The Economic Effects Of Pricing Irrigation Water

As globalization links economies, the value of a country's irrigation water becomes increasingly sensitive to competitive forces in world markets. Water policy at the national and regional levels will need to accommodate these forces or water is likely to become undervalued. The inefficient use of this resource will lessen a country's comparative advantage in world markets and slow its transition to higher incomes, particularly in rural households. While professionals widely agree on what constitutes sound water resource management, they have not yet reached a consensus on the best ways of implementing policies. Policymakers have considered pricing water - a debated intervention - in many variations. Setting the price 'right,' some say, may guide different types of users in efficient water use by sending a signal about the value of this resource. Aside from efficiency, itself an important policy objective, equity, accessibility, and implementation costs associated with the right pricing must be considered. Focusing on the examples of China, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, and Turkey, Pricing Irrigation Water provides a clear methodology for studying farm-level demand for irrigation water. This book is the first to link the macroeconomics of policies affecting trade to the microeconomics of water demand for irrigation and, in the case of Morocco, to link these forces to the creation of a water user-rights market. This type of market reform, the contributors argue, will result in growing economic benefits to both rural and urban households.

As globalization links economies, the value of a country's irrigation water becomes increasingly sensitive to competitive forces in world markets. Water policy at the national and regional levels will need to accommodate these forces or water is likely to become undervalued. The inefficient use of this resource will lessen a country's comparative advantage in world markets and slow its transition to higher incomes, particularly in rural households. While professionals widely agree on what constitutes sound water resource management, they have not yet reached a consensus on the best ways of implementing policies. Policymakers have considered pricing water - a debated intervention - in many variations. Setting the price 'right,' some say, may guide different types of users in efficient water use by sending a signal about the value of this resource. Aside from efficiency, itself an important policy objective, equity, accessibility, and implementation costs associated with the right pricing must be considered. Focusing on the examples of China, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, and Turkey, Pricing Irrigation Water provides a clear methodology for studying farm-level demand for irrigation water. This book is the first to link the macroeconomics of policies affecting trade to the microeconomics of water demand for irrigation and, in the case of Morocco, to link these forces to the creation of a water user-rights market. This type of market reform, the contributors argue, will result in growing economic benefits to both rural and urban households.

This book contains 14 separately authored chapters on the pricing of irrigation water. The chapters are entitled: (1) Water pricing in irrigation: the lifetime of an idea; (2) Water pricing in irrigation: mapping the debate in the light of experience; (3) Why is agricultural water demand unresponsive at low price ranges; (4) Get the prices right: a model of water prices and irrigation efficiency in Maharashtra, India; (5) Thailand's free water: rationale for a water charge and policy shifts; (6) Water rights and water fees in rural Tanzania; (7) Who will pay for water? The Vietnamese State's dilemma of decentralization of water management in the Red River Delta; (8) Water pricing in Haryana, India; (9) The energy-irrigation nexus in South Asia: groundwater conservation and power sector viability; (10) Wells and canals in Jordan: can pricing policies regulate irrigation water use; (11) Water pricing in Tadla, Morocco; (12) Water pricing policies and recent reforms in China: the conflict between conservation and other policy goals; (13) Water pricing and irrigation: a review of the European experience; and (14) Policy-driven determinants of irrigation development and environmental sustainability: a case study in Spain.

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

This book forms the proceedings of the 18th European conference on irrigation and drainage. Water is not a free commodity, and demand is becoming more and more intense for its allocation. This book focuses on the role of irrigation and drainage in the debate on water, and will be used by planners, designers and policy makers internationally.

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