Drought Management Policies And Economic Effects On Urban Areas Of California 1987 1992

Reports the results of a detailed survey of urban water agencies to provide the background information needed for future studies to determine willingness-to-pay, i.e., the amount that water users would have been willing to pay to avoid drought management policies.

This document reports some background information on the extent and severity of the 1987-91 California drought, evaluates existing work on the economic effects of the drought, and presents an agenda for future research to make an overall estimate of the economic costs of the drought in urban areas. It recommends a survey of urban water agencies to identify drought management policies and the resulting cutbacks in water use by various customer classes; to identify an estimate of economic losses incurred by residential customers using demand curve estimates or contingent valuation methodology; to identify contingent valuation surveys of commercial sectors hard-hit by the drought, such as nurseries and landscape contractors; and to identify a brief assessment of the industrial sector, which was mostly protected from cutbacks that would have resulted in lost output or jobs. This research was partially sponsored by California Urban Water Agencies, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of 11 urban wholesale and retail water agencies.

Describes the lessons learned of the six-year California drought (1987-1992). This report will improve the mgmt. of water resources during future droughts in California & other states. These lessons capture the views of some 100 interviewed participants representing 57 organizations in California that manage or influence the mgmt. of water. The participating organizations represented Fed., state, regional, & local water supply agencies as well as environmental, private & governmental entities that influence water management in the state.

The 1986-1992 California drought caused most urban water agencies to adopt policies that aimed to reduce water consumption in their service areas. These policies determined in part how much customers reduced water use and the size and distribution of any accompanying economic and noneconomic losses. Understanding these losses is important because this knowledge should enter into decisions on how to allocate water among competing uses and whether or not to invest in new water projects. The authors evaluate the losses caused by the drought using the concept of "willingness-to-pay," i.e., the amount that water users would have been willing to pay to avoid drought management policies. This study reports the results of a detailed survey of urban water agencies to provide the background information needed for future studies to determine willingness-to-pay. The survey data presented suggest when and where the drought effects were most severe and how the effects were distributed across residential, commercial, industrial, government, and agricultural users. To illustrate how willingness-to-pay can in part be quantified, this report includes a pilot study of residential consumer surplus losses due to the drought, based on household-level water use data in the Alameda County Water District.

Over the past decade there have been extraordinary advances towards drought risk reduction with the development of new water-conserving technologies, and new tools for planning, vulnerability and impact assessment, mitigation, and policy. Drought and Water Crises: Integrating Science, Management, and Policy, Second Edition comprehensively captures this evolving progress as it discusses drought management in the light of present risks, global climate change and public policy actions. This new edition emphasizes the paradigm shift from managing disasters to managing risk, reflecting the global emphasis that has evolved in recent years, a new focus that shines light on preparedness strategies and the tools and methods that are essential in drought risk reduction. The book provides additional relevant case studies that integrate this new approach and discusses examples applied in both developed and developing countries.

During the past decade many countries in the world have experienced droughts, with severe impacts on water urban supply systems. Because droughts are natural phenomena, water utilities must design and implement drought management plans. This topic was selected for the International Course on Drought Management Planning in Water Supply Systems, which took place in Valencia, Spain, on 9-12 December 1997, and was hosted by the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo (UIMP). The contributions in this book have been carefully selected and presented in four sections: Introduction Water Supply Systems Modernization Drought Management in an Urban Context Practical Cases (Israel, USA, Italy, Spain) To achieve a well-balanced approach, authors were invited from academia as well as from consultancies and water utilities, and have wide experience in the subject. The book is mainly aimed at water supply engineers, working in utilities and consultancies.