Groundwater irrigation and its implications for water policy in semiarid countries: the Spanish experience

Garrido, Alberto; Martínez‐Santos, Pedro; Llamas, M. Ramón

doi:10.1007/s10040-005-0006-z

Cited by 94 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Both agricultural output and biodiversity are inversely related to z. The smaller z, the larger the opportunity costs of conservation, but the lower the set-up costs that need to be incurred for nature and wildlife to establish itself (in the form of creating, for example, watering holes; Garrido et al 2006). Note that groundwater levels are largely unobservable to the regulator, and also a farmer's average agricultural yield may be a poor indicator of the water abundance underneath the hectares he puts up for conservation as groundwater depth tends to vary quite substantially over space (Mew et al 1997).…”

Section: Empirical Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lower the water table, the more expensive it is to (re)construct habitat for nature conservation (if only because one needs to dig deeper to create ponds or artificial watering holes for wildlife), but the variable (opportunity) costs of offering conservation services are lower because of the lower agricultural profits (see for example Garrido et al 2006 for the case of Spain). Therefore, the regulator can infer that farmers with low variable conservation costs face high fixed costs, and vice versa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimal Conservation Programs, Asymmetric Information and the Role of Fixed Costs

Arguedas

Soest

2011

Environ Resource Econ

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An increasing number of environmental protection programs offers financial compensation to farmers in exchange for conservation services. Incentive-compatible contracts can be designed to mitigate excess compensation, but the extant literature suggests that outcomes are always second-best so that other instruments (such as conservation auctions) may be preferred. We argue that the claim regarding the first-best solution never being incentive-compatible is correct if all conservation costs are variable in nature; if there are fixed costs too, the first-best compensation scheme may be incentive-compatible after all. Given the relevance of fixed costs in conservation issues, we conclude that incentive-compatible contracts should be given a second chance as a policy measure to induce conservation. Keywords Asymmetric information · Payments for ecosystem services · Mechanism design JEL ClassificationD82 · H23 · Q57We wish to thank two anonymous referees for their excellent comments, which helped us to substantially improve the paper's exposition and to sharpen the paper's policy implications. We would also like to thank Justin Dijk as well as participants at the 9th annual Bioecon conference for their comments and suggestions. Carmen Arguedas is grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for their financial support (ECO2008-00510), and Daan van Soest wishes to acknowledge the financial support by "Knowledge for Climate" Program.

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Section: Empirical Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Conservation Programs, Asymmetric Information and the Role of Fixed Costs

Arguedas

Soest

2011

Environ Resource Econ

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“…Intensive groundwater use frequently depletes the water table. Depletions of the order of 0.5 m/year are frequent, although rates up to 5-10 m/year have been reported Garrido et al, 2006). Farmers are seldom concerned with this issue, except in the case of shallow aquifers.…”

Section: Groundwater-level Depletionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Specific aspects of groundwater use in water ethics

Llamas¹,

Mart√≠nez-Cortina²

2009

Water Ethics

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Groundwater use has spectacularly increased during the last five or six decades. It is estimated that this use has increased in half century from 100-150 km 3 /year to 900-1,000 km 3 /year today. This intensive use has been described as a silent revolution performed by millions of farmers with scarce planning and control by the conventional governmental water agencies. Although the accuracy of most water data is generally illusory, it seems that today half of mankind drinks groundwater and more than 50% of the economic value of the irrigated agriculture is obtained with groundwater irrigation.This revolution has produced great benefits in providing drinking water and decreasing malnourishment to the poor. But it has also produced different problems in some regions. These problems have been frequently exaggerated because of ignorance, inertia or corruption of some high-level water decision-makers. A series of hydromyths or wrong paradigms are pervasively found in many places and are discussed in this chapter.

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“…From the economic point of view, groundwater irrigation is again a preferred option of almost any single farmer as, in the absence of other financial obligations, abstraction costs are most of the times just a small fraction of the irrigation crops values. Even at the level of collective irrigation, the social -as related to jobs involved -and the economic -as related to profits gained -value, per unit volume of groundwater pumped and used, generally exceeds that of surface water irrigation systems (Garrido et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined use of groundwater simulation and multi-criteria analysis within a spatial decision-making framework for optimal allocation of irrigation water

Latinopoulos

Theodossiou

Latinopoulos

2011

Span. j. agric. res.

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In arid and semiarid areas in the world, including the Mediterranean region, groundwater has been widely and intensively used for irrigation over the last few decades. Practical as well as economic reasons make its use much more preferable, as compared to surface water, especially to individual farmers. Yet, this rapid and largely uncontrolled expansion in groundwater exploitation, which stimulated the socioeconomic development of numerous rural communities, has produced many negative impacts on aquifer degradation and environmental deterioration. The most common remedy to such problems is the application of specific groundwater management policies that can simultaneously meet socioeconomic and environmental protection goals. In this sense, the paper introduces a methodology for an optimal management of irrigation water, by specifically exploring the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of spatially allocated water conservation measures at the watershed level. The analysis is conducted by developing a multi-criteria decision-making framework, consisting of three distinct models: a hydrogeological, an optimization, and a multi-criteria one, which appraises the results of the other two. The proposed methodology is presented through a case study at a rural Greek watershed, in which groundwater is the sole water source for an intensively practiced agriculture. A system of water use quotas is the resource conservation policy instrument that is examined under a decision-making approach. Results show that some specifically designed and spatially non-uniform quota allocation schemes can meet in an optimum way the relevant criteria.Additional key words: crop-water functions; sustainable irrigation water management; water quotas; watershed model; weighted summation. ResumenUso combinado de análisis multicriterio y simulación de aguas subterráneas dentro de un marco espacial de toma de decisiones para la asignación óptima del agua de riego Las aguas subterráneas se han usado intensivamente en las regiones áridas y semiáridas del planeta, incluyendo el Mediterráneo. Hay razones económicas y prácticas que las hacen preferibles a las aguas superficiales, especialmente para agricultores individuales. Sin embargo esto ha conducido a una expansión incontrolada del uso de aguas subterrá-neas que ha estimulado el desarrollo de muchas comunidades rurales, pero que ha producido impactos negativos como degradación en acuíferos y deterioro ambiental. El remedio más común para estos problemas es la aplicación de políti-cas de gestión de aguas subterráneas que busque satisfacer simultáneamente los objetivos ambientales y socioeconómi-cos. Este trabajo introduce una metodología explorando los impactos ambientales y socioeconómicos de una asignación de recursos a nivel de acuífero. El análisis se hace desarrollando un esquema multicriterio consistente en tres modelos: hidrogeológico, optimización, y función multicriterio, que evalúa los resultados de los otros dos. La propuesta se aplica a un estudio del caso de un acuífero rur...

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Groundwater irrigation and its implications for water policy in semiarid countries: the Spanish experience

Cited by 94 publications

References 8 publications

Optimal Conservation Programs, Asymmetric Information and the Role of Fixed Costs

Optimal Conservation Programs, Asymmetric Information and the Role of Fixed Costs

Specific aspects of groundwater use in water ethics

Combined use of groundwater simulation and multi-criteria analysis within a spatial decision-making framework for optimal allocation of irrigation water

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