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Water Buyback in the Segura River Basin: A Policy Option for Restoring Balance and Protecting the Environment

This paper explores the concept of water buyback as a policy option to restore environmental flows and compensate farmers in the semi-arid Segura River Basin in SE Spain. The research offers a benchmark for informing and assessing water purchase tenders, highlighting the importance of transaction costs and the economic impact on rural areas.

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Water Buyback in the Segura River Basin: A Policy Option for Restoring Balance and Protecting the Environment

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  1. WHERE. The Segura River Basin in SE Spain > Area: 18 870 km² (MDB = 1 061 469 km², about 60 times larger) > Population ≃ 2.1 million (similar to MDB) 1

  2. WHERE. The Segura River Basin in SE Spain > Semi-arid basin > Rainfall is uneven and unequally distributed > Non-perennial rivers > 1950s irrigation expansion (↑ productivity) > Agriculture: 89% of total water use > Supply: 760 M m3; Demand: 1,900 M m3; WEI: 2.5 (1.15 including TSWT & desalination) > Water is gold 2

  3. Water in SE Spain: Giving gold for free > Average water charge: 0.09 EUR/m3 3

  4. WHY water buyback • > De iure, RBAs are entitled to limit/revoke water concessions that harm the environment, without compensation • > De facto, concessions are renewed automatically • > Transaction costs • > Negative economic impact on rural areas • > Water buyback aims at: • > restoring environmental flows; • > compensating farmers (& overcome resistance); and • > compensating other possible negative feedbacks • > Since 2006 government agencies can use exchange centers to buy water concessions • > This paper offers a benchmark to inform and assess water purchase tenders 4

  5. HOW. Compensatingvariation • > Water buyback aims at reducing withdrawals and restoring environmental flows • > Problem: rent extraction • > Challenge: place bids consistent with the shadow price of the would-be seller • > Shadow price: • > foregone income resulting from strengthening the water constraint • > foregone utility (compensating variation) • > Benchmark: capitalized value of the shadow price 5

  6. THE MODEL > Preferences are revealed in two stages (Agricultural Water Demand Units): > First, relevant attributes are obtained > Second, the utility function is calibrated 6

  7. Revealing the attributes 7

  8. Revealing the attributes Key concept: Possibility frontier – built based on feasible decisions using GAMS Profit (Π) > Not consistent with a rational agent. Something is missing here > Risk aversion (σ)? Max feasibleΠ 0 Observed Π σ Observed Π, σ Five (m=5) attributes explored: > Expected gross variable margin (z1) > risk avoidance (z2) > Total labor avoidance (z3) > hired labor avoidance (z4) > Variable costs avoidance (z5) All attributes are normalized Observed Π, σ 0 Π 8

  9. Calibrating the Utility function > In equilibrium the MTR equals the MSR > Taking a CRE Utility Function (Cobb-Douglas) σ 0 Π 9

  10. Calibration results 10

  11. Simulation > Water constraint strengthened from 0 to 50% of the concession > Gross variable margin and utility are estimated > Foregone income and foregone utility obtained > Capitalized using the 3-year average interest rate of the 30-year Spanish Treasury Bond, 3.7% as of January 2016 11

  12. Simulationresults: buybackprice 12

  13. Simulationresults: buybackprice RtB in the MDB; $3.1 billion NSW - Murray (Below Choke): $2,072 13

  14. Conclusions • > Water buyback can help restore the balance • > Average price about 3800 EUR/ML • > A few caveats: • > Informal abstractions: track and ban, do not empower (not again!) • > Use water bought for environmental purposes • > not to maintain allotments during droughts (define environmental flows) • > Define priority areas for buyback (downstream vs upstream) • > This is but a policy option –others may exist • > Charges • > Insurance • > etc. • > Explore complementarities, sequencing • > Transaction costs are the key 14

  15. Thanks for your attention This research is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 660608. http://wateragora.eu/ 15

  16. Annex 16

  17. Error terms 17

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