Water Resources and Economics最新文献

This paper estimates the economic benefits of restoring the Waukegan Harbor Area of Concern (AOC) along the shore of Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Illinois. Legacy pollutants left from industrial activities are a threat to human and wildlife health and limit commercial and recreational activities in the harbor. The AOC has undergone substantial remediation since its designation in 1987. We estimate the economic benefits of restoring the AOC using a hedonic analysis of home sales around the harbor before and after several remediation events. We find that home prices within 5 km (3 miles) increased $12,832 on average, with aggregate benefits of $169 million, after the most recent restoration announcement in 2020.

Hotter, drier summers and population growth are causing water management challenges for water authorities in New Zealand. Effective long-term planning requires understanding the dynamics of household responses to demand management and climate variables. This paper analyses a large dataset of household-level demand data over nine years. Dynamic panel time series models are used to estimate short and long-term elasticities, interactions between demand management and climate variables, and associations with property characteristics. The general belief is that water demand becomes more sensitive to price changes over the long term compared to the short term. Yet, previous studies that directly compared long and short-run elasticities had limitations, as they imposed a constraint on the long-run estimate, assuming it to be larger. The models presented in this paper are more flexible and can identify the opposite scenario should it be present. We find long-run price elasticity may not be larger for new high-value properties or high-value properties with small gardens. Low-value properties have smaller short-run and larger long-run price elasticity. High-value properties respond more to outdoor restrictions and associated conservation messages than low-value properties. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.

A system of demand for inputs and productive factors is estimated to calculate the elasticities of substitution and the own-price elasticity of industrial water demand in Chile. A previous study used the Annual National Industrial Survey (ENIA) panel (1995–2014) to estimate the value of water and own-price elasticity through a translog production function. However, that database does not report the industrial firms' location to protect the informants’ statistical secrecy. In contrast, in this study, the survey ENIA 2018 is chosen since it includes the region where each firm is located, which allows for evaluating the endogeneity of the water price variable and using three instrumental variables related to the water supply. In addition, the performance of non-linear regression methods with constraints is evaluated to ensure that the estimated coefficients meet the conditions imposed by economic theory. The results show that the elasticity of industrial water demand is unitary but not statistically significant in most subsectors. The water demand in the wood and paper industry subsector is elastic (−2.2) and statistically significant. On the other hand, the elasticities of substitution obtained adopt values very low, indicating that water is an essential resource that is difficult to replace by other inputs or productive factors.

The impact of COVID-19 on water-related equity indices is analyzed in this paper for different regions around the world by using fractionally integrated methods and an artificial neural network model. Using fractional integration, a lack of mean reversion is observed in all cases except in the USA, which means that, for these regions, a change in the trend will be permanent after COVID-19 unless additional measures are implemented. At the same time, a structural break is observed in all cases between the 4th and March 10, 2020, likely due to the drastic lockdown imposed in many if not most countries. Long memory was tested for the post-break period and mean reversion was found not only in North America but also in Europe. Moreover, the results were strongly aligned with those obtained using the neural network model. This suggests that the water-related equity indices and associated levels of investments in water and related utilities have moved back to their pre-Covid-19 levels.

Water scarcity is an issue that affects the life on earth. Technological advancements, such as IoT water meters, are proven to be effective when it comes to household water reduction. However, there is a lack of research on what influences consumer to apply such devices in their households. This research aims to investigate predictors of the intention to apply smart water meters by extending the Technology of Acceptance Model; hypothesizing that intention to apply IoT water meters is predicted by attitude towards them, which, is determined by perceived usefulness and ease of IoT water meter use. To extend the model frugality, personal innovativeness and environmental concerns were added as moderators of the relationship between perceived ease of use and usefulness as well as attitudes towards IoT water meters. Afterwards, a survey was constructed, and data were collected from 657 participants. The results supported the hypotheses. Intention to adopt water meters was determined by attitude, which was predicted by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of IoT water meters. Regarding the moderators, environmental concern was found to be the only variable moderating the influence between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on attitudes towards IoT water meters.

Water access is a critical public policy problem that many people face worldwide. As demand for fresh water rises and supply declines, a growing number of regions and localities, including cities, will be compelled to respond to water shortages. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the rationalization of water consumption utilizing demarketing strategies in the Gaza Strip (GS), Palestine. The population under study comprises the residents of the GS, amounting to approximately 2.1 million (2021) individuals. A survey among 372 respondents living and working in the five GS governorates, using a stratified random sample approach to mirror the population distribution, finds a significant relationship between consumer attitudes toward reducing water consumption and 5 key marketing variables (product, price, place, promotion, and people). Furthermore, four moderators reinforced these relationships, i.e., the perceived role of laws and legislations, perceived moral obligation, perceived water right, and institutional sentiment toward the water authority's management of water resources. Additionally, age, education level, marital status, and monthly income influence the effect of the demarketing mix on consumer attitudes toward reducing water consumption. This study informs managerial action and policy-making about the key variables to modulate in order to improve consumers' attitudes toward water rationalization and thus intrinsically motivate consumers to curb water consumption.

The abandonment or closure of wastewater treatment plants is a potential problem in sanitation policies, where municipalities must decide which type of plant should build in their territory. We used an interaction effects model to test the effect of financial self-sufficiency in the operation of Mexican treatment plants in the national sanitation policy periods: the more money policy approach and the more planning policy approach. Our results show that during the more planning policy approach, the wastewater treatment plants' effectiveness increases more than the more money policy approach period, which is more vital in plants with low operating costs. Municipal financial self-sufficiency positively affects wastewater treatment plants' effectiveness more substantially in plants with high operating costs. Policy implications of these findings aim to be careful with the more money policy approach to developing wastewater infrastructure since municipalities require proper planning for the particular conditions of each site. The Mexican case shows how combining municipal financial insufficiency and centralization of planning in the national government, as is common in the countries of the Global South, affects the probability of plant survivorship. Furthermore, the effect of this combination grows when national governments increase their budgets to invest.

Increasing concern over cyber-resilience has generated new research questions for policy and practice from both technical and economic viewpoints. In particular, the acknowledged importance of the adaptive behaviour of citizens when confronted with unexpected events requires an improved understanding of preferences for measures that seek to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure. This paper aims to contribute to this growing body of research by elicitating the preferences of Eurometropolis of Strasbourg (France) inhabitants for greater resilience of their water distribution system to cyber-attacks. It relies on a Discrete Choice Experiment survey. The results of the latent class model show that two classes of respondents exhibit diametrically-opposed preferences. The majority display a high WTP to benefit from a shorter duration of restrictions on water consumption for drinking and cooking and for services for vulnerable people. The remainder, who are younger and less environmentally conscious, do not value the same attributes and, when this happens, their WTP has a negative coefficient. Risk-aversion, knowledge and information are among the variables that help to explain the heterogeneous nature of preferences. Tailored and targeted communication campaigns could therefore prove useful to increase users’ awareness and understanding of the underlying issues and thereby the public commitment to and acceptability of the resilience policies leading to their successful implementation. Our work provides important information for decision-makers and will help in the choice between a public protection policy that improves crisis response and one that promotes ex-ante measures aimed at reducing impacts.

Willingness to pay (WTP) has commonly been used as a metric for the valuation of environmental goods and services. Recent studies have also recommended the use of willingness to volunteer (WTV) as a measure for valuation, especially in developing countries with low monetary income and missing (or imperfect) labor markets. The joint households' decision to contribute money and time, however, is often overlooked in these studies. When households are willing to contribute both time and money, using WTP (or WTV) alone can underestimate their preferences for environmental goods and services. This study examines both households’ WTP and WTV for the Danda river restoration in Nepal using survey data of 752 households residing near the river. By jointly estimating WTP and WTV, this study finds robust public support for improving the river in both time and monetary forms, although the proportion of respondents reporting positive WTV is higher. Wealthier households, however, prefer the payment option and are significantly less willing to contribute their time. We also find that households that perceive more direct benefits from an improved Danda river express higher WTP but are not significantly likely to volunteer more time, suggesting that volunteering decisions may not purely be motivated by the benefits households perceive from a clean river.

Irrigation plays a critical role in Vietnam’s rural economy and the national food security priority. The Vietnamese government has developed an extensive irrigation system and waived irrigation costs for farmers to reduce rural poverty. However, excessive use of water in agriculture has become a major concern. It is important to evaluate the value of water in order to encourage economical use. We use a multi-model approach and plot-level data to indirectly estimate the value of irrigation water and address a majority of issues related to causal identification. Our results indicate that farmlands with access to irrigation have significantly higher productivity and land values. The high value of irrigation water in agricultural production is a premise for compulsory payment for irrigation water. We then investigate the design of Vietnam’s irrigation policy and the hazards that have arose from the fee waiver policy. Finally, we explain why the current policy has failed to promote a sustainable long-term solution.