Dustin Garrick

Water security in one blue planet: twenty-first century policy challenges for science

Water-related risks threaten society at the local, national and global scales in our inter-connected and rapidly changing world. Most of the worlds poor are deeply water insecure and face intolerable water-related risks associated with complex hydrology. Most of the worlds wealthy face lower water-related risks and less complex hydrology. This inverse relationship between hydrological complexity and wealth contributes to a divided world. This must be addressed if global water security is to be achieved. Using a risk-based framework provides the potential to link the current policy-oriented discourse on water security to a new and rigorous science-based approach to the description, measurement, analysis and management of water security. To provide the basis for this science-based approach, we propose an encompassing definition rooted in risk science: water security is a tolerable level of water-related risk to society. Water security policy questions need to be framed so that science can marshal interdisciplinary data and evidence to identify solutions. We join a growing group of scientists in asserting a bold vision for science leadership, calling for a new and comprehensive understanding of the planets water system and societys water needs.

Coping with the curse of freshwater variability

Institutions, infrastructure, and information for adaptation Coping with variable and unpredictable freshwater resources represents a profound challenge to climate adaptation. Rainfall, snowmelt, soil moisture, and runoff can vary from zero to large quantities, over a range of time scales and in ways not well predicted by climate models. Extreme floods and droughts are the most obvious manifestations, but hydrologic variability can also have chronic impacts. Water security involves managing these risks so that they do not place an intolerable burden on society and the economy (1). We discuss interlinked roles of institutions, infrastructure, and information in managing those risks.

Transaction Costs and Institutional Performance in Market-Based Environmental Water Allocation

Policy reforms in the Columbia Basin spurred water rights reallocation for ecological recovery. Transaction costs have caused implementation to lag. This paper examines transaction costs and institutional performance in environmental water allocation. It evaluates spatial and temporal performance trends in watershed cases along three dimensions of adaptive efficiency: water recovery, transaction costs, and program budgets. Performance trends demonstrate intrastate variability and volatility over time due to the importance of local institutional capacity, which is uneven within states. Higher levels of water recovery may coincide with moderate to high transaction costs and program budgets, particularly during initial implementation efforts. This finding reflects investments in multilevel policy reform to strengthen enabling conditions and adapt to unintended consequences. (JEL Q25, Q58)

Managing hydroclimatic risks in federal rivers: A diagnostic assessment

Hydroclimatic risks and adaptive capacity are not distributed evenly in large river basins of federal countries, where authority is divided across national and territorial governments. Transboundary river basins are a major test of federal systems of governance because key management roles exist at all levels. This paper examines the evolution and design of interstate water allocation institutions in semi-arid federal rivers prone to drought extremes, climatic variability and intensified competition for scarce water. We conceptualize, categorize and compare federal rivers as social–ecological systems to analyse the relationship between governance arrangements and hydroclimatic risks. A diagnostic approach is used to map over 300 federal rivers and classify the hydroclimatic risks of three semi-arid federal rivers with a long history of interstate allocation tensions: the Colorado River (USA/Mexico), Ebro River (Spain) and Murray–Darling River (Australia). Case studies review the evolution and design of water allocation institutions. Three institutional design trends have emerged: adoption of proportional interstate allocation rules; emergence of multi-layered river basin governance arrangements for planning, conflict resolution and joint monitoring; and new flexibility to adjust historic allocation patterns. Proportional allocation rules apportion water between states based on a share of available water, not a fixed volume or priority. Interstate allocation reform efforts in the Colorado and Murray–Darling rivers indicate that proportional allocation rules are prevalent for upstream states, while downstream states seek reliable deliveries of fixed volumes to increase water security. River basin governance arrangements establish new venues for multilayered planning, monitoring and conflict resolution to balance self governance by users and states with basin-wide coordination. Flexibility to adjust historic allocation agreements, without risk of defection or costly court action, also provides adaptive capacity to manage climatic variability and shifting values. Future research should develop evidence about pathways to adaptive capacity in different classes of federal rivers, while acknowledging limits to transferability and the need for context-sensitive design.

Water Allocation in Rivers under Pressure

Water trading and river basin governance have been upheld as institutional blueprints for allocating water for people, agriculture and ecosystems in a changing climate. Progress has been uneven, however, despite multiple decades of institutional reforms in river basins under pressure from demand, development and droughts. This timely book examines the evolution and performance of water allocation reforms in the Colorado, Columbia and Murray–Darling Rivers. It draws on concepts and evidence about property rights, transaction costs and institutional change to generate lessons about the factors contributing to more adaptive and sustainable water allocation.

Valuing water for sustainable development

Measurement and governance must advance together Achieving universal, safely managed water and sanitation services by 2030, as envisioned by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, is projected to require capital expenditures of USD 114 billion per year (1). Investment on that scale, along with accompanying policy reforms, can be motivated by a growing appreciation of the value of water. Yet our ability to value water, and incorporate these values into water governance, is inadequate. Newly recognized cascading negative impacts of water scarcity, pollution, and flooding underscore the need to change the way we value water (2). With the UN/World Bank High Level Panel on Water having launched the Valuing Water Initiative in 2017 to chart principles and pathways for valuing water, we see a global opportunity to rethink the value of water. We outline four steps toward better valuation and management (see the box), examine recent advances in each of these areas, and argue that these four steps must be integrated to overcome the barriers that have stymied past efforts.

Sustaining local values through river basin governance: community-based initiatives in Australia's Murray–Darling basin

Australias Murray–Darling basin (MDB) water plan is an ambitious attempt to balance ecological, social and economic benefits, where a key aspect of the reform process has been recovery of water for environmental use. This paper focuses on a set of initiatives established by a local non-governmental organisation and an Indigenous community designed to engage with local values and priorities and incorporate them into this complex river basin governance system. Contrary to expectations that local and basin-scale interests and outcomes will diverge, the case studies reveal the ability for local groups to collaboratively manage both land and water resources to achieve locally important outcomes, and contribute to basin-scale outcomes. The analysis also highlights a progressive style of community-based environmental management for water management that utilises multiple institutional arrangements and planning pathways to protect the values that are important to local communities, and to nest those values within the broader effort to sustainably manage the basins water resources.

Environmental Water Organizations and Institutional Settings

Environmental water organizations (EWOs) are identifiable organizations that can be held accountable for specific tasks in implementing environmental water policies. This chapter is designed to operate as a guide to support the creation and operation of EWOs. Case studies have been selected to show the diversity of EWOs operating around the world, with an emphasis on linking their functionality to the activities they undertake and the environmental water allocation mechanism used. EWOs operate in a nested governance arrangement, building partnerships across spatial scales, policy areas, and between the public and private sectors. This chapter introduces the key concept of active environmental water management, which is needed when environmental water allocation mechanisms and policy settings require ongoing active decision making by an EWO to achieve the maximum environmental benefits.

The paradox of irrigation efficiency

Higher efficiency rarely reduces water consumption Reconciling higher freshwater demands with finite freshwater resources remains one of the great policy dilemmas. Given that crop irrigation constitutes 70% of global water extractions, which contributes up to 40% of globally available calories (1), governments often support increases in irrigation efficiency (IE), promoting advanced technologies to improve the “crop per drop.” This provides private benefits to irrigators and is justified, in part, on the premise that increases in IE “save” water for reallocation to other sectors, including cities and the environment. Yet substantial scientific evidence (2) has long shown that increased IE rarely delivers the presumed public-good benefits of increased water availability. Decision-makers typically have not known or understood the importance of basin-scale water accounting or of the behavioral responses of irrigators to subsidies to increase IE. We show that to mitigate global water scarcity, increases in IE must be accompanied by robust water accounting and measurements, a cap on extractions, an assessment of uncertainties, the valuation of trade-offs, and a better understanding of the incentives and behavior of irrigators.

Federal rivers: a critical overview of water governance challenges in federal systems

Sustainable management of rivers, lakes and aquifers is crucial to the wellbeing of people and the environment (MEA 2005). Farms, cultures, industries, cities and nations have been established along the banks of major river systems. Demand for freshwater and other riverine commodities has increased with population growth and economic development, while climate change and extreme events disrupt hydrological processes and water supply. As a consequence, the World Economic Forum (2013) has identified water supply shocks among its top societal risks for the past three years running. Effective governance of fresh water is therefore a foundation of sustainable and equitable societies. In this context, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2012) has identified the global water crisis as a crisis of governance and policy fragmentation. Increasingly, water management challenges involve complex interdependencies between sectors, upstream and downstream jurisdictions and stakeholders at the local, state, national and international levels. These interdependencies pose coordination challenges across political borders – both within and between countries. Federal countries distribute authority between national and state jurisdictions, which complicates water management tradeoffs within river basins shared by multiple territories. This book examines the experience of nine different federal political systems and China in addressing challenges of river basin and water management. Federal river systems (see Figure 1.1) are major basins within or shared by one of the world’s 28 federal countries (Anderson 2008, 2010; Garrick et al. 2013). Shared river basins are a major test of federal systems of governance. Effective management is not the mandate of one level of governance: all levels of governance have key roles, though these will vary from federation to federation. It can be expected that federalism will produce