. In theory, mountain reservoirs should therefore support both economic activity and environmental sustainability. Using econometric analysis of data from 35 ski resorts across nine seasons, we show that reservoirs significantly increase water withdrawals during the low-flow period. By employing maximum likelihood estimation of fixed-effects dynamic panel data models, we find that a 1 % increase in reservoir capacity leads to a 0.28 % short-term increase in low-flow withdrawals (0.4 % in the long term), ceteris paribus. These findings inform ongoing discussions to ensure that current socio-economic decisions do not lead to future water use conflicts in mountain socio-ecological systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Cognard, Jonathan & Berard-Chenu, Lucas & Schaeffer, Yves & François, Hugues, 2025. "Snowmaking's slippery slope: The effect of mountain reservoirs on water demand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:233:y:2025:i:c:s0921800925000692
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108586
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800925000692
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108586?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julio Berbel & Carlos Gutiérrez-Martín & Juan Rodríguez-Díaz & Emilio Camacho & Pilar Montesinos, 2015. "Literature Review on Rebound Effect of Water Saving Measures and Analysis of a Spanish Case Study," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(3), pages 663-678, February.
    2. Sebastian Kripfganz & Claudia Schwarz, 2019. "Estimation of linear dynamic panel data models with time‐invariant regressors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 526-546, June.
    3. Arnaud Reynaud, 2003. "An Econometric Estimation of Industrial Water Demand in France," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 25(2), pages 213-232, June.
    4. David Font Vivanco & Jaume Freire‐González & Ray Galvin & Tilman Santarius & Hans Jakob Walnum & Tamar Makov & Serenella Sala, 2022. "Rebound effect and sustainability science: A review," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(4), pages 1543-1563, August.
    5. Schleich, Joachim & Hillenbrand, Thomas, 2009. "Determinants of residential water demand in Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1756-1769, April.
    6. Gössling, Stefan & Peeters, Paul & Ceron, Jean-Paul & Dubois, Ghislain & Patterson, Trista & Richardson, Robert B., 2005. "The eco-efficiency of tourism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 417-434, September.
    7. Giuliano Di Baldassarre & Niko Wanders & Amir AghaKouchak & Linda Kuil & Sally Rangecroft & Ted I. E. Veldkamp & Margaret Garcia & Pieter R. van Oel & Korbinian Breinl & Anne F. Van Loon, 2018. "Water shortages worsened by reservoir effects," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(11), pages 617-622, November.
    8. Pfeiffer, Lisa & Lin, C.-Y. Cynthia, 2014. "Does efficient irrigation technology lead to reduced groundwater extraction? Empirical evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 189-208.
    9. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    10. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    11. Falk, Martin & Vanat, Laurent, 2016. "Gains from investments in snowmaking facilities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 339-349.
    12. Hugues François & Raphaëlle Samacoïts & David Neil Bird & Judith Köberl & Franz Prettenthaler & Samuel Morin, 2023. "Climate change exacerbates snow-water-energy challenges for European ski tourism," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 13(9), pages 935-942, September.
    13. Song, Jianfeng & Guo, Yanan & Wu, Pute & Sun, SHikun, 2018. "The Agricultural Water Rebound Effect in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 497-506.
    14. Lucas Berard-Chenu & Hugues François & Samuel Morin & Emmanuelle George, 2023. "The deployment of snowmaking in the French ski tourism industry: a path development approach," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(23), pages 3853-3870, December.
    15. Figge, Frank & Givry, Philippe & Canning, Louise & Franklin-Johnson, Elizabeth & Thorpe, Andrea, 2017. "Eco-efficiency of Virgin Resources: A Measure at the Interface Between Micro and Macro Levels," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 12-21.
    16. Hsiao, Cheng & Hashem Pesaran, M. & Kamil Tahmiscioglu, A., 2002. "Maximum likelihood estimation of fixed effects dynamic panel data models covering short time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 107-150, July.
    17. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 85-98, January.
    18. Stergiou, Eirini & Kounetas, Konstantinos, 2022. "Heterogeneity, spillovers and eco-efficiency of European industries under different pollutants’ scenarios. Is there a definite direction?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donglan Zha & Qian Chen & Jaume Freire González, 2023. "The Gap between Expectations and Reality: Assessing the Water Rebound Effect in Chinese Agriculture," Working Papers 1415, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. David Font Vivanco & Jaume Freire‐González & Ray Galvin & Tilman Santarius & Hans Jakob Walnum & Tamar Makov & Serenella Sala, 2022. "Rebound effect and sustainability science: A review," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(4), pages 1543-1563, August.
    3. Jan Kiviet & Milan Pleus & Rutger Poldermans, 2017. "Accuracy and Efficiency of Various GMM Inference Techniques in Dynamic Micro Panel Data Models," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-54, March.
    4. Jan F. Kiviet & Milan Pleus & Rutger Poldermans, 2014. "Accuracy and efficiency of various GMM inference techniques in dynamic micro panel data models," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 14-09, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    5. Sebastian Kripfganz, 2017. "Sequential (two-stage) estimation of linear panel-data models," German Stata Users' Group Meetings 2017 03, Stata Users Group.
    6. León-González, Roberto & Montolio, Daniel, 2015. "Endogeneity and panel data in growth regressions: A Bayesian model averaging approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 23-39.
    7. Kornher, Lukas & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2013. "Food Price Volatility in Developing Countries and its Determinants," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 52(4), pages 1-32, November.
    8. Xie, Yang & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Water Storage Capacities versus Water Use Efficiency: Substitutes or Complements?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205439, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Huaccha, Gissell, 2023. "Regional persistence of the energy efficiency gap: Evidence from England and Wales," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    10. Xu, Hang & Song, Jianfeng, 2022. "Drivers of the irrigation water rebound effect: A case study of Hetao irrigation district in Yellow River basin, China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    11. Bataineh, Mohammad Jamal & Sánchez-Sellero, Pedro & Ayad, Fayssal, 2024. "The role of organizational innovation in the development of green innovations in Spanish firms," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 527-538.
    12. Figge, Frank & Thorpe, Andrea Stevenson, 2019. "The symbiotic rebound effect in the circular economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 61-69.
    13. Chandra S. Mishra, 2020. "Frequent acquirers and management compensation," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(5), pages 661-694, July.
    14. Fei, Rilong & Xie, Mengyuan & Wei, Xin & Ma, Ding, 2021. "Has the water rights system reform restrained the water rebound effect? Empirical analysis from China's agricultural sector," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    15. Zhang, Ling & Ma, Qimin & Zhao, Yanbo & Wu, Xiaobo & Yu, Wenjun, 2019. "Determining the influence of irrigation efficiency improvement on water use and consumption by conceptually considering hydrological pathways," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 674-681.
    16. Khemakongkanonth, Chate, 2025. "An empirical analysis on relationships between over-the-top applications for communication and traditional mobile voice services," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(3).
    17. Halaoua, Sameh & Hamdi, Badreddine & Mejri, Tarek, 2017. "Earnings management to exceed thresholds in continental and Anglo-Saxon accounting models: The British and French cases," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 513-529.
    18. Jaume Freire-González, 2019. "Does Water Efficiency Reduce Water Consumption? The Economy-Wide Water Rebound Effect," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(6), pages 2191-2202, April.
    19. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Cho, Seo-young & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2010. "Compliance for big brothers: An empirical analysis on the impact of the anti-trafficking protocol," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 118, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:233:y:2025:i:c:s0921800925000692. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.