Abstract
Arjen Hoekstra postulated in 2001 that the value of water accumulates in an upstream direction: water value flows upstream. The ultimate source of this value is the rain. This original idea he used to develop the water value-flow concept. This article shows that the water value-flow concept has much to offer in terms of contemporary challenges. It is fully consistent with the "Five Bellagio Principles on Valuing Water" that the High Level Panel of Water published in 2017, and can make significant contributions to the first four principles. This article also shows that the concept can make many more contributions, including incorporating precipitationsheds, and thus include the source areas of rainfall in valuing water. Yet, until now, this innovative and potentially ground breaking concept has been largely ignored by researchers and practitioners in the fields of water resources management and economics. We conclude that the value-flow concept is a unique and promising framework for the integrated assessment of the value of water within a water resources system or river basin. We suggest that the concept can be enriched by incorporating instream benefits, water quality, as well as social, cultural, and spiritual values. We also suggest to test whether the concept can be usefully applied, and add value, to the emerging fields of socio-hydrology and water accounting.
Highlights
Consistent with the work of Arjen Hoekstra, it is postulated that the value of water accumulates in an upstream direction: water value flows upstream
A further complicating aspect is that the hydrology of water creates upstream–downstream interdependencies between users, leading to what has been called water asymmetry: downstream water users often depend on what upstream users do, whereas most of the time upstream users are not or little impacted by what downstream users do, at least within the water realm [10]
Sivapalan and collaborators [23] coined the field of socio-hydrology as the new science that integrates water resources management, economics, hydrology, and sociology
Summary
Consistent with the work of Arjen Hoekstra, it is postulated that the value of water accumulates in an upstream direction: water value flows upstream. A further complicating aspect is that the hydrology of water creates upstream–downstream interdependencies between users, leading to what has been called water asymmetry: downstream water users often depend on what upstream users do, whereas most of the time upstream users are not or little impacted by what downstream users do, at least within the water realm [10] This makes it necessary to take the water cycle into account when valuing it. Arjen Hoekstra was a pioneer in efforts to achieve this Twenty years ago he introduced the value-flow concept [12,13,14,15], in the early days of integrated water resources management (IWRM) research. This paper aims to revive the value-flow concept, by briefly reviewing it (Section 2), expanding it to include precipitationsheds (Section 3), considering its potential contribution to the new fields of socio-hydrology and water accounting (Section 4), exploring possible applications to contemporary water challenges (Section 5), and as a way of conclusion, formulating some directions for future research (Section 6)
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