Public Water Agencies Research Articles

Talking about my generation: exploratory insights from water policy makers in British Columbia

Abstract The values held by policy makers can influence policy change. But what those values are and their source has received little attention. We argue that one source of these values – and associated differences – is rooted in generational ‘social frames’. We provide evidence from an exploratory survey in British Columbia, Canada, where transformative changes in water policy are being implemented, which include potential changes in water governance to include First Nations (or Indigenous Peoples). Controlling for a range of variables, we found consistent generational differences between personal and organizational values, differences in priorities, and preferences for certain types of economic instruments between Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennial respondents. We offer our thoughts as to how these differences may influence the policy process. We also call for public water agencies to develop structures that harness this diversity for internal policy learning, adaptation and innovation.

Battling Over Bathwater: Greywater Technopolitics in Los Angeles

AbstractIn Los Angeles, domestic wastewater recycling (“greywater”) systems are controversial, loved by local environmentalists and disdained by the city’s water agencies. Drawing on fieldwork among greywater advocates and public water agency workers, this article examines how greywater systems function as nodes that unsettle relations between residents and the public agencies that manage the city’s water grid. Elaborating the longstanding frictions over greywater reuse in LA reveals how these fixtures are mobilized by advocates to rescript the roles of both individuals and the state within the urban waterscape. Detailing public agency workers’ resistance to this form of selective disconnection from the grid helps to clarify the patterns of flows, norms of consumption, and forms of state control at stake in efforts to decentralize arrangements of urban water management.

Historical trends of residential water use in California: Effects of droughts and conservation policies

AbstractConservation efforts to reduce residential water use have a long history in California. This article examines residential water use changes, measured by gallons per capita per day (GPCD), using a comprehensive monthly panel dataset of California's public water agencies during 1994–2019. We find that, on average, GPCD was reduced by 34% in 2019 when compared to 1994 levels. Controlling for the region, water source, and water agency characteristics suggest significant differences in policy performance. The differential effectiveness of conservation policies indicates a need to consider policy differentiation based on the agencies' objective and subjective conditions.

Furthering Internal Border Area Studies: An Analysis of Dysfunctions and Cooperation Mechanisms in the Water and River Management of Catalonia, Aragon and the Valencian Community (Spain)

Cooperation between countries or regions that share a political border is one of the primary concerns of border studies. However, while cooperation between states is a well-established field based on international agreements, the cooperation between internal-state regions is not as well understood and requires more exhaustive study. Cooperation agreements between regions are frequently based on the shared and collaborative management of environmental resources such as river basins. This paper aimed to identify mechanisms of river basin cooperation in the internal border area between Catalonia, Aragon and the Valencian Community (Spain), with the objective of analyzing dysfunctions in their water management and identifying the territorial needs for the efficient management of these resources. Focus group sessions were conducted with 84 public administration stakeholders and a total of 53 border municipalities were involved in the project. In our study area, we identified a considerable number of dysfunctions that affected different levels of water management (e.g., supply, navigation and reservoirs) and which impeded effective cooperation between different administrations (above all, between town councils and the public water agencies). However, we also identified several interesting initiatives to promote water management in both the medium and long term, including river contracts, river commonwealths and river tourism projects managed by border municipalities.

Sharing a river: Potential performance of a water bank for reallocating irrigation water

This paper presents an ex-ante policy analysis of the implementation of a publicly run active water bank operating at the basin level designed to temporarily reallocate water resources between farmers considering different scenarios of reduced water availability (cyclical scarcity due to droughts). For this purpose, the Guadalquivir River Basin, located in southern Spain, is used as a case study. Fifteen representative farm types were considered to simulate water trading through public tender for purchasing and selling temporary water rights. The model is built at the basin level to estimate the aggregate demand and supply curves to establish expected exchange prices, volumes of water traded, enhancement in economic efficiency and improvement in rural development as measured by employment generation. The simulation results show that the proposed water bank encourages water transfers from 19% of the total water used in the case of a moderate drought to almost 40% in the case of an extreme drought, significantly reducing the economic and labor demand losses due to water shortages. The public water agency can recover all of the incurred water bank operation costs by implementing a €0.01/m3 price differential between purchase and sale prices without meaningfully affecting the performance of the water bank. Thus, we conclude that the implementation of this kind of water bank during droughts would be useful in mitigating negative effects of droughts. Thus, policymakers are encouraged to create water banks as an effective instrument to cope with droughts.

The estimated impact of California’s urban water conservation mandate on electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

In April 2015, the Governor of California mandated a 25% statewide reduction in water consumption (relative to 2013 levels) by urban water suppliers. The more than 400 public water agencies affected by the regulation were also required to report monthly progress towards the conservation goal to the State Water Resources Control Board. This paper uses the reported data to assess how the water utilities have responded to this mandate and to estimate the electricity savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions associated with reduced operation of urban water infrastructure systems. The results show that California succeeded in saving 524 000 million gallons (MG) of water (a 24.5% decrease relative to the 2013 baseline) over the mandate period, which translates into 1830 GWh total electricity savings, and a GHG emissions reduction of 521 000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MT CO2e). For comparison, the total electricity savings linked to water conservation are approximately 11% greater than the savings achieved by the investor-owned electricity utilities’ efficiency programs for roughly the same time period, and the GHG savings represent the equivalent of taking about 111 000 cars off the road for a year. These indirect, large-scale electricity and GHG savings were achieved at costs that were competitive with existing programs that target electricity and GHG savings directly and independently. Finally, given the breadth of the results produced, we built a companion website, called ‘H2Open’ (https://cwee.shinyapps.io/greengov/), to this research effort that allows users to view and explore the data and results across scales, from individual water utilities to the statewide summary.

Technical efficiency in the Malaysian water sector: A stochastic frontier approach

The inception of deregulation in the Malaysian water sector can be traced back to the late 1980s although up until the early 1990s, privatization involved the treatment of the water segment only. Previously, both the water distribution and treatment segments were done by the respective states’ public water agencies although the arrangements differed among the 13 states in the country. Further, the privatization approach to state water management was also different among the states that are involved, with some having privatized all segments while some continued with a private-public arrangement, i.e., having privatized the water treatment process but the distribution of water remained publicly-owned. However, there are also fully privatized states while others are fully state-run. Interestingly, water privatization has involved some of the richer and more developed states – the states of Selangor, Johor and P.Pinang among them. We define states as privatized in terms of those that are fully privatized or corporatized. Given the many problems that have been highlighted in the sector despite more than 20 years since the start of the privatization initiative, a reform of the state water management system is perhaps timely and not surprisingly, already underway. The fact that there remains a dearth of empirical research on this industry motivated our interest in this area in the first place. In any case, our paper investigates the effects of privatization and in the process, also identifies the best practiced entities among the state water operators, both private- and publicly-owned ones. To do this, we undertake an empirical analysis of the efficiency in the Malaysian water sector using the approach of stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) for the period of 1999-2008. In this method, we take a cost function approach to measuring the technical efficiency of the state water utilities in the country and found the Pulau Pinang water company to be the most efficient state water utility in the Malaysia water sector although a significant relationship between efficiency and ownership cannot be conclusively ascertained from the statistical evidence of this paper thus suggesting that there may not be much difference between the performance of the private entities and the state-owned ones. The latter is consistent with the existing evidence and studies in other developing countries thus highlighting the limitations of the privatization initiative and at the same time lend support for a reform on the sector, which incidentally, is already on-going. Finally, we also found some scant evidence of little technological improvement thus indicating the problem of capital investment inadequacy over the period analyzed.

Assessment of Public Perspectives on Quality Control Measures in Public Water Supply in Oyo state, Nigeria

The study determined whether there were differences in public evaluation and perception of quality control measures adopted by a public water agency in Oyo State, Nigeria on the basis of some socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status and socio-economic background. It used a sample of 350 respondents (187 males and 163 females) spread across four local government areas in Oyo State. The major instrument used was a questionnaire while data analysis employed frequency counts and t-test statistics. Result showed that there were no significant differences in public perception of quality control measures adopted by the public water agency on the basis of the aforementioned factors. The result raises some fundamental issues that are connected with the quality of water supplied for public uses. It underscored the need to enhance a high quality in public water supply. The paper further went to proffer solutions on how to sustain safe water supplyin Nigerian cities: @ JASEM

Reducing Risks of Contamination Breaching the Drinking Water System through Catchment Sensitive Farming in Eastern Nigeria

In Nigeria, over a score of urban water agencies depend on rivers and other surface water bodies for their raw water intakes. But many of these rivers are currently under unregulated threat from inadequate catchment management. The persistent failure to regulate and take advantage of the work that healthy watersheds perform naturally is currently overwhelming the ability of public water agencies to mitigate catchment sourced contaminants at a fraction of the cost of conventional treatment and guaranty safe drinking water to water consumers. This paper reviews a case study drawn from the Anambra-Imo River basin (one of the twelve River Basins in Nigeria) where intensive agriculture and poor land management activities, especially on catchments of key rivers serving water utilities, has increased pollution threats by non-point pollution; both organic and chemical. Human induced catchment activities, especially agriculture and deforestation has left sloping lands susceptible to rapid flood runoff and massive mudslides. However, an initiative by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) developed a collaborative liaison for land management leveraged by catchment sensitive farming, knowledge sharing and awareness creation amongst farmers and landowners etc. aimed at restoring quality on the fragile water bodies of the expansive river basin, particularly the Otammiri River, thus bolstering its resilience to diffuse pollution from agricultural nitrates and phosphates. The emerging result from the pilot was reduced risk of contamination breaching the drinking water system hence supporting the provision of the human population with safe drinking water, which is one of the most important issues in public health.

Best Practices Protocol for Drinking Water Supply Contamination Emergencies

A procedure for the emergency management of accidental pollution of groundwaters exploited for human consumption is being developed in the framework of a collaboration between the Water Research Institute and the National Civil Protection Department. The aim is to produce a “Best Practices Protocol” (BPP) targeted to water managers, public water agencies and boards. In this paper the part of the BPP concerning fast screening modelling is discussed: different methods for the assessment of the arrival time and concentration at the withdrawal point are compared, using a hypothetical contamination scenario applied to a real well field in central Italy.

Minimizing Sewer Discharge Through Ultrafiltration Reject Recovery: A Case Study

AbstractThe Eastern Municipal Water District, Perris, Calif., is a public water agency and community water system in western Riverside County that provides domestic and agricultural water, wastewater collection and treatment, and recycled water in a 555-mi2 service area with a population of 570,000. The district has three sources of water—water imported from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, local groundwater, and recycled water. One of the district's potable water sources includes the 20-mgd Perris Water Filtration Plant (PWFP), which operates at 96-98 percent recovery. After a planned expansion to 24 mgd, PWFP will generate up to 1 mgd of reject water. The district is currently conducting preliminary design to install a reject recovery facility to reclaim the reject water, which would otherwise be disposed to the sewer. This article details procurement and preliminary design evaluations to provide a low-pressure membrane treatment system to recover membrane reject water. The articl...

Applying stochastic goal programming: A case study on water use planning

A decision support model to help public water agencies allocate surface water among farmers and authorize the use of groundwater for irrigation (especially in Mediterranean dry regions) is developed. This is a stochastic goal programming approach with two goals, the first concerning farm management while the other concerns environmental impact. Targets for both goals are established by the agency. This model yields three reduction factors to decide the different reductions in available surface water, standard groundwater and complementary groundwater that the agency should grant/authorize for irrigation, this depending on if it is a dry or wet year. In drought periods, the model recommends using more groundwater (in percentage) than in wet periods. A case study using year-to-year statistical information on available water over the period 1941–2005 is developed through numerical tables. A step-by-step computational process is presented in detail.

Court Affirms Local Agencies’ Authority to Determine Geographic Boundaries for WSAs

A California appellate court recently held that the California Water Code does not mandate a particular analytical method to assess whether groundwater supplies are sufficient to meet the projected demand of a proposed development project. If the water supply for a proposed project includes groundwater, section 10910 of the California Water Code requires a public water agency to prepare a water supply assessment (WSA). The court ruled that a WSA is not inadequate as a matter of law simply because the WSA's study area did not precisely conform to the boundaries of a groundwater basin or subbasin. The court determined that the water supplier has substantial discretion in determining how to measure groundwater sufficiency. If the study area is based on empirical data and there is a rational reason for choosing the boundary, the WSA is legally adequate.

Effect of Low Water Temperature on Rice Yield in California

Water temperature has increasingly become a matter of concern for California rice (Oryza sativa L.) growers due to a need for public water agencies to improve habitat for fish. Prudent management of water resources to balance the needs of environmental and agricultural interests requires the quantification of water temperature effects on rice productivity. Our objective was to evaluate two alternative thermal unit models for the effect of low water temperature on yield. One model was based on the total number of hours below a given threshold water temperature Tb (abbreviated TNHB Tb) and the other was based on the concept of inverse degree days (i.e., degree days below a given threshold water temperature) (abbreviated IDD). We tested these models at a range of values of Tb between 10 and 25°C on data from two commercial fields during 2 yr. Results showed that the effect of low water temperature may be much greater than would be apparent from the visual appearance of the rice plants. Values of IDD and TNHB Tb were very highly correlated for 4 of the 4‐yr field combinations. A logistic curve model based on TNHB 20°C provided the best fit to the aggregated data.

Use of Accelerated Testing Methods with Survey Data: How Water Quality Affects Appliance Life

Salinity (mineral content), which is present naturally in residential water, affects the service lives of water-using appliances. We surveyed, by mail, 681 households in the Arkansas River basin in southeastern Colorado, where tap water salinity varies from 100 to 3,500 mg/L. The survey collected information on ages of appliances in service and on ages atfailure. We developed a generalized method of accelerated testing and used it with the survey data to estimate the effect of salinity on service lives. The method allowed us to use information on in-service appliances. Ignoring in-service appliances, as was done in similar previously published studies, can lead to biased service life estimates. The results of the present application can (a) help householders decide whether to buy corrosion resistant appliances, tolerate higher maintenance costs, or seek alternative-supplies and (b) help public water agencies assess alternative water quality management policies.

Assessment of lateral groundwater flows in the SJV

Knowledge of subsurface lateral flow of shallow groundwater is important in efficient management of irrigation and drainage water in the western San Joaquin Valley. Physical and economic models necessary to develop management strategies require information on the volume of subsurface flows. The purpose of this study was to assess and quantify the direction and magnitude of subsurface lateral flows in a roughly 100-square-mile region, based on data currently available from public water agencies.

Agencies Need Not Provide Free Water for Fire Protection

Public water agencies in California do not have to supply emergency water service for fire protection free of charge, according to an appellate court.

A socially optimum pricing policy for a public water agency

A simple model is developed for determining the socially optimum price to charge locationally differentiated irrigation districts for both surface and groundwater supplies. Steady‐state conditions are assumed for groundwater conditions and water demand functions. A divergence between social and private optimums arises from the existence of unadjudicated rights to groundwater supplies. The social optimum can be achieved by an appropriately conceived taxing policy. Water prices, tax rates, and optimum lift levels are estimated for seven irrigation districts, members of a master water agency.