Public Water Management Research Articles

Household rainwater tanks: mediating changing relations with water?

Domestic rainwater tanks have become commonplace in Australia's urban landscape, and have become the physical embodiment of the changing relations between householders, water, and water authorities. The aim of our research was to understand these changing relations by examining how domestic rainwater tanks are inscribed with meanings and assumptions and thus mediate a relationship between households and government. In particular, we considered how domestic rainwater tanks are implicated in various understandings of entitlements to water collected or used in private domains. We examined how tanks can render visible the contestation over rights and obligations of state and citizen as to what is considered private and public water collection, management, and use at the scale of the household. Our exploration of these issues was conducted through a case study of changing water relations in South East Queensland, Australia, where there has been recent widespread installation of domestic rainwater tanks.

Destruction of cyanobacterial toxin cylindrospermopsin by hydroxyl radicals and sulfate radicals using UV-254nm activation of hydrogen peroxide, persulfate and peroxymonosulfate

Abstract With increasing worldwide incidence of toxic cyanobacterial blooms in bodies of water, cylindrospermopsin (CYN) has become a significant concern to public health and water management officials. In this study, the removal of CYN by UV-254 nm-mediated advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) was evaluated. Cylindrospermopsin, at an initial concentration of 1 μM, was significantly degraded, 75% at a UV fluence of 80 mJ cm−2, 100% at 20 mJ cm−2, and 100% at 40 mJ cm−2, by UV/H2O2, UV/S2O82−, and UV/HSO5− processes, respectively, at an initial oxidant dose of 1 mM. The calculated second-order rate constants of CYN with hydroxyl radicals, k OH/CYN, was 5.1 × 109 M−1 s−1 and with sulfate radicals, k SO 4 − / CYN , was 4.5 × 109 M−1 s−1. The observed pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant increased linearly with increasing initial oxidant concentration. The destruction of CYN by both radicals was inhibited by radical scavengers, such as natural organic matter (NOM) and alkalinity. The presence of transition metals in tap water samples appeared to enhance the treatment efficiency of CYN by UV/HSO5−. The ICP-MS analysis of the metals in the water samples, revealed copper residual of 40.6 ± 3.3 μg L−1 in tap water, and 13.6 and 8.1 μg L−1 in two natural water samples. Results of this study suggest that the presence of transition metals in natural water sources could be an important factor in AOPs. This study is a new and feasible approach to remove CYN as well as other organic contaminants from water resources.

On-farm Water Management in the Korean Public Water Management System

On-farm Water Management in the Korean Public Water Management System

Ammonium and phosphate recovery from wastewater to produce energy in a fuel cell

Breakthrough technology for nutrient removal. The innovation involves the purification of wastewater and urine in combination with the generation of sustainable electricity and upcycling of phosphate. The process was recently developed by DHV, patented and is currently being put into use in a first pilot project. The social relevance is high: 1) nutrient reduction and clean water are important pillars in the global protection of scarce freshwater resources; 2) major building block for energy efficient “purification of the future”; 3) reduction of nutrient emissions in the agricultural sector. Degree of cost effectiveness is very high. In comparison with conventional solutions, the costs are lower by a factor of 2. It also delivers a saving of approximately € 3-12 million per 0.01 improvement of the ecological quality index for brooks, lakes, canals and ditches in comparison with current RWS (Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management) / regional packages. Upscalability is large; it is applicable to virtually all STPs (Sewage Treatment Plants) in the Netherlands and abroad and is also applicable for decentralized urine (pre-) treatment.

Best Value at the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management in The Netherlands: A Case Study of the Procurement of Infrastructure Projects Worth $1,200M

Rijkswaterstaat, part of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and EnvironmentI has used the best value PIPS philosophy to procure infrastructure projects worth circa $ 800M. This is a case study of the largest PIPS pilot project in the sixteen year development of the best value PIPS, and tests the robustness of the PIPS philosophy within the constraints of the European law. Eleven adaptations to the original methodology are outlined and discussed. The procurement results of six tenders are outlined.

Farming system performance and water use efficiency in the Tunisian semi‐arid region: data envelopment analysis approach

AbstractUnderstanding farming strategies and identifying the parameters controlling production technologies are the fundamental elements required to modify the consumption of the irrigated sector without compromising production objectives. In this regard, the objective of this investigation is to analyse the performance of irrigated farms in the region of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Firstly, farm surveys were carried out in both public and private irrigated areas. Secondly, an analysis of the production system within these farms showed an appropriate technology process. Moreover, the application of the data envelopment analysis approach allowed the measurement of technical and allocative efficiency. The comparison between both production systems, based on public and private resources, revealed that more important resources were wasted under the private than under the public water management system. Thus, the surface wells creation strategy, as a second resource for irrigation, was found to be against the sustainable use of an already overexploited groundwater. However, such strategy is justified when analysing allocative efficiency scores. Indeed, the profitability of the activity, based on the use of wells for irrigation, appears to be much higher than the one based on public resources.

Urban Ethnohydrology: Cultural Knowledge of Water Quality and Water Management in a Desert City

Popular concern over water quality has important implications for public water management because it can both empower water utilities to improve service but also limit their ability to make changes. In the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, obtaining sufficient high-quality water resources for a growing urban population poses a major challenge. Decision makers and urban hydrologists are aware of these challenges to water sustainability but the range of acceptable policy and management options available to them is constrained by public opinion. Therefore, this study examines cultural models of water quality and water management, termed ethnohydrology, among urban residents. The study yields three key findings. First, urban residents appear to have a shared model of ethnohydrology which holds that a) there are significant water quality risks associated with low financial investments in city-wide water treatment and the desert location of Phoenix, and b) government monitoring and management combined with household-level water treatment can yield water of an acceptable quality. Second, people with high incomes are more likely to engage in expensive water filtration activities and to agree with the cultural ethnohydrology model found. Third, people living in communities that are highly concerned about water quality are less likely to share high agreement around ethnohydrology. The results have implications for water policy making and planning, particularly in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities where water quality is perceived to be low.

A Delphi Method Expert Survey to Derive Standards for Flood Damage Data Collection

For the purpose of flood damage analyses reliable, comparable, comprehensive, consistent, and up-to-date data are an indispensable need. Like in many other countries a database with this kind of datasets does not exist in Germany. To establish it, standards have to be set for flood damage data collection. We approached this problem by questioning experts about their information needs for flood damage analysis. This survey is done by applying a Delphi survey approach. The aptitude of the Delphi approach to assess, structure, and standardize expert knowledge is evaluated in this article. In the survey a panel of 55 experts working in the field of flood damage analysis for insurances, engineering companies/consultancy, public water management, and universities and other scientific institutions helped to identify common information needs. The multi-step Delphi method proved to reduce the deviation of answers thereby enabling consensual results and also enhanced the quality by modifying group answers in the direction of experience based answers. There was also a high level of congruence in information needs between experts from different fields of employment that allowed the derivation of common standards.

Public information strategies: Making government information available to citizens

New technological opportunities and increasing demands make it imperative for government agencies to make the information they gather available to citizens. How should they go about this? This paper presents a conceptual framework for analyzing the strategic options open to agencies which have information that could be relevant to citizens. The conceptual framework is constructed on the basis of the literature and tested in a case study. The Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management in the Netherlands gathers traffic information which is useful for citizens when they want to avoid traffic jams. Presently, the agency sells information to intermediaries. The agency wanted to release the information through its own website but this was prohibited by a court ruling. This paper reviews other strategies and proposes that an 'Intel inside' strategy may be a viable option in view of the consequences for effectiveness, manageability, cost-effectiveness, equity and legitimacy. The paper concludes that the conceptual framework proves useful for analyzing the strategic options open to agencies for making government information available to citizens.

Collective Management Strategies and Elite Resistance in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Travis Driessen examines the democratic experiment in public water management institutionalized in Cochabamba in the year 2000. By identifying specific factors that constrain the process, he reveals the challenges participatory management in public water and sanitation companies face in practice.

Using internal incentive contracts to improve water utility performance: the case of Uganda's NWSC

The achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 requires significant managerial innovation and creativity, especially in low-income countries where utility inefficiencies are still most prevalent. This paper describes approaches that have been used in Uganda's National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC). We outline the potential for internal incentive contracts in delivering efficiency gains under public–public water management settings. No simple recipe for promoting efficiency exists. However, this paper highlights useful ingredients, including proper contract framework design, competition for managerial responsibility, effective business planning, performance monitoring and the use of managerial incentives. We conclude that these factors require careful consideration during the planning and implementation of incentive contracts.

Cultural Factors as Co-Determinants of Participation in River Basin Management

Finding a place for public participation in the policies and practices of European river basin management planning is a challenge for the authorities in the participating countries and territories. Understanding the relation between national culture, the historical and political differences in the respective countries, and their practical experience with participation is considered important to support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive. Knowledge and understanding of this relation is important to provide a context and basis from which new participatory practices can be designed and experiences evaluated and to identify conditions necessary for social learning. Within the context of the HarmoniCOP project, such a study was undertaken in the form of a National Approach and Background study, which examined and evaluated both historical and recent experiences that exist across Europe in relation to public participation and water management as it is today. We draw upon the findings of the HarmoniCOP national reports to identify common features and cultural differences. We depart from the traditional ideational concept of culture as a long-lasting system of perceptions, beliefs, norms, and values to provide a detailed discussion of the practices in four countries. We demonstrate that culture is just one of the factors that explain the differences in national approaches to public participation and argue that culture perceived as a more dynamic, integrated, adaptive socio-cultural system in which groups of actors create new frames, norms, and routines is a more promising road for further research.

Review of The Dutch Rhine, a Restrained River by Wilfried Ten BrinkeThe Dutch Rhine, a Restrained RiverVeen Magazines B.V.90 76988 91 9, NUR 933$50.00

The Rhine River in The Netherlands is not a single watercourse but rather a system of river branches fanning out over the country. These fluvial processes are reminders of a more dynamic past and are still recognizable in today’s land surface. After the dikes were constructed, the river and the sea were excluded from the countryside and the rivers were largely restrained. This book centers on dynamic fluvial processes between the dikes, with reference to the lowlands in the period before channel restraint. Wilfried Ten Brinke works for the Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management Rijkswaterstaat in Arnhem. He brings a unique perspective on rivers in which old river courses partly determine the processes in modern-day rivers. His primary contribution is to link geology and river science with applications to the Rhine River Branches in the Netherlands. The content is subdivided into twelve chapters, namely; 1 “A Straightjacket of Dikes and Groynes;” 2 “Discharge of Rainwater and Meltwater;” 3 “A Sand and Gravel Bed;” 4 “The Rhine River Courses in the Low Countries;” 5 “Turbid Waters and Shifting Riverbeds;” 6 “Riverbed Erosion: Trends and Causes;” 7 “Floods: The Force of the Water and the Reaction of the River;” 8 “River Bank Beaches: Thanks to the Groynes;” 9 “Levee Formation and Sand Drifts;” 10 “River Bifurcations;” 11 “Flows of Gravel, Sand and Silt: From Germany to the North Sea;” and 12 “Managing and Controlling Restrained Rivers.” The book contains a short bibliography, acknowledgments, and a relatively detailed and useful index. This manuscript was first brought to my attention as a translation from the original Dutch version. The text was easy to read, well-written and interesting; however, it seemed to lack any apparent logical sequence. In hindsight, it is obvious that the main theme of this book is a contrasting view of the Rhine River branches. It contains a well-illustrated perspective on the fascinat-

The Mixed Mechanism in the Management of Water Resources in China

Abstract It is a challenge for China to address its serious water resource problems, and inefficient water use. Improving water use efficiency is the key solution to dealing with this issue. There are two basic mechanisms practiced in the world aiming to pursue water conservation, i.e. administrative and market-based management pattern. Water as an irreplaceable resource with many attributes, either public or market-based management mechanism has its disadvantages. In order to avoid the inherent “administrative failure” or “market failure”, this paper emphasizes the importance of changing traditional water resource management mechanism to establish a mixed mechanism of public and market water management based on China's conditions and experiences from developed countries. Three key aspects of this combined mechanism are identified in this paper, i.e. recognizing and managing water rights to promote efficiency, strengthening effectiveness of government management to lower transaction cost and encouraging water user participation to increase flexibility. Detailed information on implementing of this combined mechanism in China is given in the end.

Public or Private Water Management? Cutting the Gordian Knot

‘‘Public versus private’’ is not the bright line that separates efficient from inefficient management. Like Alexander the Great, who ‘‘untied’’ the Gordian Knot with one slice from a sharp knife, we believe that the real solution to water problems worldwide has been overshadowed by the ideological debate between advocates and opponents of privatization. The questions we need to answer are these: How can we provide safe, affordable water services for all people? How can we better involve the community in decisions about water resources and water systems? How can contracts be designed that effectively lay out the responsibilities of all parties? How can we ensure that the economic incentives for private or public entities are aligned with our social goals? In the end, it doesn’t matter to a resident of a settlement in Bombay or a suburb of Chicago whether a public or private company owns or manages the facilities that deliver clean and affordable water to their taps. What does matter is that people—wealthy and poor—have the water they need, that the environment gets a fair share, that profit levels and prices are reasonable, and that ambient water quality is protected for future generations.

Water Privatization in Spain

Water management in Spain is submitted to a non‐uniform geographical and seasonal distribution of water resources. The non‐uniform distribution of resources is worsened by the non‐uniform allocation of demand (mainly irrigation and urban). Because that, water supply, aquifers, and wetlands are driven to a high risk. Even though, there are examples of good water management, as is shown for the private industrial productivity of used water. Spain has a very long tradition in public water management (first water law in 1879) at different levels from ministry to municipalities, including users communities. A lot of these organisations are anchored in very old ways of doing, given private sector the opportunity to enter and grow up. A survey about it is presented. In the management of urban water, there are different organisations involved: central administration; autonomic, regional and metropolitan authorities; urban water suppliers and the sanitation authority. The recently approved changes in the former Spanish Water Law, limiting water rights and introducing water market, the new and expected Hydrological National Plan and the European Framework Directive, reinforce the opportunities of the private sector to enter, giving financial resources, technological advances and quick answers to new social concepts in water managerial procedures. We can observe how the Spanish administration uses private water suppliers' front desks to collect taxes and to supply capital to invest in infrastructures and water technology. The question that needs to be addressed is the nature and the impact of the privatisation process in Spain. The unrealistic water urban services price in Spain has been studied and it is presented and evaluated by regions, presenting a deficit to be covered in the future and been a significant gross value of the future business, which invite private sector to participate in. To give a general scope over the evolution of the roll played by the private and public sector, the case of Catalonia, the more evolved autonomous region of Spain in water management, is presented as an example of the future for the rest of the country.

Specifying information needs: improving the working methodology

Specification of information needs is an important step in the design of monitoring networks. Within the framework of Monitoring Strategy 2000+, a programme of the Dutch Directorate General of Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) which seeks to provide innovation in the monitoring sector, a method has been developed to link water management policy to monitoring through specification of information needs. Over the past 2 years, this method has been applied in several projects within the Rijkswaterstaat organisation. Use of this method has led to improvements in the monitoring practice and was judged very positively by the people involved. Nevertheless, the main obstacle to employing the method was the actual translation of policy matters into information products. A special study is carried out, focusing on this aspect within the method, to provide the participants of a project with a mental framework that enables them to clearly specify their information needs. The major requirements for this mental framework are that all participants have a clear view of the process (system), and that they are able to relate their contribution to this process and to the contributions of others (transparency). The first step of the process is to focus the attention of stakeholders on the information they will actually need for decision-making. The next step is to confront the different expressed opinions through the method of the 'devil's advocate', which implies criticising the results of the first step by finding as many as possible arguments against these opinions. This should force the stakeholders to better specify their arguments. The method, its improvements and the results of one pilot project will be discussed in this paper.

Financing public water management: dealing with economic costs of water use

Today, many scientists and policy makers underline the importance of internalizing all social and economic costs in charges and prices for water use. Ideally, all service and environmental costs should be recovered in conformity with “polluter pays” and “user pays” principles, using the water system (or river basin) approach to detect these costs. Attempts in The Netherlands to implement these principles however, show that it is not always easy to deduct just charges and prices from hydrological cause-effect relations. Such charges and prices do not always provide adequate signals to users and polluters. The institutional framework and the social, economic and political context determine where and how these financing principles can be implemented. The focus should therefore shift from “blind” charges on pollution and abstraction to (self-)imposed efforts made to measure.

Financing public water management: Dealing with economic costs of water use

Today, many scientists and policy makers underline the importance of internalizing all social and economic costs in charges and prices for water use. Ideally, all service and environmental costs should be recovered in conformity with “polluter pays” and “user pays” principles, using the water system (or river basin) approach to detect these costs. Attempts in The Netherlands to implement these principles however, show that it is not always easy to deduct just charges and prices from hydrological cause-effect relations. Such charges and prices do not always provide adequate signals to users and polluters. The institutional framework and the social, economic and political context determine where and how these financing principles can be implemented. The focus should therefore shift from “blind” charges on pollution and abstraction to (self-)imposed efforts made to measure.

Ecological compensation of the impacts of a road. Preliminary method for the A50 road link (Eindhoven-Oss, The Netherlands)

After years of efforts to avoid or reduce the impact of infrastructure projects on nature, the principle of ecological compensation has been incorporated in Dutch governmental policy. Ecological compensation aims to recover those ecological functions and natural values that still remain affected after maximum effort has been made to reduce the impact of the intervention (mitigation). The accepted aim of current policy is thus no-net-loss of area and quality by means of mitigative and compensatory measures. As part of the planning process for construction of a stretch of road in The Netherlands, viz., the A50 road link in the province of North Brabant, a Nature Compensation Plan (NCP) was required to be drawn up. This work has recently been completed by the Regional Directorate of Public Works and Water Management, the initiator of the intervention. The NCP, initially presented as a Draft Plan, was drawn up by the Regional Directorate using a preliminary method designed by the Centre of Environmental Science of Leiden University for deriving compensatory measures. After an opportunity for public comment, the Draft Plan was revised to form a Final NCP. This article describes, firstly, the preliminary method for deriving ecological compensatory measures. The method starts by quantifying the effects of habitat loss, habitat disturbance (by changes in noise emissions, in the water table and in outdoor recreational patterns), barrier action and fauna casualties. Following mitigation of impacts on nature, compensation for non-mitigable effects focuses successively on area size, derived from the impacts on breeding birds, and on area quality, derived from the habitat requirements of the vegetation and fauna groups affected by the road. Guidelines for identifying appropriate locations for compensation are also formulated. Secondly, the compensation method is applied to calculate the mitigative and compensatory measures for the A50 trajectory between Eindhoven and Oss. Thirdly, two comparisons are made: the Draft NCP is compared with the results of the preliminary method, and the Draft and the Final NCP are compared with one another in order to identify the role of the interest groups that played a major role in commenting on the Draft Plan. Finally, realization of the compensatory measures and development of the preliminary method itself are discussed. On the basis of the experience with the A50 case study, a more robust compensation method for road projects is to be developed.