Cost-effectiveness of groundwater conservation measures: A multi-level analysis with policy implications

• Published in: Agricultural water management 2011-02, Vol.98 (4), p.639-652
• Main Authors: Blanco-Gutiérrez, Irene, Varela-Ortega, Consuelo, Flichman, Guillermo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural and forest climatology and meteorology. Irrigation. Drainage; Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Aquifers; Biological and medical sciences; Cost-effectiveness analysis; Costs; Farms; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General agronomy. Plant production; Groundwater; Groundwater resources; Groundwater resources Irrigation Wetlands conservation Multi-scale economic modeling Water policies Cost-effectiveness analysis; Income; Irrigation; Marketing; Multi-scale economic modeling; Policies; Quotas; Water policies; Wetlands conservation
• ISSN: 0378-3774; 1873-2283
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2010.10.013

▶ The result show that attaining the target of the aquifer's sustainability would require an effective and simultaneous combination of measures addressed to control water consumption and halting illegal drilling. ▶ Our findings indicate that groundwater prices promote water saving, but they inflict substantial income losses upon small farms with rigid cropping patterns. A comparative policy analysis between the two selected water pricing schemes leads to the conclusion that block-rate water prices would provide fewer revenue collections to the water authority, but would mean lower income losses for farmers. ▶ Equally distributed water quotas can also achieve the environmental objective of the aquifer's conservation by reducing groundwater consumption and inequity among farmers. When the previously established water use quotas are traded on a market-based mechanism, only small amounts of water are actually exchanged, providing small income gains. ▶ From this study we can infer that none of the considered water conservation policies (water pricing, water quota, water market) is clearly more cost-effective than the others. Aggregate results show that net social costs are not substantially different across policy options. However, there are important differences between private and public costs (at farm and sub-basin level), which may influence the political viability of the various options. ▶ Additional studies on net social costs are highly recommended to include long term recurrent costs, as well as policy implementation and operation costs. Other criteria not considered in this research, such as the policy enforcement capacity and level of social acceptance, should also be taken into consideration. Groundwater in Spain, as in other arid and semiarid countries worldwide, has been widely used in the expansion of irrigated agriculture. In the Spanish Mancha Occidental aquifer, the excessive, and sometimes illegal, water abstraction for irrigation has promoted outstanding socioeconomic development in the area, but it has also resulted in exploitation of the aquifer and degradation of valuable wetlands. Water policies implemented in the region have not yet managed to restore the aquifer and face strong social opposition. This paper uses a multi-scale modeling approach to explore the environmental and socio-economic impacts of alternative water conservation measures at the farm and basin levels. It also analyzes their comparative cost-effectiveness to help polic