Suchergebnisse

Users in the Mediterranean region face significant water supply risks. Water markets mechanisms can provide flexibility to water systems run in tight situations. The largest water infrastructure in the Iberian Peninsula connects the Segura and Tagus Basins. Stakeholders and politicians in the Tagus Basin have asked that water transfers between the two basins be eventually phased out. The need to increase the statutory minimum environmental flow in the middle Tagus and to meet new urban demands is going to result in a redefinition of the Transfer?s management rules, leading to a reduction in the transferable volumes. To minimise the consequences of such restrictions to irrigators in the Segura Basin who depend on the transferred volumes, we propose the establishment of water option contracts between both basins that represents an institutional innovation with respect to previous inter-basin spot market experiences. Based on the draft of the new Tagus Basin Plan, we propose both a modification of the Transfer?s management rule and an innovative inter-basin option contract. The main goal of the paper is to define this contract and evaluate it with respect to non-market scenarios. We also assess the resulting impact on environmental flows in the Tagus River and water availability for users in the Segura Basin, together with the economic impacts of such contract on both basins. Our results show that the proposed option contract would reduce the impact of a change in the transfer?s management rule, and reduce the supply risks of the recipient area.

Increasing water scarcity is encouraging the use of unconventional water resources. In recent years, the European Union has launched numerous initiatives to promote and facilitate water reuse for agricultural irrigation. Today, the use of reclaimed water for agriculture has become an alternative, reliable and safe source of water supply and an indispensable water planning tool, especially in the area of southern Europe. However, water reuse for irrigation is currently far below its potential. Numerous barriers prevent its development and call for a detailed analysis of the different aspects affecting reclaimed water reuse, through an integrated and multidisciplinary approach.A multidisciplinary research team from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, consisting of agronomists, hydrologists, chemists and agricultural economists, will work on the RECLAMO Project (https://blogs.upm.es/reclamo/), with the aim of providing solutions and recommendations aimed at promoting the full development and use of reclaimed water for irrigation in areas of Spain with marked water stress.For this purpose, project activities will be developed in two selected case studies (the Segura Basin, leader in water reuse in Spain and the Guadiana Basin, with success stories, but low levels of water reuse) and organised according to five axes: 1) development of a comprehensive knowledge-base covering the regulatory, technical, socio-economic and environmental aspects of reclaimed water reuse in agriculture; 2) participatory development of future scenarios exploring possible strategies, barriers and opportunities, in relation to the expansion of the use of reclaimed water for irrigation; 3) impact analysis of the strategies identified at different scales (crop, farm, (sub-)basin), through the development of an integrated modelling platform (hydrologic-agronomic-economic models); 4) Development of a roadmap and policy recommendations to achieve the full development and use of reclaimed water reuse for irrigation; 5) Dissemination of knowledge and ...