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Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2019) | Viewed by 72192

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Krishna Paudel

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, Louisiana State University (LSU) and LSU Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5604, USA
Interests: economics; agricultural economics; water allocation; agriculture; international development
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Limited water availability and its multiple uses indicate there will be a challenge on how to allocate water among major users in future. The major users of water are municipality, agriculture, and industry sectors. Many rural areas face both water quality and water quantity concerns, and these areas are also dependent on agriculture for livelihood. For example, crop production needs fertilizer, but fertilizer runoff can impact groundwater quality and increase treatment cost. Rural municipalities will need to provide quality water to their residents. Yet, rural municipalities are likely to face economic challenges related to building infrastructures to provide quality drinking water. Given the financial constraints of many rural municipalities, there is a need to receive support from federal and state governments to meet rural water quality and quantity needs. The recent incident of water quality concerns in Flint, Michigan, USA, means there will be more regulations coming to rural areas which may be onerous to small rural municipalities. There are also concerns about cybersecurity as small rural municipalities may not be able to defend water sources and wastewater treatment plants. This Special Issue of the journal invites papers dealing with the economics of water quality and water quantity as relevant to rural areas.

Prof. Dr. Krishna Paudel
Guest Editor

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Keywords

water quality
water quantity
rural water infrastructure
water cybersecurity
willingness to pay/willingness to accept

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1115 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Assessing the Efficiency of Alternative Best Management Practices to Reduce Nonpoint Source Pollution in a Rural Watershed Located in Louisiana, USA

by Bijay K. Pokhrel and Krishna P. Paudel

Water 2019, 11(8), 1714; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11081714 - 17 Aug 2019

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3745

Abstract

We conducted biophysical simulations using MapShed to determine the effects of adopting best management practices (BMPs) to reduce nutrients and sediment pollution in a watershed dominated by poultry production in the Saline Bayou Watershed, Louisiana, USA. The reduction of three water pollutants, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment from adopting different BMPs were assessed using a linear programming model with the cost minimization objective. We considered three weather scenarios (dry, normal, and wet) and BMP parameter efficiencies obtained from linear regression models. Optimization results showed that nutrient management and agricultural land retirement reduced most of the phosphorus runoff in the watershed at the lowest cost. Results were robust to alternative weather (dry, normal, and wet) scenarios. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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16 pages, 988 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Water and Sewage Management Issues in Rural Poland

by Adam Piasecki

Water 2019, 11(3), 625; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11030625 - 26 Mar 2019

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 12987

Abstract

Water and sewage management in Poland has systematically been transformed in terms of quality and quantity since the 1990s. Currently, the most important problem in this matter is posed by areas where buildings are spread out across rural areas. The present work aims to analyse the process of changes and the current state of water and sewage management in rural areas of Poland. The author intended to present the issues in their broader context, paying attention to local specificity as well as natural and economic conditions. The analysis led to the conclusion that there have been significant positive changes in water and sewage infrastructure in rural Poland. A several-fold increase in the length of sewage and water supply networks and number of sewage treatment plants was identified. There has been an increase in the use of water and treated sewage, while raw sewage has been minimised. Tap-water quality and wastewater treatment standards have improved. At the same time, areas requiring further improvement—primarily wastewater management—were indicated. It was identified that having only 42% of the rural population connected to a collective sewerage system is unsatisfactory. All the more so, in light of the fact that more than twice as many consumers are connected to the water supply network (85%). The major ecological threat that closed-system septic sewage tanks pose is highlighted. It is pointed out that they are mainly being replaced by household wastewater treatment systems with ineffective filtering drainage. Furthermore, recommendations were also made for the future development of selected aspects of water and sewage management, including the legal and the political. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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21 pages, 666 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Water Access in Rural Areas of Low and Middle Income Countries

by Mabel Gomez, Jordi Perdiguero and Alex Sanz

Water 2019, 11(2), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020202 - 24 Jan 2019

Cited by 72 | Viewed by 38729

Abstract

Worldwide, 844 million people still lack access to basic drinking water, especially in the rural areas of low and middle income countries. However, considerable progress has been made in recent years due to work on the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. Nevertheless, countries’ national characteristics have often impacted on this progress. This paper analyzes whether specific socioeconomic factors affect access to improved water sources in the rural areas of developing countries. In particular, we analyze access to ‘total improved’, piped on premises, as well as other improved sources of access in rural areas for low income, low-middle income, and high-middle income countries. Our results suggest that gross national income (GNI); female primary completion rate; agriculture; growth of rural population; and governance indicators, such as political stability, control of corruption, or regulatory quality are variables related to water access, although specific associations depend on the source of water and income group examined. Understanding these interrelations could be of great importance for decision makers in the water sector as well as for future research on this topic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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15 pages, 3167 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of River Management Flow Considering Stream Water Deficit Characteristics

by Jang Hyun Sung and Seung Beom Seo

Water 2018, 10(11), 1521; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10111521 - 26 Oct 2018

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3718

Abstract

South Korea endured extreme drought through 2015 and 2016. This hydrological drought led to a socio-economic drought which is a restriction on stream water use. Previous studies have explored streamflow drought using a threshold level based on flow duration curves, but streamflow drought does not necessarily lead to stream water deficit, which is related to water demand. Therefore, this study introduced a threshold for stream water deficit in South Korea, which is termed as river management flow, and was applied to Geum River Basin where a severe drought recently occurred. The stream water coordination council has restricted the use of stream water to cope with the stream water deficit. The deficit characteristics for the upstream and downstream river management flow should be similar in order to ensure the feasibility of stream water restrictions. Thus, upstream and downstream river management flows, which reproduced similar deficit characteristics to those of the reference site, were estimated. The deficit characteristics of Bugang and Gyuam were estimated from their river management flows for the 2015 drought and were comparable to those of Gongju. We expect this study to minimize the conflict between upstream and downstream water users in future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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23 pages, 762 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multiperiod Optimisation of Irrigated Crops under Different Conditions of Water Availability

by Mathias Kuschel-Otárola, Diego Rivera, Eduardo Holzapfel, Cristian D. Palma and Alex Godoy-Faúndez

Water 2018, 10(10), 1434; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10101434 - 12 Oct 2018

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4215

Abstract

We propose a nonlinear optimisation model which maximises profits by resource allocation on a monthly time scale, considering a monthly crop yield model. The proposed model was applied to six management scenarios (two seasonal and four monthly), nine conditions of water availability, and two situations of resource availability under Chilean conditions. These situations provided the same seasonal amount of resources, but different distributions over time. The model included improvements in water resource management such as water storage and water transactions, being the latter a monthly decision variable that can increase farmers’ profits. According to our results, monthly scenarios gave high profits, even better with appropriate resource distribution. When water costs are high, water transactions allow loss reduction of up to 50%. Regarding labour, the lack of availability is more critical than the wages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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17 pages, 4710 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimal Allocation of Water Resources from the “Wide-Mild Water Shortage” Perspective

by Huaxiang He, Mingwan Yin, Aiqi Chen, Junqiu Liu, Xinmin Xie and Zhaohui Yang

Water 2018, 10(10), 1289; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10101289 - 20 Sep 2018

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3563

Abstract

A major objective of the optimization of water resources allocation is to ensure the supply an adequate amount of water to users at the right time and maximize the utilization of water resources. However, in case of insufficient water supply, water shortage is likely to occur intensively for specific water users or in specific periods, referred to as a “concentrated water shortage”. The risk of a concentrated water shortage should be shared across a wider range of users and periods, so that it would have a less severe impact on each calculation unit in each period, which we refer to as the “wide-mild water shortage”. In this study, the nonlinear weight of the water supply objective function can be converted into a piecewise linear weight based on the law of diminishing marginal utility, making it possible to reduce or even eliminate the concentrated water shortage and thus making the allocation of water resources more reasonable. The case study in the Nen River basin in northeast China shows that the improved method results in a significant increase in water shortage units but a significant reduction in water shortage range. As a consequence, water shortage is more uniformly distributed from April to June, which contributes to solving the concentrated water shortage problem in May. However, it should be noted that to what extent the wide-mild water shortage can be realized depends not only on the marginal utility of water demand, but also on the available water supply and the regulative capacity of water supply projects. In spite of this, the improved method enables water to be supplied more suitably for users at the appropriate time, which contributes to improving the utilization of water resources and helping decision-makers better address the problem of concentrated water shortage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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18 pages, 3586 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on Optimal Water Allocation Based on Water Rights Trade under the Principle of Water Demand Management: A Case Study in Bayannur City, China

by Lizhen Wang, Yuefei Huang, Yong Zhao, Haihong Li, Fan He, Jiaqi Zhai, Yongnan Zhu, Qingming Wang and Shan Jiang

Water 2018, 10(7), 863; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10070863 - 28 Jun 2018

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4247

Abstract

In water shortage regions, water rights trading would be much useful for increasing water use inefficiency through changing users’ water demand. In this study, a water optimal allocation modelling system is proposed by considering water rights trading and other governmental policies such as water prices, water savings and industrial policies. An agent-based model was developed to describe the behaviors and goals of individual agents using complex adaptive system theory, information transfers, and functional mechanisms between agents. The developed model was applied to Bayannur City, which suffers from severe water shortages. The water prices for different industries, the water rights transaction price, and the behaviors of various agents in 2020 were forecasted. The results reveal that the water resources optimal allocation model applied in this study can help realize the reasonable allocation of regional water resources under limited water supply. It is also valuable to guide the government in making water resources allocation policies and provide a practical reference for the formulation and adjustment of a water market transaction price. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Allocation in Rural Area: Economic Influences and Better Management)

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