Valuing water quality in China:purpose,approach and policy

The economic valuation of water quality in a rapidly developing country such as China should be undertaken to determine when the benefits from rapid growth begin to exceed the costs from the same. The best approach is to ascertain the total economic valuation of the environmental resource. This includes all of the various uses of the resource, and even those values that are unconnected to individual use (e.g. natural and aesthetic values). A method known as contingent valuation (CV) is used to ascertain these forms of value. This approach is demonstrated here in an application to river water quality in the Beijing area. A CV study is reported in which Beijing area citizens reported an average willingness to pay about 1.3% of annual income in order to prevent further deterioration of river water quality. Aggregation over the representative population indicates that the perceived cost of further river quality deterioration is in the neighbourhood of USD 60 million. Such a measure provides some indication of the socially desired “stopping point”—— in the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of environmental quality.

Integrated Water and CGE Model of the Impacts of Water Policy on the Beijing's Economy and Output

The article used general equilibrium model to analyze the change of gross domestic product and industry output affected by water resources policies in Beijing City by using GEMPACK soft tool.The article researches on rules of water supply and demand,evaluating water resources,building water resources input and output table,establishing water computable general equilibrium model and stimulating water policy.The stimulation gives a scenario that increases water price by 10%.The result shows the following aspects.First,water resources policy infects gross domestic product and industry output in different ways.There are different behaviors in different industries as to the water policy. Agriculture industry has the same tendency as water price change and it has more sensitive to water quantity than to water price.For basic energy industries such as oil and chemistry and gas,they show diversity tendency.As to some high water consumer industry such as paper and textile etc.,water resource economic policy can infect them greatly and can promote them to accomplish more water-saving technology.Waste water and construction and service industries show the same tendency as to water policy.Second,government should pay more attention to water resource policy by macro economic administration.The simulation also shows that the output and supply and consumer price change more than expect as to water policy in a free market economic in water industry.So as to a government policy maker,one should be more carefully and prepare suitable forecast and plan to water policy and its negative impact.

Sustainable Water Management Through Pani Panchayats: Stakeholder Perspectives from Angul and Dhenkanal Districts of Odisha

This study evaluates the impact of the Pani Panchayat initiative, a community-based water management program, in the Angul and Dhenkanal districts of Odisha. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we gathered qualitative and quantitative data through structured interviews with diverse stakeholders, focus group discussions, and surveys. The findings indicate that the Angul district exhibited higher levels of fair elections and improved water access due to better canal maintenance, while the Dhenkanal district faced challenges from industrial water usage. The study also examines the potential of technological advancements, such as real-time water monitoring, to enhance governance. By identifying synergies and gaps with existing water policies, the research provides policy recommendations to promote sustainable water management in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

Study on Ecological Compensation Policy among the Micro Subjects on Water Energy Resources Development

The subjects of ecological compensation involve the nation, society, development enterprises of wa-ter-energy resources, as well as the location of resource itself. This paper systematically studies on how to make “water energy sources market compensation policy”, “the economic compensation policy for relevant interest subjects” and “the ecological compensation policy of basin ecological water.” So, it is necessary to exert the complementary function between market compensation and government compensation by the means of economic compensation and to establish the ecological compensation policy of basin ecological water, which is beneficial to coordinating the stakeholders’ interests of cross-region or inter-basin. And it is important and significant to establish constantly perfected ecological compensation policy among the micro subjects on water energy resources development, so as to coordinate interest relationships among various subjects and finally reach the aim of sustainable use of water energy resources and environmental protection as possible.

Some Characteristics and Impacts of the Drought and Water Crisis in Southeastern Brazil during 2014 and 2015

Since the austral summer of 2014 southeastern Brazil has been experiencing one of the most severe droughts in decades. This rainfall deficiency has generated water shortages and a water crisis that have affected population and local economies in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, the largest megacity in South America. By January 2015, main reservoirs had reached storage levels of only 5% of their 1.3 billion m3 capacity. The meteorological causes of the drought situation were linked to changes in the regional circulation, characterized by a mid-troposphere blocking high that lasted 45 days during the summer of 2014 over southeastern Brazil, something not seen in five decades. The water crisis was aggravated by a combination of lack of rainfall and higher temperatures, the summer of 2014 being the warmest and driest over the Cantareira reservoir system since 1951. Increasing population and water consumption increased vulnerability in the region, and while human-induced warming may not have generated the atmospheric conditions behind the 2014 and 2015 summer droughts in Southeast Brazil, it is more likely that the warm temperatures have affected the severity of the drought and exacerbated the impacts on the population.

Changing Forestry Policy by Integrating Water Aspects into Forest/Vegetation Restoration in Dryland Areas in China

Restoration forestry （forest rehabilitation） or re-vegetation is one effective measure to solve environmental problems, notably soil erosion. It may be further stimulated by the Clean Development Mechanism for carbon sequestration. However, there is an intensive and on-going debate about the adverse effects arising from afforestation in dryland areas, such as soil drying up which may cause further damage to the success of forest restoration, and the water yield reduction from watershed which may harm the regional development. On other hand, some preliminary studies showed a possibility that these adverse effects may be diminished more or less by properly designing the system structure and spatial distribution of forest/vegetation in a watershed. However, it is urgent to develop an evidence-based and sustainable new forestry policy for harmonizing forest-water interrelation. As a leading country in afforestation, China is beginning to develop a more trans-disciplinary and cross-sectoral forestry policy for harmonizing forestry development with water management. The main points of the changing new forestry policy should include： （1） Establishing a regional development strategy focusing on harmonized forest-water relations; （2） Taking forest-water interactions as an important part of evaluation; （3） Reducing the ＇eco-water＇ quota of forests through technical advancement; （4） Developing and extending water-adaptive forest management practices; （S） Strengthening forest ecohydrological research and decision support ability.

Crisis of Water Resources on the Ulan Buh Desert Oases, Inner Mongolia, China-A Case Study of Dengkou County

Hetao Plain, composed of hundreds of oases, is one of the most important grain-producing areas in China. Most crops, especially wheat and corn, depend on irrigation, thus water availability is a key issue for grain productivity on this land. The Yellow River is the main water source for irrigation and a crisis of water resources for agricultural use occurs because of increasingly reduced river flows and water-using competition with industry and human residential use. In order to understand the current situation and distribution of water resources on these oases, we collected 20-yr＇s data of river runoff, irrigation volumes, infiltration and precipitation to examine the relationships between water resources distribution and its agricultural use. We found that the oasis in Dengkou county was short of water resources with a water deficit rate of 5.14% in 2010. Based on the trend of the data, water deficit will continue to increase as the population grows in the future. Water resource is a limiting factor to agricultural development in this region and proper management of water use and strategies for water resource conservation are urgently needed. Especially, based on our results we suggest that current irrigation methods need to be greatly improved to save the water that was lost from evaporation.

A policy and technical measures for controlling soil and water loss in the Loess Plateau of China

Loess Plateau is the most serious region of soil and water loss in China and the world. The sediment carried into the Yellow River amounts to 1.6 billion tons every year. This paper reviews the factors and reasons for erosion in this area, and puts forward a comprehensive controlling policy on the basis of the principles of ecology and practise of Chinese scientists for 40 years. In conformity with the policy, a number of technical measures for controlling soil and water loss are suggested.

Implications of the New Operational Rules for Cantareira Water System: Re-Reading the 2014-2016 Water Crisis

During the 2014-2016 water shortage crisis, the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo (MASP) water supply system extracted pumping volume from the Cantareira System. Before the crisis, between 1984 and 2013, the reservoir’s average water extraction flow was 29.6 m3·s-1. During the period of pumping volume usage, the average extraction flow was 16.2 m3·s-1. Following the crisis, two new mitigation policies were implemented: a water extraction Resolution (in 2017) and a Resolution for water reallocation from another basin (in 2018). This study provides a novel investigation of the Cantareira System water crisis by assessing the mitigation policies impacts on storage level dynamics. The system storage level was evaluated using the reservoir simulation module of PDM-Cemaden hydrological model, assuming that the new policies had already been implemented prior to the crisis. A control simulation was run with observed in- and out-flow and operationally-practiced extraction flow. The storage level dynamics impacts were evaluated under 4 water mitigation policies scenarios varying the policies implementation starting date, the extraction flow range and including the water reallocation variable. Results showed that pumping volume would only need extraction during a short period (Scenarios I, III and IV), and considering the water reallocation, pumping volume extraction would not have been necessary (Scenario II). Although the pumping volume would still have been extracted during a short period, water shortage impact would have been lessened, had the policies been already implemented before the crisis. The water mitigation policies implementation supports the reservoirs storage management but does not guarantee that MASP water demand is fully met. Therefore, in order to effectively improve water security, further policies and practices to reduce water demand and enhance supply should be considered.

The Role of Private Water Vending in Nigeian Peri-Urban Informal Settlements: Implication for Policy Makers

This paper presents a study of water vending in 3 informal settlements of Yola North in Adamawa State of Nigeria. These settlements represent the fast growing urban areas often dwelling in unplanned and unsecured tenure. Access to safe water supply has great influence on the health, economic productivity and quality of life of the people. But meeting this need is one of the major challenges facing the urban communities of Nigeria today. A field survey was conducted in the area with 100 observations of households in each of the three informal settlements. These settlements are Sabongari -University village, Vinikilang and Wuro Jabbe. The survey solicited for response concerning household water source, water per capita use and household size. Findings revealed that about 92% of respondent in Sabongari-University village, 66% in Vinikilang and 87% in Wuro Jabbe depend on vended water from borehole, hand dug well as well as surface water sources which are delivered by hand pushed trucks. Owing to the absence of piped water networks in the study area, households are forced to rely on available water sources which are precursor to water borne diseases. It is advocated that the public agencies should evolve special programs for regularizing informal settlements, meaning the legalization of land tenure, layout corrections and service upgrading if service is to meet the poor informal dwellers.

Integrated Water Resources Management and Poverty Eradication –Policy Analysis of Bangladesh and Cameroon

There is a growing recognition that the world faces water crisis that, left unchecked, will derail progress to-wards the Millennium Development Goals and hold back human development. Water for life in the house-hold and water for livelihoods through production are two of the foundations for human development. This paper argues that the roots of the crisis in water can be traced to poverty, inequality and unequal power rela-tionships, as well as flawed water management policies that exacerbate scarcity. Structured discussion on the basis of the key elements of integrated water resource management reveals that despite of more or less equivalent economic structure of both Bangladesh and Cameroon, both countries do not necessarily have the same policies in water management. This paper therefore broadly recommends inter-country experience sharing of good practices in to be able to cope with water problems in these millennia.

Whither the Community? Lessons Madagascar Can Learn from Israel’s Water Policy

Madagascar wrote a fundamentally new Water Code in 1998. It focused on maximizing the number of people with access to clean water through a process of decentralized water management and cost recovery. This paper is concerned with the policy problem this presents at the community level—is Malagasy water law the best possible for the country? Combining community-level focus group studies and policy analysis, this study examines Malagasy water policy shifts focusing on localization of water governance to parallel localization efforts in Israel. This study concludes that Madagascar’s water policy is flawed. Using a case study from the arid south this study explores the impact of these alternatives to ineffective state-centric policies. Comparing to Israel’s policy process this study finds that the Malagasy policy process has not been a process at all, the institutions are not in place, and the requisite levels of investment are not forthcoming. Rather than empowering communities as stewards of their own resources, community level management has been undermining effective governance by allowing the state to recede, and minimizing economic resources, while ignoring local capacity, local will, and increasing local water poverty.

Optimization on Water Resource System Operation Policy during Drought

The mixed linear programming model is commonly recognized to be an effective means for searching optimal reservoir operation policy in water resources system. In this paper a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model is set up to obtain the optimal operation policy of multi-reservoir water supply system during drought, which is able to consider the operation rule of reservoir-group system within longer-term successive drought periods, according to the basic connotation of indexes expressing the water-supply risk of reservoir during drought, that is, reliability, resilience and vulnerability of reservoir water supply, and mathematical programming principles. The model-solving procedures, particularly, the decomposition-adjustment algorithm, are proposed based on characteristics of the model structure. The principle of model-solving technique is to decompose the complex system into several smaller sub-systems on which some ease-solving mathematical models may be established. The objective of this optimization model aims at maximizing the reliability of water supply and minimizing the maximum water-shortage of single time-period within water- supply system during drought. The multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model and proposed solving procedures are applied to a case study of reservoir-group water-supply system in Huanghe-Huaihe River Basin, China. The desired water-shortage distribution within the system operation term and the maximum shortage of single time-period are achieved. The results of case study verifies that the lighter water-shortage distributed evenly among several time-periods can avoid the calamities resulted from severe water shortage concentrated on a few time-periods during drought.

Optimal Water Pipe Replacement Policy

Water scarcity is the major problem confronting both urban and rural dwellers in Enugu State. This scarcity emanated from indiscriminate pipe failure, lack of adequate maintenance, uncertainty on the time of repair or replacement of pipes etc. There is no systematic approach to determining replacement or repair time of the pipes. Hence, the rule of thumb is used in making such a vital decision. The population is increasing, houses are built but the network is not expanded and the existing ones that were installed for no less than two to three decades ago are not maintained. These compounded the problem of scarcity of water in the state. Replacement or repair of water pipes when they are seen spilling water cannot solve this lingering problem. The solution can be achieved by developing an adequate predictive model for water pipe replacement. Hence, this research is aimed at providing a solution to this problem of water scarcity by suggesting a policy that will be used for better planning. The interests in this paper were to obtain a water pipe failure model, the intensity function λ(t) [failure rate], the reliability R(t) and the optimal time of replacement and they were achieved. It was observed that the failure rate of the pipes increases with time while their reliability deteriorates with time. Hence, the Optimal replacement policy is that each pipe should be replaced after 4th break when the reliability = 0.0011.

WATER IN LATE MEDIEVAL SPAIN： Fishing, policy and SYMBOLIC value

In the Middle Ages, as in other historical past periods, there was a double perception of the value of water. On the one hand, water was considered as an indispensable necessity for human life and, on the other, it acquired a symbolic value, whose manifestations are equally palpable. As an example, there can be brought up the setting up of public fountains in the towns of late Middle Ages. They were essential not only for the daily water provision for the citizens but also meant to honor and pomp the city. Similar double meaning can be also found in the functioning of the medieval fisheries as their economic activity guaranteed food supply and even managed to acquire religious and symbolic implications in the Christian society.

Water-Level Fluctuations of Urmia Lake: Relationship with the Long-Term Changes of Meteorological Variables (Solutions for Water-Crisis Management in Urmia Lake Basin)

Urmia Lake in northwest of Iran, through the recent years has been extremely faced with the water crisis. Climate variations and anthropogenic impacts could be two main affiliated factors in this regard. We considered the long term data series of precipitation, temperature and evaporation in monthly and yearly scales in order to compare to water-level values of Urmia Lake. The statistics approaches such as: standard deviation, trend analysis, T test, Pearson and Spearman correlations, liner regression are used to analyze all variables. The results released that the water-level of Urmia Lake along with the precipitation and temperature of the lake’s basin have experienced the periodic changes through 1961 to 2010, as there are some gradual dryness trends on the study area according to precipitation and temperature variations. Urmia Lake periodic water-level fluctuations show more significant correlation to temperature than the precipitation. Whiles, the water-level’s decreasing behavior especially through 1998 to 2010 is more harsh and different than the rate that is considered for precipitation’s decrease and temperature’s increase. Thus, there could be some anthropogenic factors in the basin which produced some supplementary causes to shrink Urmia Lake. Extracting the double precipitation over the basin through introducing and categorizing of atmospheric synoptic systems in order to cloud seeding operation could be one of urgent and innovative solutions to mitigate water crisis in the basin.

Water-Energy-Food Nexus： Comparative Scenarios and Public Policy Perspectives from Some Latin American Countries Regarding Biogas from Agriculture and Livestock

Latin American and the Caribbean countries have one of the world＇s largest sources of renewable energy. Nonetheless, it estimated that nearly three-quarters of their energy consumption relies on the use of fossil fuels, with most of the countries being net importers, ultimately imposing a marked economic and political dependence on those energy commodities. Therefore, the opportunity lies in a higher utilization of various renewable energy resources, which contribute to the country＇s energy security while promoting significant environmental benefits. This manuscript aimed to provide a comparative analysis of current energy scenarios of six Latin American countries （Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador） to evaluate their policies, programs and strategies implemented in the search for greater participation of renewable energy, with a special attention to biogas. Given the importance of the water-energy-food nexus that could foment the use of renewable energies under conditions of water scarcity, a qualitative data comparison was accomplished, considering biogas production potential, biogas projects and CO2 emissions.

Evaluation of the Impact of Government Policy on the Overuse of Groundwater in the Minqin Basin in China

The existing literature simply concludes that the irrational behaviors of local people and natural factors are the major reasons for overuse of groundwater. Using the OLS and ARIMA (BJ) Statistical Methods and Trend Analyses, this article finds that government policy, as measured by four proxy variables, is a very important factor that strongly influences the overuse of groundwater at the collective level. This means the government is a very important actor in the game of groundwater usage. Although these findings cannot clearly separate government effects from local effects, using a Trend Analysis, they reveal that these significant effects are strictly consistent with variations in government policy. Moreover, they show that government policy effective at the county level strongly impacts the overuse of ground-water by influencing the behavior of the local people and that policy at the operative level impacts four policy domains: population, cultivated land, water assignments and peasant income.

Investigation of Water Balance and Map Crisis Preparation in the Recent Two Decades of Kalacho Plain,Dehdasht,Iran

Considering the water restrictions,it is important to check the water balance in each area.These restrictions are even more important in arid and semi-arid regions.The purpose of this study was to study the water balance in the Kalacho plain of Kohgiluyeh city.Kalacho plain is about 15 km east of Dehdasht city.In recent years,due to the excessive extraction of lowland wells,the quality of groundwater has also declined steadily.Therefore,hydrogeological assessment and aquifer management seems necessary.Groundwater management requires understanding and functioning of the aquifer under natural conditions(firstly)and then predicting the effects of harvesting or feeding.Undoubtedly,understanding the actual behaviors of a natural system requires some research for each particular area.The average annual temperature and precipitation in the meteorological stations is about 18.1°C and 394 mm,respectively.The water crisis map of this plain has been prepared based on the data of 45 km2 area during the 1991-1992 blue water year.Groundwater Balance Range of the Kalacho Plain is selected based on available statistics and distribution of piezometers,wells and agricultural areas.According to the long-term hydrograph,the plain faces an average loss of 0.15 m and a reservoir deficit of 2.5 million m3.Also during the 20-year period,a total of 24 m of drop and 68 million cubic meters of reservoir deficits were created in the plain.By calculating the effective parameters in the general water balance equation(inputs and outputs),the plain was finally divided into five critical areas.Zones 1,2 and 3 are the most critical lowland areas in the vicinity of the hydraulic connection with the Gachsaran Fm.,and areas 4 and 5 are less critical because of the adjacent Asmari Formation,which feed on this karstic aquifer.Overall,this negative balance indicates an increasing drop in groundwater level and its reservoir deficit.