IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/eaae08/43846.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cost-Effectiveness of Water Conservation Measures: A Multi-level Analysis with Policy Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Blanco-Gutierrez, Irene
  • Varela-Ortega, Consuelo
  • Flichman, Guillermo

Abstract

Groundwater in Spain, as in other arid or semiarid countries worldwide, has been intensely used for the expansion of irrigated agriculture. This booming development has induced a remarkable socioeconomic development in many rural areas but has produced far-reaching environmental problems. In the Spanish Western La Mancha Aquifer, the excessive, and sometimes illegal, water abstraction for irrigation agriculture has resulted in the Aquifer’s overexploitation and has been responsible of the degradation of the associated wetlands “Tablas de Daimiel”, an internationally reputed, Ramsarnominated aquatic ecosystem. To undertake this analysis, a mathematical programming model has been developed to simulate farmers’ behaviour and their responses to different water policy scenarios. Specifically, the policy simulations selected are: alternative water pricing schemes (uniform volumetric and block-rate water tariffs), water use quota systems and water rights market. Results show that controlling illegal water mining is a necessary condition but it is not sufficient to recover the aquifer. Consequently, other measures will be necessary for an effective water management in this area. Among these, the block-rate water pricing scheme seems the most cost-effective system to reach the goal of aquifer sustainability but will entail important income losses in several farms. Therefore, we cannot conclude that a unique water conservation policy instrument will be the best overall solution for all types of holdings that will respond to efficiency as well as to equity considerations. It seems reasonable to make a combination of the tools proposed, even including additional measures that promote an environmental protection and develop sustainable agricultural systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Blanco-Gutierrez, Irene & Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & Flichman, Guillermo, 2008. "Cost-Effectiveness of Water Conservation Measures: A Multi-level Analysis with Policy Implications," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43846, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:eaae08:43846
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.43846
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/43846/files/612.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.43846?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giordano, Mark & Villholth, Karen, 2007. "The agricultural groundwater revolution: opportunities and threats to development," IWMI Books, Reports H040039, International Water Management Institute.
    2. Schuyt, Kirsten D., 2005. "Economic consequences of wetland degradation for local populations in Africa," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 177-190, April.
    3. Varela-Ortega, C., 2007. "Policy-driven determinants of irrigation development and environmental sustainability: a case study in Spain," IWMI Books, Reports H040612, International Water Management Institute.
    4. Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & M. Sumpsi, Jose & Garrido, Alberto & Blanco, Maria & Iglesias, Eva, 1998. "Water pricing policies, public decision making and farmers' response: implications for water policy," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 19(1-2), pages 193-202, September.
    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. Blanco-Gutiérrez, Irene & Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & Flichman, Guillermo, 2011. "Cost-effectiveness of groundwater conservation measures: A multi-level analysis with policy implications," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(4), pages 639-652, February.
    2. Varela-Ortega, Consuelo, 2011. "Participatory Modeling for Sustainable Development in Water and Agrarian Systems: Potential and Limits of Stakeholder Involvement," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 115546, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Carmona, Gema & Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & Bromley, John, 2009. "Stakeholder involvement in water management using Object-oriented Bayesian networks and economic models in Spain," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 49897, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Molle, Francois & Berkoff, Jeremy (ed.), 2007. "Irrigation water pricing: the gap between theory and practice," IWMI Books, International Water Management Institute, number 137957, January.
    5. Closas, Alvar & Molle, François & Hernández-Mora, Nuria, 2017. "Sticks and carrots to manage groundwater over-abstraction in La Mancha, Spain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 113-124.
    6. Varela-Ortega, C., 2007. "Policy-driven determinants of irrigation development and environmental sustainability: a case study in Spain," IWMI Books, Reports H040612, International Water Management Institute.
    7. Carmen Marchiori & Susan Sayre & Leo Simon, 2012. "On the Implementation and Performance of Water Rights Buyback Schemes," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(10), pages 2799-2816, August.
    8. Christos Zoumides & Theodoros Zachariadis, 2009. "Irrigation Water Pricing in Southern Europe and Cyprus: The effects of the EU Common Agricultural Policy and the Water Framework Directive," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 3(1), pages 99-122, June.
    9. Laxmi D. Bhatta & Sunita Chaudhary & Anju Pandit & Himlal Baral & Partha J. Das & Nigel E. Stork, 2016. "Ecosystem Service Changes and Livelihood Impacts in the Maguri-Motapung Wetlands of Assam, India," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-14, June.
    10. Markose Chekol Zewdie & Michele Moretti & Daregot Berihun Tenessa & Zemen Ayalew Ayele & Jan Nyssen & Enyew Adgo Tsegaye & Amare Sewnet Minale & Steven Van Passel, 2021. "Agricultural Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-17, March.
    11. Chiwaula, Levison & Waibel, Hermann, 2011. "Does seasonal vulnerability to poverty matter? A case study from the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands in Nigeria," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 19, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    12. Yin, X.A. & Yang, Z.F., 2013. "A reservoir operating model for directing water supply to humans, wetlands, and cones of depression," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 114-120.
    13. Mohammad Alauddin & Upali A. Amarasinghe & Bharat R. Sharma, 2014. "Four decades of rice water productivity in Bangladesh: A spatio-temporal analysis of district level panel data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 51-64.
    14. Zamani, Omid & Azadi, Hossein & Mortazavi, Seyed Abolghasem & Balali, Hamid & Moghaddam, Saghi Movahhed & Jurik, Lubos, 2021. "The impact of water-pricing policies on water productivity: Evidence of agriculture sector in Iran," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    15. Stergios Athanassoglou & Glenn Sheriff & Tobias Siegfried & Woonghee Huh, 2012. "Optimal Mechanisms for Heterogeneous Multi-Cell Aquifers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(2), pages 265-291, June.
    16. Prakashan Veettil & Stijn Speelman & Guido Huylenbroeck, 2013. "Estimating the Impact of Water Pricing on Water Use Efficiency in Semi-arid Cropping System: An Application of Probabilistically Constrained Nonparametric Efficiency Analysis," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(1), pages 55-73, January.
    17. Christian Franco-Crespo & Jose Maria Sumpsi Viñas, 2017. "The Impact of Pricing Policies on Irrigation Water for Agro-Food Farms in Ecuador," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, August.
    18. Sarah Wheeler & Henning Bjornlund & Martin Shanahan & Alec Zuo, 2008. "Price elasticity of water allocations demand in the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(1), pages 37-55, March.
    19. Jean L. Steiner & David D. Briske & David P. Brown & Caitlin M. Rottler, 2018. "Vulnerability of Southern Plains agriculture to climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 201-218, January.
    20. Gomez-Limon, Jose A. & Riesgo, Laura, 2004. "Irrigation water pricing: differential impacts on irrigated farms," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 47-66, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:eaae08:43846. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaaeeea.html .

    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.