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Inefficient Efficiency: Crying Over Spilled Water, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Inefficient Efficiency: Crying Over Spilled Water, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
As the drought in Western states worsens, the agricultural sector is being criticized for failing to adopt technical responses, such as shifting to less water-demanding crops and state-of-the-art irrigation systems, in a timely manner. However, these responses can have the reverse effect: they can increase water consumption. Technological responses alone are insufficient to reduce water consumption if unaccompanied by changes in how the law defines and allocates water rights. This paper proposes a redefinition of water rights to ensure that changes in crops or irrigation techniques are socially efficient.
In the West, which uses the doctrine of prior appropriation to …
All Dried Out: How Responses To Drought Make Droughts Worse, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
All Dried Out: How Responses To Drought Make Droughts Worse, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
Water usage is governed through a variety of mechanisms, including government administration and market tools. In 2006-2008 Barcelona’s region, a water scarce area, suffered a drought comparable to the one faced today by the US West. This article surveys a variety of techniques which were or could have been used to address these scarcity challenges. Spanish water regulations established water markets in 1999 but neither the design, nor its implementation were optimal. In addition to the design and implementation flaws, the response to the 2006-2008 drought crisis shows how emergency measures highjack water markets as a viable solution to water …