IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v95y2025ics0957178725000566.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reuse of treated municipal wastewater in drylands: Multi-sector optimization analysis for middle Rio Grande case study

Author

Listed:
  • Olofinsao, Oluwatosin A.
  • Wang, Jingjing
  • Berrens, Robert P.

Abstract

Growing populations and water demands in drylands, exacerbated by climate change, strain freshwater resources. This study constructs a regional, multi-sector optimization model to explore the economic effects of alternatives for reusing treated municipal wastewater (TMW) in drylands. Focusing on the Middle Rio Grande Basin in the southwestern state of New Mexico, USA, this investigation innovatively considers agriculture as a nutrient sink. The analysis develops a theoretical optimization model for TMW reuse across three sectors simultaneously: agricultural (commercial farming); urban (greenspace provision); and environmental (river instream flow provision). A constrained optimization is used to calculate the value of water in the commercial crop farming sector, and the benefit transfer approach is used to obtain water values in the urban and environmental sectors. Results indicate that water is valued roughly comparably in urban greenspace ($205.26 per acre-foot) and environmental ($220.39 per acre-foot) sectors, and while agriculture acts as a nutrient sink it still realizes a much lower water value ($28.30 per acre-foot). Therefore, it is recommended that policymakers and the municipal authority prioritize the allocation of TMW for environmental flow and urban greenspace. Understanding water's economic value across alternative uses is crucial information for water policy and governance in water-scarce regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Olofinsao, Oluwatosin A. & Wang, Jingjing & Berrens, Robert P., 2025. "Reuse of treated municipal wastewater in drylands: Multi-sector optimization analysis for middle Rio Grande case study," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0957178725000566
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101941
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178725000566
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2025.101941?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agriculture; Environment; Drylands; Municipal wastewater; Reuse; Urban;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:juipol:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0957178725000566. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.