Robust water allocation and mangament

Question 1

Reason for water allocation

Answer 1

• The required rate of technical improvement and investment is much faster than
  the world has been able to achieve in recent times
• Water
  stressed
  people
• As populations grow people are moving to more flood and drought prone areas
  Pressure on scarce resources like water is growing
• Food prices have become more variable and are increasing
• The trend in natural disasters appears to be upwards
• World will need to make greater use of ecosystem services

Question 2

Cause increasing food and water scarcity

Answer 2

Increasing demand

1. Population increase
2. Increased living standards
3. Energy from food

Decreasing water supply

1. Resolving over-allocation
2. Restoring water quality
3. Adverse climate change

Decreasing Land

1. Urbanisation
2. Phosphate scarcity and soil productivity

Question 3

Unbundling water licenses

Answer 3

Single Title to Land with a Water Licence

• Land
• Water
  
  • Price
  • Tradable License

TRADABLE LICENSE

• Entlement shares in perpetuity
  
  • Delivery capacity shares
    
    • Delivery capacity allocations
• Bank-like allocations
• Use licenses with limits & Obligations
  
  • Salinity shares
  • Salinity Allocations

Question 4

Some lessons from the Australian experience (regime arragement)

Answer 4

• *Regime arrangements**
  1. System connectivity => manage GW and SW as one
  2. Capped the wrong thing => cap entitlement potential not use
  3. Return flows => account for them
  4. Unmetered uses => include them
  5. Climate change => plan for an adverse shift
  6. The environment’s share => define it and allocate water to it
  7. Storage Management => include in trading regime via carry forward (llevado a delante)

Question 5

Some lessons from the Australian experience (Individual Arragement)

Answer 5

Individual arrangements
1. Registers => validate them early
2. Entitlements => define entitlements as shares
3. Company control => allocate to individuals
4. Trading => Get costs and time to settle down to one or two days for allocations
5. Regulation => Unbundling improves administrative efficiency
but needs robust water accounting
6. Inter-seasonal risk management => allow markets to optimize carry forward