Abstract
Competitions and disputes between various human water sectors and environmental flow of the river are exacerbated due to the rapid growth of the economy in Yellow River basin as well as the limited supply of available water resources in recent decades. It is necessary to implement rational and effective management and allocation to alleviate the pressure of water shortage. In order to promote economic development and maintain the ecological balance of the river, both the water allocation to the river environmental system and different human needs should be of concern when making the allocation polices. This study developed a water allocation model based on Nash–Harsanyi bargaining game theory for optimal water resources allocation among agricultural, industrial, domestic, public, and urban ecological water (watering for urban green space) sectors while ensuring the environmental flow requirements of lower reaches. A comprehensive economic evaluation framework is built to assess the economic benefits of different water uses that were taken as the basis of water allocation model. The annual environmental base flow is 7.50 billion m3 in the lower reaches of Yellow River. Moreover, the optimal annual allocations for agricultural, industrial, domestic, public, and urban ecological water use sectors are estimated as 33.7, 6.42, 3.96, 1.75 and 2.68 billion m3, respectively.
Highlights
With the development of social economy and population growth, the trade-offs between human society’s water demand and its limited water resources have become increasingly prominent [1], which has intensified conflicts and rivalry between different sectors of water use as well as regions
Based on the above discussions, this study aims to answer three research questions: (1) How much economic benefits can be produced by water inputs for agricultural, industrial, domestic, public, and urban ecological water sectors, respectively? (2) At least how much environmental base flow should be maintained in the river channel of lower reaches of Yellow River? (3) What is the optimal water allocation scheme among five water sectors?
The economic value of unit water resource of three water sectors has removed the effects of inflation (2005 is selected as the base year)
Summary
With the development of social economy and population growth, the trade-offs between human society’s water demand and its limited water resources have become increasingly prominent [1], which has intensified conflicts and rivalry between different sectors of water use as well as regions. Meeting diverse human needs and ensuring environmental requirements to achieve longterm sustainability is the core theme of water resource management and allocation [18]. It is important to take both the needs of different sectors of human society and environmental requirements of river ecosystems into consideration in the allocation of water resources. In the past few decades, in order to proceed with the equal, effective and sustainable use of water resources, research on water resources allocation has drawn more and more attention [19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]
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