The water footprints of Morocco and the Netherlands: Global water use as a result of domestic consumption of agricultural commodities

The volume of international trade in agricultural commodities is increasing faster than the global volume of production, which is an indicator of growing international dependencies in the area of food supply. Although less obvious, it also implies growing international dependencies in the field of water supply. By importing food, countries also import water in virtual form. The aim of the paper is to assess the water footprints of Morocco, a semi-arid/arid country, and the Netherlands, a humid country. The water footprint of a country is defined as the volume of water used for the production of the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the country. The internal water footprint is the volume of water used from domestic water resources; the external water footprint is the volume of water used in other countries to produce goods and services imported and consumed by the inhabitants of the country. The study shows that both Morocco and the Netherlands import more water in virtual form (in the form of water-intensive agricultural commodities) than they export, which makes them dependent on water resources elsewhere in the world. The water footprint calculations show that Morocco depends for 14% on water resources outside its own borders, while the Netherlands depend on foreign water resources for 95%. It is shown that international trade can result in global water saving when a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area where it is produced with high water productivity to an area with lower water productivity. If Morocco had to domestically produce the products that are now imported from the Netherlands, it would require 780 million m³/year. However, the imported products from the Netherlands were actually produced with only 140 million m³/year, which implies a global water saving of 640 million m³/year.     

Does precipitation and runoff variability affect treaty cooperation between states sharing international bilateral rivers?

Elevated world temperatures, as forecasted by the 4th IPCC report, are expected to increase the hydrological cycle activity, leading to a change in precipitation patterns and increase in evapotranspiration. These in turn are expected to affect river runoff and water variability, depending on basin latitude. In this paper, we assess the impact of water supply variability on ‘treaty cooperation’ (defined here as the likelihood of treaty formation and number of treaties formed) between international bilateral river basin riparian states. The water variability measure that we use captures both annual runoff variability and precipitation variability. We employ additional control variables adopted from economic and international relations theories on international cooperation. The main results suggest that water supply variability in international bilateral basins creates an impetus for cooperation. Our results support an inverted U-shaped relationship between water supply variability and treaty cooperation. Similarly, interactions between the states in the form of diplomatic and trade relations support cooperation. Various measures of democracy/governance suggest different impacts on cooperation. Uneven economic power between the riparian states inhibits treaty cooperation. The geography variables we use are insignificant in all the estimated relationships.     

Integrated basin management: Water and food policy options for Turkey

This paper presents a basin scale analysis of the Nilüfer River Basin of Turkey, where agricultural, urban, and environmental users compete for scarce water in an environment where climate change and food security present large and growing challenges. It presents results of a basin scale dynamic nonlinear programming model that addresses economic efficiency, climate change, and food security. Its approach can be applied to other water-stressed regions operating in environments of economic and hydrologic constraints on water use. Basin scale modeling approach provides a general framework for formulating water management policies, consistent with the principles underlying the European Union Water Framework Directive.     

澜沧江—湄公河整体水分配

国际河流水争端是国际河流开发和管理中的核心问题之一,直接影响国际河流的可持续开发以及各流域国之间的关系稳定,实现公平合理的水分配是解决此类争端的关键,尽管有一些国际水法制定了公平合理利用和无损害等总原则,但是,由于每条国际河流的自然条件及各流域国的社会,经济和文化等差异,水分配的基础条件和面临的具体问题不同,而且在实施中不能强迫各流域国执行,实现公平合理水分配较好的方式是打破国家界线,兼顾各流域国利益,进行全流域整体水分配,中国虽然作为一个国际河流分布广泛的国家,以往对于这方面的研究却几乎是处于空白,本文对通过澜沧江－湄公河水资源及其需求特征的分析,总结该流域整体水分配的优势,对1995年《湄公河可持续发展合作协定》有关水利用问题条款中存在的问题进行评析,提出澜沧江－湄公河整体水分配的原则,指标依据和整体思路。     

长江流域新世纪可持续发展的重大问题

长江流域占全国面积的15.5%,它所拥有的水、土、生物、矿产等整体资源优势和雄厚的社会、经济基础,成为我国经济的驱动轴。然而,随着人口的不断增加和经济的高速增长,流域人地关系日趋紧张,影响着长江流域资源和环境优势的发挥。文章分析了长江流域发展形势及其在全国的地位,指出:人口压力增大、资源安全不容忽视、生态环境恶化、经济效益下降以及整体性差等成为长江流域可持续发展面临的主要问题;控制人口增长、保持适速经济增长、建立资源节约型和“绿色化”的国民经济体系、建立流域生态补偿机制和管理模式以及对长远性问题坚持科学研究是实现长江流域可持续发展的关键所在。     

Participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance

This paper introduces a special section devoted to participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance. The departing point for this research was the recognition that although there is a relative agreement regarding the need to develop new multi-dimensional, inclusive and plural approaches to water resource management, there is still a deficiency of related methodologies and tools. This acknowledgement has motivated the undertaking of the ADVISOR — Integrated Evaluation for Sustainable River Basin Governance research project, which aimed at improving the understanding of evaluation processes, as part of river basin planning and management, and to test the use of specific tools to support the conduct of participatory processes. The paper starts with a discussion of the concept of integrated water resources management and an illustration of the water policies that have been adopted in different countries as a response to these trends. The conceptual framework that was developed in ADVISOR is then presented, as well as the main results from the ex-post analysis of the decision processes regarding five water related projects in different European countries. This analysis concluded that, in most situations, the decision-making processes fell short of including the interests, perceptions and values of affected parties. The remaining of the paper introduces the articles that form this special section, mostly devoted to the testing of new platforms for participation and deliberation. In the final section, a discussion on the assumptions and limitations of deliberative processes is presented, based on the results from the application of the different methods. Further research needs on the integration of different deliberative tools and on the integration of deliberation with decision processes are identified.     

Shared renewable resources and gains from trade under technology standards

Using a two‐country, two‐good model of international trade, we examine gains from trade and strategic interaction in resource management among countries that share renewable resources such as fishery stocks. Two goods are a resource good, which is the harvest of the shared stock, and some other good that may be thought of as manufactures. The productivity of the resource good depends on harvesting technology and the stock level. This paper focuses on technology standards (e.g., restrictions on fishing gears, vessels, areas, and time) over other methods for resource management because they are most commonly implemented in fisheries. Technology standards are modeled as a restriction on the harvesting technology; that is, under strict technology standards, firms exploit resources as if they are using inferior harvesting technology. We show that an opening up of trade may reduce the shared stock and cause steady‐state utility to decrease in a resource‐good importing country and increase in a resource‐good exporting country. Strikingly, when the shared stock is in jeopardy (a high demand for the harvest), steady‐state harvest is maximized after an opening up of trade by what we call multilateral resource management in this paper and both countries gain from trade.     

基于层次分析决策法的新疆阜康三工河流域水量分配研究

水量分配是明晰流域初始水权的基础,也是深化流域水资源管理的需要。新疆阜康三工河流域地处天山北坡经济带,人口集中,工业较密集,水资源供需矛盾突出。如何以有限的水资源支撑区域经济社会的可持续发展,是该流域水量分配面临的主要难题。从调查流域基本情况入手,在注重公平、适度兼顾效率的原则下,运用层次分析决策法(AHP)拟定流域内各乡、镇、团场(即6个计算分区)的水量分配方案,为干旱区内陆河流域水资源优化配置提供一种量化方法和理论支持。     

伊犁河流域综合开发的国际合作

遵循联合国宪章、国际水法,履行合作开发权利和义务,协调并满足各国的用水利益,是伊犁河流域水资源分配、利用及管理的基本原则。中哈两国利益冲突的焦点:水资源短缺与用水不断增长的矛盾;水资源污染与生态环境保护;分水、用水不均及相关利益协调与补偿等。中方大规模水土开发、水利水电工程,特别是向南北疆跨流域调水将改变流域水资源的分配格局和利益分配模式。在国际合作层面,中哈石油合作对实现两国政治安全、经济安全、能源安全及区域安全等根本利益具有重大影响,伊河开发应服务于中哈能源合作,与中哈两国区域一体化战略保持一致。     

Misallocation and aggregate productivity across time and space

Productivity is at the core of the large differences in income per capita across countries. What accounts for international productivity differences? I discuss cross‐country differences in the allocation of inputs across heterogeneous production units—misallocation—as a potential factor in accounting for aggregate productivity. Policies and institutions generating misallocation are prevalent in poor and developing countries and may also be responsible for differences in the selection of operating producers and technology used, contributing substantially to aggregate productivity differences across countries.     

西江流域区域经济一体化发展战略研究

西江是南中国一条资源密集的"金腰带",是连接沿海发达地区和大西南的黄金水道.本文提出了构建西江经济产业带的初步设想,并对流域经济一体化战略进行了展望,最后提出了实现西江流域区域一体化发展的若干政策建议,包括建立西江流域管理局、建立西江流域区域经济一体化发展协作联席会议制度、建立水银行和推行虚拟水贸易战略等.     

黄河流域高质量发展:人地协调与空间协调

从经济地理学视角提出黄河流域高质量发展的两大关键问题:从人地关系视角研判人类活动与资源环境持续作用形成的共处关系;从空间异质视角审视流域不同区域的联系及其相应的空间协调状况。在黄河流域水资源短缺和生态先天脆弱的前提下,对地市级人类活动施压、资源环境承压及两者关系相对分级评价结果表明:新世纪以来黄河流域多数地区的人地关系类型保持不变,近1/5的地区趋于紧张;2017年高度紧张、轻度紧张的区域占21.18%,基本协调的区域占38.82%。从人地关系调控的客观条件看,黄河流域受到生态先天脆弱性与经济发展迫切需求的双重压力。经济发展的资源瓶颈与路径依赖问题对人地关系基本协调甚至相对宽松的地区形成挑战,居民生活水平提高诉求的实现将会进一步加重人类活动施压强度,使人地关系趋于紧张。研究建议,应深入把握不同类型地区的人地关系,进行针对性处理。黄河流域的城市空间联系特征映射了流域社会经济发展不平衡和流域空间结构的特殊性,应着力加强流域内部联系,迈向更高质量的区域合作。建议采用以大城市为中心面向周边的放射状开发开放新模式,以此驱动流域空间结构重塑与助推空间协调发展。     

论我国流域水资源管理的现状与发展趋势

本文在分析我国流域水资源概况的基础上,指出了目前我国流域水资源管理中存在的一些问题,如流域机构的权力缺乏、地方保护主义影响水资源统一管理、流域管理信息采集难度大、流域规划监督无力等。同时,指出了我国流域水资源管理的发展趋势：水资源管理的主导类型由供给型转向需求型,水资源管理手段由单一型向复合型转变,水资源管理的目标由工程目标向综合目标转变,水资源管理的模式由分割管理向流域管理转变。     

Mundell in 3D, synchronization of supply and demand shocks among sectors not countries, with application to CEECs

We follow recent Optimum Currency Area empirical literature and investigate the correlation of supply and demand shocks between the individual new EU member countries and the ‘EU-core’. Treating the whole economy as one sector this is a standard exercise based on Mundell’s original insight that monetary unification can be welfare improving if (among other things) two or more countries contemplating unification face similar economic disturbances. However, treating the economy of each country as a single sector precludes gaining further insights from the empirical exercise. For this purpose, we propose a novel methodology which treats the economy of each country as a collection of three distinct sectors. This allows us to go beyond the standard results usually presented in the form of international correlation of supply and demand shocks. The methodology combines two pieces of information about each sector in a given economy. The first is the international correlation of sector-specific supply and demand shocks. This information is valuable in itself from the economic policy perspective, as it identifies the most and least internationally synchronized sectors, that is, the sectors that are most and least likely to benefit from monetary unification. The second piece of information is the sector-specific weights used for aggregation across sectors in a given country. While interesting in itself, when combined with the first this piece of information points to sectors that are more and less responsible for the final result one obtains from the empirical exercise. The international correlation of supply and demand shocks is a result common to the standard methodology and our methodology, so the latter can also be seen as a robustness check of the former.     

长江流域的生态安全与对策研究

长江流域生态安全对中国可持续发展具有重要的战略意义。由于长江上游地区是水土流失的重灾区和主要的污染源,三峡工程的建设也使得长江流域上游地区生态环境的综合治理更显紧迫,因此维护长江流域生态安全的重点在于上游地区的综合治理,其关键是加大长江流域生态建设的投入。文章提出了要切实加强长江流域的统一管理,加强立法体系的建设,积极推进西部大开发战略和尽快建立绿色GDP核算体系等政策建议。     

Scoping river basin management issues with participatory modelling: The Baixo Guadiana experience

This paper details the design and implementation of a participatory modelling process in the Baixo Guadiana River Basin, in Portugal. A group of stakeholders was involved in a causal mapping exercise that lead to the development of a shared view of the problems, pressures and impacts characterizing the river basin. A simulation model was also developed to support experimentation with alternative management scenarios for the area. The paper looks critically at the evaluation of the participatory modelling outcomes, both at the individual and group levels, discussing the role of this approach in supporting the scoping stages of river basin planning and management processes. On the downside, the unstable group composition seems to have hindered the chances of producing a higher impact in the functioning of the group, and subsequently the capacity to sustain the level of collaboration required to achieve the strategic river basin objectives established during the participatory modelling process. The paper discusses the issue of group stability as well as some options to overcome the limitations of unstable participant groups. The strengths of participatory modelling, as underlined by the Baixo Guadiana experience, include the flexibility to adapt the method to different contexts and participatory designs and the capacity to structure the active involvement of stakeholders, providing an open and shared language for collaborative policy design, fostering learning and knowledge integration.     

Aggregate Fluctuations with National and International Returns to Scale*

Cyclical movements in aggregate output, factor inputs, and productivity are all positively correlated across countries. This article proposes a model in which positive cross‐country correlations of these variables result from increasing returns to the world‐wide variety of intermediate goods even if technology shocks are purely country‐specific. The model also accounts for the observed positive relationship between bilateral trade volume and international comovements. Positive comovements can also arise with constant returns to variety, but only if technology shocks are themselves strongly correlated. The combination of constant returns and common shocks, however, tends to generate procyclical fluctuations of the trade balance.     

Are virtual water “flows” in Spanish grain trade consistent with relative water scarcity?

Virtual water adds a new dimension to international trade, and brings along a new perspective about water scarcity and water resource management. Most virtual water literature has focused on quantifying virtual water “flows” and on its application to ensure water and food security. Nevertheless, the analysis of the potential gains from international trade, at least from a water resources perspective, needs to take into account both spatial and temporal variations of blue (groundwater and stream flow) and green (soil moisture) water, as well as the socioeconomic and policy conditions. This paper evaluates whether Spanish international trade with grains is consistent with relative water scarcity. For this purpose, the study estimates the volume and economic value of virtual water “flow” through international grain trade for the period 1997-2005, which includes 3 years with different rainfall levels. The calculations show that Spain is a net virtual water “importer” through international grain trade. The volume of net virtual water “imports” amounts to 3420, 4383 and 8415 million m³ in wet (1997), medium (1999) and dry (2005) years, respectively. Valuing blue water at its shadow price or scarcity value, blue water “exports” oscillate between 0.7 and 34.2 million Euros for a wet and dry year, respectively. Overall, grain trade is apparently consistent with relative water scarcity as net imports increase in dry years. However, the evolution of grain exports, expressed as a variation in quantity and volume, does not match the variations in resource scarcity. A disaggregated crop analysis reveals that there are other factors, such as quality, product specialization or the demand for a standardized product, which also influence trade decisions and are not included in the notion of virtual water. These facts, among others, can therefore create potential distortions in the application of virtual water to the analysis of specific trade patterns. Nevertheless, from a water resources perspective, virtual water can bring important insights across countries for improving water and land management globally, fostering adaptation strategies to climate change and to transboundary resource management.     

Ethiopia’s Challenge to Egyptian Hegemony in the Nile River Basin: The Case of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Home to more than 160 million people, the Nile River Basin has become one of the hotspots of the global quest for food, water and energy security. Moving closer to its completion, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) highlights the interplay between the food, water, and energy sectors and their implications on geopolitical power relations in the region. Despite Ethiopia having the highest volumetric contribution to the Nile river flow, Egypt has maintained hydro-hegemony over the basin for several decades on the basis of historical claims and colonial agreements. Egypt has stated that its volumetric share of the Nile’s water is not sufficient to sustain its growing population, declaring water availability a matter of national security. However, for Ethiopia, the GERD represents a crucial moment in its development agenda, acting as both a counterhegemonic power play, as well as a means to improving the hydropower capacity of the country, and ensuring future food security. This paper explores the various hegemonic and counter-hegemonic strategies employed by Egypt and Ethiopia respectively, highlighting the various ways in which food, water, and energy concerns are intrinsic components of the asymmetric power configurations of the Nile River Basin. By navigating the debate surrounding the GERD, this paper highlights the necessity of incorporating the food, water, and energy nexus into studies of hydro-hegemony and counter-hegemony. This allows the future policy direction for nexus management and governance in the Nile River Basin to move beyond benefit sharing, instead steering towards power sharing.