Joint optimization of water allocation and water quality management in Haihe River basin

Martinsen, Grith; Liu, Suxia; Mo, Xingguo; Bauer‐Gottwein, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.036

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In this study, we only considered the water resource in terms of quantity, however water quality may have an important impact for water treatment, irrigation, fishing, and tourism. Different approaches could be considered: (Boehlert et al, 2015) combine a water management model with a water quality model considering chemicals and reactions and represent advection among river branches, while Martinsen et al (2018) consider water quality classes, with associated treatment costs and quality requirements for the demands, in a hydroeconomic optimization framework.…”

Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus

Payet-Burin¹,

Kromann²,

Pereira-Cardenal³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Water infrastructure investment planning must consider the interdependencies within the water-energy-food nexus. Moreover, uncertain future climate, evolving socio-economic context, and stakeholders with conflicting interests, lead to a highly complex decision problem. Therefore, there is a need for decision support tools to objectively determine the value of investments, considering the impacts on different groups of actors, and the risks linked to uncertainties. We present a new open-source hydroeconomic optimization model, linking in a holistic framework, representations of the water, agriculture, and power systems. The model represents the joint development of nexus-related infrastructure and policies and evaluates their economic impact, as well as the risks linked to uncertainties in future climate and socio-economic development. We apply the methodology in the Zambezi River Basin, a major African basin shared by eight countries, in which multiple investment opportunities exist, including new hydropower plants, new or resized reservoirs, development of irrigation agriculture, and investments into the power grid. We show that the linkage of the different systems is crucial to evaluate impacts of climate change and socio-economic development, which will ultimately influence investment decisions. We find that climate change could induce economic losses up to 2.3 billion dollars per year on the current system. We show that the value of the hydropower development plan is sensitive to future fuel prices, carbon pricing policies, the capital cost of solar technologies, and climate change. Similarly, we show that the value of the irrigation development plan is sensitive to the evolution of crop yields, world market crop prices and climate change. Finally, we evaluate the opportunity costs of restoring the natural floods in the Zambezi delta; we find limited economic trade-offs under the current climate, but potentially major trade-offs with irrigation and hydropower generation under climate change.

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Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus

Payet-Burin¹,

Kromann²,

Pereira-Cardenal³

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Challenges imposed by pollution externalities also demanded water quality representation in hydro‐economic models. Studies as Cai et al (2003), Tu (2005), Hemmat et al (2007), Ahmadi et al (2012), Molinos‐Senante et al (2014), Davidsen et al (2015), and Wang et al (2019) represented water quality as requirements within the allocation process, whereas studies as Ghosh et al (2017) and Martinsen et al (2019) included it as additional pollution costs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Water Management Instruments to Reconcile a Hydro‐Economic Water Allocation Strategy With Other Water Preferences

Dalcin

Marques

2020

Water Resources Research

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Increasing scarcity and pollution has called for changes in water policies, which should reflect society's preferences toward water use, development, and the environment. Water management is still limited in incorporating changing policies and in deriving directives to implement water instruments under long-term planning. Some examples are water charges that do not reflect watershed externalities and water permits lacking future vision of allocation. Hydro-economic modeling has explored trade-offs of water allocation and improved water operations but still does not address instruments' integration. This paper proposes a modeling approach that identifies how to apply water management instruments integrated with each other to deliver a water allocation strategy reconciled with economic development projections and changing water use preferences. This improves our understanding on adjusting the implementation of water management instruments considering future outcomes and trade-offs. The methodology combines discrete dynamic programming to determine increments in water permits, multiobjective linear programming to generate a Pareto set to model users' water preferences, and nonlinear programming to allocate water permits over different river reaches subject to water quality targets. The reconciliation allowed to identify sustainable water allocation strategies supported by a watershed, and instruments' integration to make it feasible. Strategies imposing limited water permits to economic users and watershed regions indicated where (and when) water conservation programs should be applied, along with quantitative targets (how much). The economic trade-offs identified reference values for economic instruments to compensate the externalities. Finally, less strict water quality targets did not result in higher economic returns.

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“…In order to investigate the relationship between water quality and treatment costs, Davidsen et al (2015) proposed an optimization model to compare the economic impacts of complying with various water quality grades analyzing pollution discharge and water treatment costs. In Martinsen et al (2019), a water allocation model was proposed to optimize the water delivery to users following quantity and quality requirements while minimizing total costs of groundwater pumping and surface water treatment when the quality of the source did not comply with the quality demand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coordination of sanitation investment decisions with broader water resources management

Dalcin

Marques

2020

REGET

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Water pollution affects water security, reducing water supply to economic water uses and threatening environmental preservation and human health. Controlling water pollution depends on efforts on two main sectors. One is water management, which provides regulatory instruments, including water quality standards, water abstraction and water discharge permits, as well as economic instruments, like water and wastewater charges. Another is sanitation, which is responsible for expansion of water and wastewater infrastructure and faces challenges in financing extensive infrastructure. While water management defines broader (watershed scale) strategies to address water quality, other decisions regarding infrastructure investment are made by the sanitation sector at the municipality scale, with limited perception of broader watershed context on water availability and pollution. When water management and sanitation decisions are not coordinated there are missed opportunities to (a) meet water quality standards at given river reaches due to lacking investment upstream and (b) find least cost investment solutions across municipalities, at the watershed scale. In this paper, we present methods and solutions to coordinate wastewater infrastructure expansion planning with water management instruments in the long-term planning to maximize economic returns and improve water quality. Our methods identify the regions where investments could be prioritized, coordinated with the distribution of water permits and definition of water quality targets. Results show that restricting water permits on some watershed regions results in a small water availability trade-off for economic uses but a significant reduction in costs to sanitation investments, while also meeting the water quality targets. We conclude that while there are several ways to reach predefined water quality targets, each way requires well-coordinated decisions from the water management perspective (where and when to allocate water permits) and the sanitation sector (where and when to concentrate investments in wastewater treatment). Thus, as important as the decisions to improve water management instruments and to increase investments in sanitation is their coordination towards a common watershed goal

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Joint optimization of water allocation and water quality management in Haihe River basin

Cited by 38 publications

References 29 publications

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus

Integrating Water Management Instruments to Reconcile a Hydro‐Economic Water Allocation Strategy With Other Water Preferences

Coordination of sanitation investment decisions with broader water resources management

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