Editorial Volume 8 Issue 1 (January 2022)

Abstract

Water Economics and PolicyVol. 08, No. 01, 2201001 (2022) Free AccessEditorial Volume 8 Issue 1 (January 2022)George FrisvoldGeorge FrisvoldDepartment of Agricultural & Resource Economics, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0078, USAhttps://doi.org/10.1142/S2382624X22010019Cited by:0 Next AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Librarian ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail 1. IntroductionWelcome to Volume 8, Issue 1 of Water Economics and Policy. Articles in this Issue consider topics spanning four continents, with applications in Southern California, Mexico, Chile, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Pakistan. The first two articles address the importance of heterogeneity. Zozmann, Klassert, Klauer, and Gawel consider the heterogeneity of water demand in a theoretical treatment applicable to any number of developing countries. Haile, Mekonnen, Choufani, Ringler, and Bryan consider the heterogeneity of water supply and technologies for small-scale irrigation (SSI) adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As the authors point out, SSA’s share of irrigated area is among the lowest in the world with less than 3% of the total renewable water resources put to productive uses, compared to 36% in South Asia and 51% in the Middle East and North Africa. While SSA has historically emphasized a small number of large-scale irrigation schemes, there has been a shift in focus to consider SSI. In both articles, the authors consider how taking better account of heterogeneity can improve policy evaluations and design.The next article (by Sarkar) examines the scope for transferring agricultural water for restoration of the Colorado River Delta. The Delta, at the River’s southernmost reach, and flowing into the Gulf of Baja, is the largest wetland in North America as well as one of the largest desert estuaries in the world. Yet, over-allocation of the Colorado River’s waters between seven US states and Mexico has severely reduced flows through the Delta. This has had negative consequences for endangered fish species, migratory birds using the Pacific Flyway, the control of invasive species, and the livelihoods of local indigenous peoples. Next, Bopp, Engler, Jara-Rojas, Hunecke, and Melo consider the role of leadership in the success of water management institutions. Specifically, they examine which characteristics of presidents of Water User Associations (WUAs) contribute to greater cooperation within the WUAs in Chile. Finally, Jamil, Siddique, and Adil explore the relationship between water contamination, averting behavior, water-borne disease, and disease treatment costs in Karachi, Pakistan, the world’s 12th most populous city.2. Overview of Papers in the Issue2.1. “Heterogeneity, Household Co-Production, and Risks of Water Services — Water Demand of Private Households with Multiple Water Sources” by Zozmann, Klassert, Klauer, and GawelThe authors develop a household model framework that treats the demand for water not as one for a single homogeneous good as is usually done. Rather, they consider heterogeneous water services that are bundles of key attributes. In this Lancastrian framework, water services vary by water quality and acceptability, spatial accessibility, and temporal availability. In developing countries, households often access multiple water services in addition to self-supply. Sources of water differ in terms of the underlying quality and treatment requirements (that vary by use), time and monetary costs of procurement, and supply reliability. A utility-maximizing household modeling framework then serves as a powerful tool to examine the role of cost tradeoffs, time constraints, and risk aversion in household water demand and self-supply decision. This approach provides insights into behavior and policy beyond pricing. Water sources that may at first appear expensive, may be more reliable and thus serve an underappreciated insurance function. Assessments of willingness to pay for water and consumer surplus will be more accurate and comprehensive if they consider the place of different water services in the context of household utility. This could also improve decisions about water infrastructure investments and pricing policies.2.2. “Hierarchical Modeling of Small-Scale Irrigation: Constraints and Opportunities for Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa” by Haile, Mekonnen, Choufani, Ringler, and BryanThe authors use a hierarchical modeling approach to evaluate factors that may encourage small-scale irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study relies on surveys from Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania, carried out in two separate rounds (years) in each country from 2014 to 2018. The authors grouped SSI technologies into three types namely gravity-based, manual (hand or foot pumps, watering cans, buckets, or hoses), and motorized (petrol, diesel, kerosene, or solar pumps). The hierarchical modeling approach allows for separating out community-level effects from the household-level effects on SSI adoption. The study finds that constraints and opportunities are location- and technology-specific. Gravity-based systems are more likely to affect the entire community, while groundwater use is less dependent on community-level factors. Use of gravity-based technologies is the highest in Tanzania, while the use of capital-intensive, motorized groundwater technologies is the highest in Ethiopia. Policy recommendations, rather than being “one size fits all”, may also need to be location-specific. Interventions to promote SSI may be more effective in Tanzania as they target the community-level barriers, for example, while the interventions aimed at household-level constraints may be more appropriate for Ethiopia. Findings suggest a positive association between SSI adoption and greater use of agricultural labor and of inorganic fertilizers. A useful area of future research would be to explore pathways of causation between SSI and the use of labor and other non-labor inputs.2.3. “Saving the Colorado River Delta: How Much is It Worth?” by SarkarSarkar considers the economic consequences of rerouting 100,000 acre-feet (AF) (123,348,000m3) of water through the Delta for environmental restoration. The study considers different options for achieving agricultural water savings to accomplish the task. These include fallowing a mix of crops (including high-valued ones) to maintain cropping proportions, fallowing only alfalfa (the lowest-valued crop considered), and adopting sub-surface drip irrigation on alfalfa acreage. Simulations consider carrying out these options within Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District along the Colorado River. The study makes use of evapotranspiration functions from previous research that map consumptive use of water onto crop yields of different crops. Costs of water conservation via fallowing are measured in terms of the foregone crop revenue. Drip irrigation has high installation, maintenance, and energy costs. Fallowing high-value vegetable crops is the most expensive option for conserving the 100,000 acre feet (AF) of water. Fallowing alfalfa is the least costly option, with revenue losses ranging from USD 5.5 million in the first year, ending with USD 14 million in the last, 30th year. Costs for sub-surface drip irrigation rise from USD 12 million in the first year to USD 32 million in the last. Per AF costs of delivering water are USD 55–136.67/AF from fallowing and USD 120–310/AF from sub-surface drip irrigation. Such cost figures are useful for informing future negotiations over agricultural water transfers in the Lower Colorado Basin for Delta restoration or for other purposes. Commentators on water scarcity in the Colorado Basin often advocate adoption of drip irrigation as a preferred adaptation to water scarcity in the region. Sarkar’s article, however, illustrates that, for farmers, switching to drip irrigation is not necessarily an economic improvement. Rather, it can actually be more costly than fallowing.2.4. “Collective Actions and Leadership Attributes: A Cluster Analysis of Water User Associations in Chile” by Bopp, Engler, Jara-Rojas, Hunecke, and MeloThe authors use cluster analysis of primary survey data to assess the role of leadership in the performance of Chilean Water User Associations. They first evaluate 68 different WUAs in terms of how cooperative they are. Highly cooperative WUAs are characterized in terms of the lack of non-cooperative behaviors: non-attendance at meetings, delayed payment or non-payment of fees, non-cleaning of channels, and water theft. The authors then assess whether attributes of WUA leaders contribute to greater cooperation within a WUA. They find that highly cooperative WUAs have presidents who spend more time on their duties, are more active in applying for governmental subsidies, are embedded in social organizations, have high levels of bridging social capital, and have a positive attitude toward their positions. As for the less cooperative WUAs, these could be grouped (based on the cluster analysis) into different forms of non-cooperation. Some implications from these findings are that policy interventions to strengthen social capital and to provide incentives for presidents to spend more time on their WUA duties could enhance cooperative performance. The study was based on a detailed questionnaire for WUA presidents. A fruitful area of future research would be to also survey the WUA members. Another important finding, with important implications for future research, was that all the female presidents surveyed in the study belonged to the top performing cluster. Previous research has found positive outcomes from female leadership, so greater understanding of this phenomena would be interesting. A policy implication is that efforts to encourage women into WUA leadership positions could also enhance WUA performance.2.5. “Valuing Health Loss in Karachi City from Water Contamination and Household Defensive Behavior” by Jamil, Siddique, and AdilThe authors examine the roles of water contamination and averting behavior in water-borne disease and treatment costs in Karachi, Pakistan. The study first uses logistic regression to explain whether or not water-borne diseases (specifically, diarrhea) are observed in a household. Explanatory variables include household characteristics (income, education and awareness, and costs of defensive behavior), water quality (measures of coliforms and other contaminants), and averting behavior. Household data were collected directly from a survey, while the extent of contamination was estimated via laboratory tests of local water samples. The probability of illness increased with total coliforms in water supplies and sourcing water from water tankers. This probability declined with income, spending on treatment, and use of water filtration. The study next used the survey data on household-level disease treatment expenditures to calculate the average cost of treating water-borne illness. Based on these figures, rates of diseases, and population estimates, the authors estimate a predicted direct monthly treatment cost for Karachi as a whole (with a population of 16.5 million) of PKR 80.6 million (roughly USD 750,000/month at the time of the study). The overall household costs appear quite small, even relative to the household incomes of the lowest-income groups in the study. A useful area of future research would be to explore the question of “why so low?” One driving factor is that the predicted probability of illness of a representative household due to water contamination in the sample was estimated to be less than 3%. One might also examine alternative measures of health costs (which might include costs of more rare, but more acute, health effects).3. Synthesis and Policy ImplicationsAs noted at the outset, the first two articles emphasized the role and importance of heterogeneity in water demand, sources, and technologies. This theme — that differences matter both for evaluating water management problems and for developing policy remedies — runs through the other articles as well. The last article, on responses to water contamination in Karachi, is a good empirical illustration of the concepts introduced in the first article on heterogeneous water services. Karachi residents must expend time and money to avert risks of contaminated water. Levels of contamination vary by source and neighborhood. Water is not a single, homogeneous good. The study of Chilean Water User Associations considers a different type of heterogeneity, differences in leadership skills of association presidents. The study finds that these differences matter in terms of leading to different outcomes. The article on the Colorado River considers different tactics for conserving water. While adoption of drip irrigation is frequently offered as a panacea for water scarcity in the arid Western United States, the article casts doubts on its viability for water conservation, in the specific geographic setting studied. Together these articles illustrate the limits of simple, “one size fits all” strategies to address water management problems. A policy challenge, then, is developing flexible policy responses that fit local situations. FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Recommended Vol. 08, No. 01 Metrics History Published: 12 May 2022 PDF download