Abstract
Water scarcity is increasing in many countries worldwide, and conflicts between alternative uses have arisen due to the high demand and the effects of climate change, among other factors. This paper employs a contingent valuation (CV) method to determine households’ willingness to pay (WTP) compensation to the irrigation sector to guarantee urban supply reliability under extreme water-scarcity conditions (e.g., during a drought period) through inter-sectoral water transfers. The data was obtained from a survey covering 250 households in the city of Seville. In order to estimate households’ WTP, a double-bounded approach is used. Results show that the average WTP would be between 2.53 and 2.59 euros (on a monthly basis), which would represent a viable annual water transfer of 14.3 Hm3 from the irrigation sector, which would be compensated accordingly. This study shows that inter-sectoral water transfers should be considered a viable adaptation measure to manage the consequences of water scarcity in urban areas.
Highlights
Increasing climate variability and global warming due to climate change will definitely trigger major effects on the distribution of surface-water availability over space and time
Regarding the willingness to pay (WTP) questions, approximately 56% of respondents declare that they will be willing to pay to avoid supply shortfalls through water transfers from irrigation users in their water bills at the first choice, with an average bid price offered of 2.56 euros/month
We assume that the elicited WTP is not affected by these other explanatory variables and the B-estimate can be interpreted as the estimated average WTP
Summary
Increasing climate variability and global warming due to climate change will definitely trigger major effects on the distribution of surface-water availability over space and time These effects are compromising water-supply reliability in cities worldwide, especially for those located in semi-arid regions. Supply-side solutions are not unlimited, especially in semi-arid regions, where an increase in supply is not always feasible, largely due to economic and environmental constraints Under these conditions, basins are said to be closed, where no additional resources are expected to be added [11,12]. The agricultural supply of water is expected to decrease in the future, with a large increase in the number and volume of transfers from agriculture to other uses, such as urban and environmental uses [16]. This is the case in other regions of the world that suffer from chronic or temporary shortages in supply for urban uses: Taiwan [17]; south-western USA [18,19,20]; Aurora, Colorado, USA [21]; and the Edwards Aquifer region, Texas, USA [22]
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