Comparative reflections on the use of modelling tools in conflictive water management settings: The Mancha Occidental aquifer, Spain

Martínez‐Santos, Pedro; Henriksen, Hans Jørgen; Zorrilla, Pedro; Martínez-Alfaro, Pedro E.

doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2008.11.011

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…In practice, this implied a return to near‐pristine hydrological conditions after 40 years of intensive pumping. Though anticipated in several modelling studies (Martínez‐Santos, Llamas, & Martínez‐Alfaro, ; Zorrilla et al, ; Martínez‐Santos, Henriksen, Zorrilla, & Martínez‐Alfaro, ), this triggered an unexpected situation for water managers and stakeholders (Martínez‐Santos et al, ), thus highlighting the need to develop adaptive management strategies to manage groundwater under uncertainty (Henriksen, Zorrilla‐Miras, de la Hera, & Brugnach, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐term effects of aquifer overdraft and recovery on groundwater quality in a Ramsar wetland: Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain

Castaño

Losa

Martínez‐Santos

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park is one of Spain's most representative groundwater‐dependent ecosystems. Under natural conditions, water inflows combined brackish surface water from River Gigüela with freshwater inputs from River Guadiana and the underlying aquifer. Since the mid‐1970s, aquifer overexploitation caused the desiccation of the wetlands and neighbouring springs. The National Park remained in precarious hydrological conditions for three decades, with the only exception of rapid floods due to extreme rainfall events and sporadic water transfers from other basins. In the late 2000s, a decrease in groundwater abstraction and an extraordinarily wet period reversed the trend. The aquifer experienced an unexpected recovery of groundwater levels (over 20 m in some areas), thus restoring groundwater discharge to springs and wetlands. The complex historical evolution of the water balance in this site has resulted in substantial changes in surface and groundwater quality. This becomes evident when comparing the pre‐1980 groundwater quality and the hydrochemical status in the wetland in two different periods, under “dry” and “wet” conditions. Although the system is close to full recovery from the groundwater‐level viewpoint, bouncing back in the major hydrochemical constituents has not yet been obtained. These still appear to evolve in response to the previous overexploitation state. Moreover, in some sectors, there are groundwater‐dependent ecosystems that remain different to those found in preoverexploitation times. The experience of Las Tablas de Damiel provides an observatory of long‐term changes in wetland water quality, demonstrating that the effects of aquifer overexploitation on aquatic ecosystems are more than a mere alteration of the water balance and that groundwater quality is the key to aquifer and aquatic ecosystem sustainability.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐term effects of aquifer overdraft and recovery on groundwater quality in a Ramsar wetland: Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain

Castaño

Losa

Martínez‐Santos

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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“…At the same time, the selected methodology needs to support planning and decision making. These two objectives, namely social learning and support for decision making, are identified in the literature, and should be considered together, as the first aids the second (Lynam et al, 2010;Martínez-Santos et al, 2010;Simon and Etienne, 2010;Voinov and Bousquet, 2010).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory modelling to support decision making in water management under uncertainty: Two comparative case studies in the Guadiana river basin, Spain

Carmona

Varela‐Ortega

Bromley

2013

Journal of Environmental Management

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A participatory modelling process has been conducted in two areas of the Guadiana river (the upper and the middle sub-basins), in Spain, with the aim of providing support for decision making in the water management field. The area has a semi-arid climate where irrigated agriculture plays a key role in the economic development of the region and accounts for around 90% of water use. Following the guidelines of the European Water Framework Directive, we promote stakeholder involvement in water management with the aim to achieve an improved understanding of the water system and to encourage the exchange of knowledge and views between stakeholders in order to help building a shared vision of the system. At the same time, the resulting models, which integrate the different sectors and views, provide some insight of the impacts that different management options and possible future scenarios could have. The methodology is based on a Bayesian network combined with an economic model and, in the middle Guadiana sub-basin, with a crop model. The resulting integrated modelling framework is used to simulate possible water policy, market and climate scenarios to find out the impacts of those scenarios on farm income and on the environment. At the end of the modelling process, an evaluation questionnaire was filled by participants in both sub-basins. Results show that this type of processes are found very helpful by stakeholders to improve the system understanding, to understand each other's views and to reduce conflict when it exists. In addition, they found the model an extremely useful tool to support management. The graphical interface, the quantitative output and the explicit representation of uncertainty helped stakeholders to better understand the implications of the scenario tested. Finally, the combination of different types of models was also found very useful, as it allowed exploring in detail specific aspects of the water management problems.

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“…For example, Zorrilla (2009) have used a form of group model building (Bayesian Belief Networks) to systematize the problem of the UGB and to understand the consequences of the interactions among the different elements including the uncertainties (Zorrilla et al, forthcoming;Martinez-Santos et al, 2010). This exercise resulted in a more comprehensive understanding of the problem, and constituted a step towards building a problem representation where the different actor's perspectives were taken into account.…”

Section: How Have Ambiguities Handled Up To the Present?mentioning

confidence: 98%

More is not always better: Coping with ambiguity in natural resources management

Brugnach

Dewulf

Henriksen

et al. 2011

Journal of Environmental Management

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115

103

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Comparative reflections on the use of modelling tools in conflictive water management settings: The Mancha Occidental aquifer, Spain

Cited by 34 publications

References 71 publications

Long‐term effects of aquifer overdraft and recovery on groundwater quality in a Ramsar wetland: Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain

Long‐term effects of aquifer overdraft and recovery on groundwater quality in a Ramsar wetland: Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain

Participatory modelling to support decision making in water management under uncertainty: Two comparative case studies in the Guadiana river basin, Spain

More is not always better: Coping with ambiguity in natural resources management

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