Is Water Pricing Policy Adequate to Reduce Water Demand for Drought Mitigation in Korea?

Abstract

Korea experienced an unexpected drought in the southern Seoul metropolitan area from 2015 to 2017. After that, the Korean government has been drafting various policies to mitigate the effects of drought. However, these are primarily long-term drought policies, such as reservoir expansion. A comprehensive water demand reduction policy, which considers both short-term and long-term droughts, is also required. To confirm the effectiveness of the water pricing policy in Korea, we estimated the water demand reduction volume during droughts by assuming the drought and water pricing policy. We used two models for simulation: the severe drought area prediction (SDAP) model and the SD (system dynamics) model. The results showed the water demand reduction by price would not be significantly effective in Korea. We indicated that the effectiveness of policies could differ in each situation so that appropriate policies are needed for each country. This discussion could provide policy implications for other countries being at risk of droughts as well as the Korean government. Furthermore, we discussed non-price water policies that could be implemented in combination with the pricing policy in cases where the water pricing policy does not effectively reduce water demand.