The establishment of integrated water resources management based on emergy accounting

Abstract

With modules developed in an informatics package for geographic information systems (GIS), the present work calculates the emergy of groundwater and the inter-annual variation in emergy of surface water resources in basins that encompass the metropolitan areas of Toluca and Monterrey, Mexico; that is, Upper Course of the Lerma River (UCLR) and the Santa Catarina River (SCR) basin, respectively. In addition, a criterion has been found to identify the intensive exploitation of aquifers. This allows for considering those volumes as non-renewable resources, when applicable, in processes to define integrated water resources management. The transformity weighted mean of water resources due to chemical potential energy in the SCR basin (9.32E + 06 sej/J for surface water and 6.47E + 06 sej/J for groundwater) was greater than in the UCLR basin (5.75E + 05 sej/J for surface water and 2.83E + 05 sej/J for groundwater). Nevertheless, based on the analysis of the variation in emergy, some strategies were identified to improve the efficiency of the joint management of water resources. Standing out among these is the determination of a monthly variability in the volumes of water provided, making it possible to observe a decrease in emergy per unit volume in the SCR basin and an increase in the percentage of renewable resources in the UCLR basin.

The worth of land use: A GIS–emergy evaluation of natural and human-made capital

“…This value is used to convert matter and energy input flows into emergy units. The emergy approach has been widely applied to different systems and processes to better understand problems related to resource management and to evaluate alternative solutions for policy (Agostinho et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2011;Díaz-Delgado et al, 2014;Mellino and Ulgiati, in press, among others).…”

An integrated data envelopment analysis and emergy-based ecological footprint methodology in evaluating sustainable development, a case study of Jiangsu Province, China

“…Recently, because emergy analysis provides an energy basis for quantification or valuation of the goods and services embodied in a comprehensive ecological system, it has been widely applied in ecosystem analyses, water resources management, urban health evaluation, and decision-making for regional sustainable development (Díaz-Delgado et al, 2014;Lei and Wang, 2008;Liu et al, 2009;Nakajima and Ortega, 2015).…”

Modelo dinámico adaptativo para la toma de decisiones sostenibles en el ciclo hidrosocial urbano en México 1

“…energía, bienes, transporte, personas, información). Es decir, de las interacciones entre elementos humanos y no humanos del sistema, de manera tal, que la complejidad de los sistemas urbanos es capturada e interpretada para su análisis y formulación de estrategias de gestión (Batty, 2013;Grimm et al, 2000;Díaz-Delgado et al, 2014).…”

“…Donde los ríos y cauces naturales, se han convertido en parte del drenaje urbano, debido al proceso de urbanización y desarrollo industrial de la ZMT. El cauce del río Lerma es actualmente el principal receptor de las descargas residuales urbanas, incluyendo las de corredores y parques industria-les, lo que ha derivado en un alto deterioro de la calidad del agua (Esteller y Díaz-Delgado, 2002;Díaz-Delgado et al, 2014).…”