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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 …