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Water Transfer

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Introduction

Water is an essential resource for human well-being and the functioning of ecosystems. At the same time, increasing water scarcity is among the biggest challenges humanity is facing. By 2030, the world will experience a 40% water deficit or a supply-demand gap under a business-as-usual scenario (Shumilova). Cadillac Desert was published in 1986 and updated in 1993. The book’s great value is to illuminate just how unnatural and precarious the West’s system of water supply is and how the system’s design and operation has been driven from the beginning by big-money politics and macho rivalries (particularly between the bureau and the Army Corps of Engineers) more than by any concern for the common good, much less for healthy ecosystems. Reisner does not hide his environmental sympathies, but he fairly represents all sides, even as his profiles of key villains are deliciously revealing. William Mulholland, the hard-driving engineer who tricked and ruined countless small towns and farmers to bring water from the distant Colorado River to Los Angeles in the ’20s, once encountered the director of the National Park Service at a formal dinner.

Though reclamation began as an admirable idea and transformed scorched earth into valuable farmlands and lush cities, it turned into, in Reisner’s words a nature-wrecking, money-eating monster that our leaders, particularly Congress, have lacked the courage to stop. Illegal subsidies continue to enrich big farmers, whose excess production depresses crop prices nationwide and whose waste of cheap water contributes to an environmental calamity that could cost billions to solve. Within the next century, hundreds of reservoirs will turn to solid mud; today, millions of acres of reclaimed farmland are threatened by groundwater depletion and salt buildup in the soil. Only a government that disposes of a billion dollars every few hours, says Reisner, would still be selling water in deserts for less than a penny a ton. Not the first book on the subject, but one of the best.

Water Transfer

Water transfer is the transfer of water from one river catchment to another. Transfer can take place by river diversion, pipeline or even by sea tanker. There is often a surplus of water in one area and too little in another — both on a small scale within a country, on a larger, continental scale and even on a global scale. Water transfer is one method of increasing the supply to areas with too little water. For example, Manchester is supplied with water piped from reservoirs in the Lake District (Figure 1) and the industrial cities of South Yorkshire are supplied with water from rivers to the north through the Yorkshire Grid Scheme, which uses rivers and large mains to transfer water from one river catchment area to another (The Open University).

The interbasin water transfer project is an alternative to balance the nonuniform temporal and spatial distribution of water resources and water demands, especially in arid and semi arid regions. A water transfer project can be executed if it is environmentally and economically justified. Transferring water from an area may cause a variety of negative impacts, social and environmental impacts (Karamouz). But a water transfer project can be executed if it is environmentally and economically justified. When water is intended to be used in another basin, water rights could be traded for financial resources. In the national arena, water is equity for all. Equity for those who are in need of water and do not have access to water and those who actually have the water rights and may have a surplus that is wasted in a variety of ways. To analyze

the above issues, tangible and nontangible costs and benefits should be evaluated (Karamouz).

 

Political Impacts

Because local governments in the area of origin are seldom the buyers or sellers in water transfer transactions, their interests and those of community residents frequently are of concern. A water buyer and seller are the two primary parties in a water transfer, each of whom must be satisfied with the results of the negotiations for a transfer to be consummated. These primary parties negotiate in their own best interests and exercise control over whether a transfer will occur. Consequently, their interests are not typically a central concern of public policies governing water transfers. Instead, public policies must be concerned with the interests of so-called third parties, that is, those who stand to be affected by the transfer but are not represented in the negotiations and lack control over or input into the processes by which transfer proposals are evaluated and implemented.

The impacts of transfers and the parties affected are many, diverse, and potentially substantial. Third parties are described in detail in Chapter 4; they can include

  • other water rights holders;
  • agriculture (including farmers and agricultural businesses in the area of origin);
  • the environment (including instream flows, wetlands and other ecosystems, water quality, and other interests affected by environmental changes);
  • urban interests;
  • ethnic communities and Indian tribes;
  • rural communities; and
  • federal taxpayers (Page 38 National Research Council).

The history of the development of the Colorado River in the southwestern United States illustrates many of the problems of interbasin transfers and the historical inadequacy of government responses. The Colorado River is the major river for the large, arid southwestern region. Much of the region within the watershed of the Colorado is rural and sparsely populated. It is also an area of great natural beauty, with wildlife, fish, and recreational opportunities. The watershed of the river includes parts of seven states and Mexico. The states have fought over allocation of water, with some of their battles being resolved by interstate agreements known as compacts, and others being mediated by the Supreme Court and Congress. Disputes between the United States and Mexico have arisen periodically and have been narrowed by the negotiation of a treaty and subsequent amendments. Interbasin transfers from the Colorado River have profoundly affected ecosystems, communities, and economies and have been the cause of hostilities. ((Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. xx)238).

Effects of Water Trasnfer

Diverting water from an area can cause a variety of negative economic, social, and environmental consequences. When water supplies are committed to exports, it discourages investments in new businesses that require water. The transfer of water to another watershed therefore deprives the area of origin of water that could be used for economic growth in that area of origin. It would be ironic for a water-rich area to seek water somewhere else because its local supplies are being exported. The option of “buying back” the water that is being exported exists, but the price may be too high (Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. xx).

The impacts of water exports are more palpable when the water being transferred is already being used in the area of origin. The seller of the water rights—such as a farmer selling irrigation rights—presumably will be paid the fair market value of the rights. Although the seller receiving compensation will not suffer hardship, third parties may suffer indirect but significant economic impacts. As the farming economy declines, so will the businesses that depend on selling tractors, seeds, and fertilizer and the banks that lend money. All the businesses that depend on these businesses are, in turn, affected. With less business activity, local governments will collect less tax revenue, causing a decline in the ability of local governments and school districts to provide services to citizens. As community life declines the area will becomes less attractive to new businesses resulting in a downward spiral of economic effects ((Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. xx)237).

 

Economic Impacts

Cost estimates for building the project differed radically [14], ranging at least from 20 billion to

81 billion USD for the ER- and MR-SNWTP alone [27]. Webber et al. [14] noted that these estimates generally only covered construction costs. Beyond these disagreements in project costs, whether the project is economically justified has also been debated. Lin et al. [25] used a water footprint approach to compare and monetize the water footprints in water-providing and water-receiving areas both before and after the project. Their analysis, which assumed that water consumption in more water scarce areas has a larger environmental impact than water consumption in areas of lower water scarcity, found that the ER-SNWTP and MR-SNWTP together (WR-SNWTP not addressed) would provide significant net environmental gains that, when monetized, could justify the cost of the SNWTP. Berkoff [4] performed a detailed analysis of two economic models: one from the World Bank, which found the project to be economically beneficial, and the other from theWorldWildlife Fund, which did not. While there are a substantial number of differences between the two models, one significant difference was the value of the transferred water, with theWorld Bank estimating higher water values across most sectors than the World Wildlife Fund [4]. Another significant difference was in the area of water-use efficiency. According to Berkoff [4], theWorld Bank model assumes that increasing efficiency for the largest water user (irrigation) has negative economic returns, whereas theWorldWildlife Fund report argues that significant potential for increased water-use efficiency remains, suggesting that within-basin water management is a key component in evaluating the economic viability of the SNWTP (Wilson).

Cost of Water Transfer

Globally, freshwater is unevenly distributed, both in space and time. Climate change, land use alteration, and increasing human exploitation will further increase the pressure on water as a resource for human welfare and on inland water ecosystems. Water transfer megaprojects (WTMP) are defined here as large-scale engineering interventions to divert water within and between river basins that meet one of the following criteria: construction costs >US$ 1 billion, distance of transfer >190 km, or volume of water transferred exceeds 0.23 km3 per year. WTMP represent an engineered solution to cope with water scarcity. These projects are most commonly associated with large-scale agricultural and energy development schemes, and many of them serve multiple purposes. Our results underscore the extent to which humans have and are planning to re-engineer the global hydrological network and flows through WTMP, creating a network of “artificial rivers.” They emphasize the need to ensure the inclusion of these projects in global and basin hydrological models, and to develop internationally agreed criteria to assess the ecological, social and economic impacts of WTMP.

 

Environmental Impacts

Almost invariably, interbasin transfers cause environmental impacts. As streamflows are diminished, fish and wildlife habitat can be diminished and destroyed. Wetlands may dry up, and native vegetation may die out. If lands were previously being irrigated and water is then transferred away, the fields can turn to dust and the soils can blow away, degrading the arability of the lands as well as causing pollution problems. Municipalities that are required by law to maintain a certain water quality may find that reduced streamflow will increase their costs of treating sewage, because it is more difficult to dissolve the discharged pollutants in order to meet water quality standards (237). Environmental impacts include all water-related environmental effects such as the impact of alterations in instream flows on fish and wildlife, or recreation, changes in water quality, and the implications of a water transfer for wetlands and riparian ecosystems (National Research Council). To quantitatively assess the impacts of inter-basin water transfer projects on optimal water resources allocation in the water donor area, a comprehensive water resources management model that fully incorporates water demand projection, multi-objective water resources allocation model and evaluation criteria was proposed in this study. The middle and lower reaches of Hanjiang River basin was selected as a case study. The main conclusions are summarized below: (1)Water shortages will gradually increase across the whole study area from Scenario 1 to Scenario 4. Water shortages are greatest for agriculture under all four scenarios, as a result of it having the lowest priority among all water user sectors. (2) The reliability and resilience of the water supply will be gradually reduced, while the

vulnerability will be increased, with the expansion of water transfer projects and the increase of

water demand. (3) The water supply risks in all zones in the Hanjiang River basin are likely to increase. The reason for this is that zones in the boundary are restricted by natural inflow and reservoir regulation, while the

water availability in zones along the mainstream is directly decreased by the water transfer projects. (4) The ever-expanding water transfer projects and ever-growing water demand present a challenge to water supply management in the middle and lower reaches of the Hanjiang River basin. Therefore, further measures will need to be taken to increase the water supply capacity, and additional compensation measures will be needed in the water donor areas in the future (Tian Jing).

Some of the problems caused by the transbasin diversion of virtually all of the Colorado River are as follows:

  • Nearly all species of native fish in the river are either extinct or endangered.
  • Depletion of flows has allowed salts to concentrate in the river so that at times the water is so saline that it kills crops.
  • Dozens of communities within the natural watershed of the Colorado have limited options for future growth, because control over the use of the water that originates there has been legally vested in large cities and districts that export the river’s water to other watersheds.
  • The Colorado River Delta has lost most of its native species of birds and fish, its wetlands are in danger, and its indigenous communities have nearly been destroyed ((Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. xx)239).

 

Social Impacts

The SNWTP will most likely have substantial impacts on local communities, but these impacts

are poorly studied. More than 300,000 inhabitants, both immediately around Danjiangkou Reservoir and elsewhere, either were or will be relocated due to project construction. Though there is much discussion of how the loss of water on the Han River, caused by the MR-SNWTP, will disrupt the environment (see Section 3.3), little is known about how these losses will impact the livelihoods of downstream populations. Webber et al. [14] observed that local development policies were altered in many communities in water-providing areas, including resettlements, restricted development, and reduced use of pesticides. Yet, Berkoff [4] asserted that the SNWTP could reduce rural abandonment in the NCP by alleviating water scarcity (Wilson).

The SNWTP therefore raises several social concerns occurring across a variety of scales. Locally, building the SNWTP will require the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people [8,14]. Institutionally, building the SNWTP will change existing water management structures [14]. However, had the SNWTP not been built, poor farmers in more isolated locations across the NCP would have likely lost access to the water necessary for farming, altering this traditionally agrarian region [4]. The central government has depicted this tradeoff as beneficial to the national good despite local impacts [19], electing to build the project while centralizing control over a massive water resource [14], altering local governance structures [14,19], and possibly empowering new growth [29]. The long-term social impacts of this choice are yet to unfold (Wilson).

Benefits of Water Transfer

Wherever water is needed, solutions have been sought to bring it to cities, industries, and dry fertile lands. Large water transfer schemes have a long history dating back thousands of years. In modern times, water transfer projects have been built in several countries, including Israel. They have found wide interest and have drawn attention to similar solutions for the Middle East.

The gradual transformation of transfer schemes into large-scale distribution networks has found less attention. In Israel and, to a lesser extent, in Jordan extensive distribution systems bring water over large distances from various sources to the main consumption centers. The advantages of these networks include the possibility of balancing supply and demand over large distances, of pooling the financial resources of communities and regions, of sharing important structures such as reservoirs and treatment facilities, and providing greater security against local supply failures.

It is suggested that consideration should be given to the expansion of large-scale distribution networks across national borders. The gradual acceptance of water as an economic good in the international community may facilitate the acceptance of such a solution.

Reference is made to World Bank assistance to water projects in the Middle East and to World Bank support for international river basin development in the Indus basin and, more recently, in Southern Africa (Kuffner).

Conclusion

 

 

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