Economics Of Water Management In Agriculture

This book includes a set of papers from distinguished scholars who critically examine economic issues relating to the relationship between water and agriculture, with a special focus on irrigation. Employing state of the art methodologies, they address the most relevant issues in water policy. The volume offers a wide spectrum of innovative approac

The purpose of this report is to produce a review on water resource valuation issues and techniques specifically for the appraisal and negotiation of raw (as opposed to bulk or retail) water resource allocation for agricultural development projects. The review considers raw water in naturally occurring watercourses, lakes, wetlands, soil and aquifers, taking an ecosystem function perspective at a catchment scale, and takes account of the demands from irrigated and rainfed agriculture. It is hoped that the review will have particular application to developing countries where agreed methods for reconciling competing uses are often absent, but nevertheless takes account of valuation approaches that have been made in post industrial economies.

A concise treatment of water-resource economics. Based upon political economy perspectives, it draws upon a range of case-studies - Third- World, developed world, and former communist countries - to cover many issues. There is guidance on

This book arose out of a paper that I wrote for the World Bank at the request of Ariel Dinar, the editor for the series in which this volume appears. I began that paper by pointing to the growing importance of demand-side considerations in water resources: "The provision of potable water is one of government's oldest functions with evidence of this activity stretching back thousands of years. During much of that time, water demands were taken as exogenously given and the principle task of authorities was defined as an engineering one: how to supply a given quantity of water at least cost. In recent years, however, concerns have arisen from observations of excessive water use, degraded water quality and continued inadequate service for many, especially the very poor. As a result of these and other concerns, there is a growing effort to view water resource allocation from a perspective that incorporates consumers' preferences along with supply constraints into management plans. " (Renzetti, 2000, p. 123). The purpose of this volume is to examine, in greater detail than was possible in that article, what is known regarding the economic characteristics of the demand for water. Thus, this book is meant to be an extended critical review of the state of the art.

World population is set to increase by a third in the next 25 years, with no corresponding increase in global rainfall. About seventy per cent of the world's abstracted water is used in farming and therefore the economics of irrigation is becoming an increasingly important issue for sustainable development. Water for Agriculture provides a thorough

Most of the books published previously in the field of water resource eco nomics focus on particular aspects of water economics such as institutions, pricing or water markets, but none of them have given particular attention to methodological questions. However, the applied methodology within economic research has made some remarkable advances over the last 10-20 years. Some of these advances are of particular interest to the field of water economics. Therefore, we think that a book that focusing on methodological advances within the field of water resource economics and showing how these advances can be applied in economic analysis of water issues makes a nice complement to the existing literature in this field. We identified five areas where we consider the methodological advances to be of particular importance: 1) asymmetric information and game theory, 2) un certainty, 3) space, 4) water quality and 5) production and technology adoption. The selected papers for the book fall entirely within these categories. The book ''Frontiers in Water Resource Economics" draws to a great extent on papers which were presented at the 7^^ Conference of the International Water and Re source Economics Consortium, June 3-5,2001 held in Girona, Catalonia, Spain, This conference was jointly organized with the 4^^ Conference of Environmen tal and Resource Economics by the Department of Economics, University of Girona.

Jan van Schilfgaarde, USDA Agricultural Research Service and National Research Council Committee on Irrigation-Induced Water Quality Problems In 1982, a startling discovery was made. Many waterbirds in Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge were dying or suffering reproductive failure. Located in the San Joaquin Valley (Valley) of California, the Kesterson Reservoir (Kesterson) was used to store agricultural drainage water and it was soon determined that the probable cause of the damage to wildlife was high concen trations of selenium, derived from the water and water organisms in the reservoir. This discovery drastically changed numerous aspects of water management in California, and especially affected irrigated agriculture. In fact, the repercussions spilled over to much of the Western United States. For a century, water development for irrigation has been a religiously pursued means for economic development of the West. The primary objective of the Reclamation Act of 1902 was, purportedly, the development ofirrigation water to support family farms which, in turn, would enhance the regional economy (Worster, 1985).

Water policy is an important topic on the agenda of the international community, and efficiency and equity in the allocation of water have emerged as important factors to be considered. Water pricing can be used to mitigate both the quantity and quality dimensions of water scarcity. This paper reviews partial equilibrium models and general equilibrium models that are relevant to irrigation water management issues. The most widely discussed issues in these models are water markets and water pricing. The interrelationships between economic, cultural, social, and political aspects that are related to water policy make it difficult to provide a comprehensive policy analysis. General equilibrium models of irrigation water management allow incorporation of both the irrigation sector and the other sectors in the economy and analysis of policies affecting each of them and the interaction between them. In addition to being able to address sector and household specifications, production factors, time horizon, pricing policies, and institutions such as water markets, general equilibrium models allow the analysis of the impact of water policies on equity and poverty alleviation. The authors conclude that, although there has been a significant increase in efforts to analyze water related problems, analytical and empirical research in the field is still deficient and more effort is needed to address them.