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The cost of addressing saline lake level decline and the potential for water conservation markets
Abstract and Figures
The world's saline lakes are shrinking and human water diversions are a significant contributor. While there is increased interest in protecting the ecosystem services provided by these lakes, the cost of protecting water levels has not been estimated. To explore this question we consider the case of Great Salt Lake (Utah, USA) where human diversions from three rivers have caused the lake level to decline during the last century. Recent work has suggested the restoration of inflows is necessary to maintain a target elevation consistent with well-functioning ecosystems. We construct cost estimates of increasing water inflows using conservation opportunity cost curves for each river basin. We then compare the cost of uniform cutbacks to cap-and-trade systems which allow intra- and inter-basin trading. The cost of water to permanently implement uniform water right cutbacks to increase inflows by 20% above current levels is $37.4 million. Costs and cost-savings are sensitive to alternative allocation, inflow, and cost assumptions, and we estimate significant cost reductions from intra-basin water conservation markets (5–54% cost decrease) and inter-basin water conservation markets (22–57% cost decrease).
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... Rather than increasing supply, it is almost always more cost effective and resilient to decrease demand 39,122,132 . This is a hydrological application of the principle of living within our means. ...
... achieve their goals ahead of schedule and under budget39,46,133 . For example, a recent analysis of water use in the Great Salt Lake watershed estimated that conservation could return adequate water to the lake for a total cost of $14 to $96 million-$5 to $32 per person in the watershed132 . The use of open water markets where users can freely buy and sell available water could decrease the conservation cost even further to $6 to $48 million-$2 to $16 per person39,132 . ...
... For example, a recent analysis of water use in the Great Salt Lake watershed estimated that conservation could return adequate water to the lake for a total cost of $14 to $96 million-$5 to $32 per person in the watershed132 . The use of open water markets where users can freely buy and sell available water could decrease the conservation cost even further to $6 to $48 million-$2 to $16 per person39,132 . Even if these estimates are overly optimistic by an order of magnitude, they blow augmentation proposals' return-on-investment out of the water 134 . ...
Great Salt Lake is facing unprecedented danger. Without a dramatic increase in water flow to the lake in 2023 and 2024, its disappearance could cause immense damage to Utah's public health, environment, and economy. This briefing provides background and recommends emergency measures. The choices we make over the next few months will affect our state and ecosystems throughout the West for decades to come. We thank all those already working on solutions, and we thank you for considering this information.
... The authors of Reference [4] present research on ecosystem services that, even without mentioning geodiversity by name, already addresses this topic. In these studies, the study areas are diverse, from administrative areas [7] to ecosystems [8,9], islands [10], hydrographic basins [11,12], and relief forms-valleys [13]. Research that directly addresses the ecosystem services provided by geodiversity also occurs in different contexts such as large territories [14,15], ecosystems [16], sedimentary basins [17], environmental preservation areas [18], and watersheds [19,20]. ...
... However, the geodiversity index map is insufficient to delimit a study area for research on ecosystem services. Several studies have used the watershed to delimit a study area to analyze ecosystem services [11,12,19,20]; this natural boundary is an important tool because it is a management unit, which facilitates communication with decisionmakers, besides being a region with similar physical characteristics. Moreover, adding other criteria that encompass land management and different land uses will contribute to the establishment of areas with greater possibility of diversity of ecosystem services. ...
... The use of natural boundaries to select an area of research on ecosystem services is recurrent, as in the case of hydrographic basins [11,12,19,20], relief units [13], sedimentary basins [17], and islands [10]. The watershed is an important criterion for the theme of ecosystem services, as it eases communication with land managers. ...
Ecosystem services are essential for life. Despite traditionally focusing on biodiversity, several studies have presented the ecosystem services provided by geodiversity. However, the choice of the study area is still a step that raises doubts for the researcher. Several elements of geodiversity must occur in the area so that different ecosystem services can be identified. Thus, the selection of the study area is a crucial step of the research. This work aims to determine the criteria for the selection of potential areas for the identification of ecosystem services by geodiversity in Baixada Santista, central coast of São Paulo, Brazil. The criteria established were (i) characterization of the physical environment based on the geodiversity index map and the watershed map and (ii) description of land use based on the characterization of land use and analysis of territorial planning instruments. As a result, the watershed with high levels of geodiversity and diversity of land uses was selected. The criterion was important, as it is an area already used in soil management and different land uses can provide a variety of ecosystem services. Thus, these criteria proved to be effective in the selection of areas for the evaluation of ecosystem services by geodiversity.
... Both Edwards et al. (2017) and Ko et al. (2004), used respectively in Edwards and Null (2019) and Ko et al. (2012), address the monetary value of the cost of water treatment. These methods were developed by the same collaborators of the articles analyzed; therefore, Edwards et al. (2017) and Ko et al. (2004) are studies to test the applicability of the developed methods. ...
... The methods found in ES valuation articles classified as own prioritize services that are associated with the enjoyment of society. In the case of Edwards and Null (2019), Ko et al. (2012), andWelle et al. (2017), the valuation is based on the forms of water treatment making it suitable for use, and Yang and Liu (2020) and Kovacs and West (2016) address the different uses of groundwater. A relationship with the area is observed when considering the use of a service, as the territorial dimension can interfere with the availability of benefits. ...
... Among the analyzed parameters, the use of water is the most prevalent. In the selected articles, the focus is given to quality, forms of treatment, and extraction of water for human consumption, in relation to both surface water and groundwater (Edwards and Null 2019;Yang and Liu 2020). The land use parameter is also frequent, because the elements of geodiversity are abiotic and constituent of the landscape, like the soil. ...
Ecosystems are maintained due to interactions between biotic and abiotic elements of nature, generating ecosystem services (ES), which are the goods and services enjoyed by society. The term ES has been used in relation to biodiversity; however, many services occur through the interaction between biotic and abiotic elements. Thus, this article aimed to verify how geodiversity was addressed in ES research, and also, to identify which monetary valuation methods can be used for geodiversity. To facilitate selection, essential geodiversity variables (EGV) were used to determine the keywords for the abiotic elements of nature. This study analyzed 468 articles, of which 226 regard abiotic elements. So, even when not nominally cited, geodiversity is hidden in traditional approaches in ES. Monetary valuation is an important tool to highlight the contributions of ES to society. Although there are not specific methods of monetary valuation of ES provided by geodiversity, this survey shows 16 articles already valuing the abiotic part of nature. These methods can be categorized into water, atmosphere, and other elements of geodiversity, and this categorization can help future methods be chosen that better suit research related to the monetary valuation of ecosystem services with a focus on geodiversity.
... GSL dry fluxes are not accounted for in any climate adaptation or mitigation plans and will continue to rise in coming years if GSL desiccation is not halted and/or reversed through mechanisms such as water conservation markets. 17,49 It is impossible to reliably upscale these calculations to estimate the global anthropogenic GHG impact of saline lake desiccation, given that our annual rates were sensitive to local climate conditions and the global surface area of exposed saline lake sediments due to anthropogenic consumptive water uses is unknown. It is, however, worth noting that saline lakes are not the only systems desiccating due to human actions. ...
... 53,54 As a result, research efforts are underway to identify the optimal pathways to restoring saline lakes around the world. 49,55 Our data indicate that GHG emissions from exposed sediments should be considered as an additional rationale for restoring saline lakes. Such dry fluxes are large enough to be relevant to urban, regional, and global levels of governance responsible for managing water resources and reducing societal GHG emissions, and they should be considered particularly important in regions facing declining water levels due to land and water management activities. ...
... [14][15][16][17]. Although early studies used economic theory and simulation methods to explore the potential of economic incentives to promote agricultural water conservation [18][19][20], there is a lack of spatially explicit method to thoroughly explore where it is more worthwhile to conserve. ...
Conserving agricultural water resources is crucial for sustainable development, yet, developing effective policies is challenging due to limited site-specific information. We present a framework combining economic models and remote-sensing data to spatially explicitly assess willingness-to-accept payments to irrigators and unit water-saving costs. Applied to three major tributary watersheds of the Great Salt Lake, this framework identifies areas with the highest conservation potential and cost-effectiveness. We find that an annual water conservation goal of 581 million m³, necessary to restore the lake within 30 years, can be met by fallowing irrigated alfalfa fields. With 95% certainty, this goal would be fully achieved with annual payments of US376 million under county-level payments, or at least 84% achieved with US$341 million under watershed-level payments. This framework can be applied to explore policy priorities and the economic viability of land-based natural resource protection, informing funding decisions and achieving conservation goals in various contexts.
... Global warming has encouraged a global quest to save inland water bodies, including rivers, lakes, coastal areas, and wetlands (Alvarado Espejo et al. 2021;Jia et al. 2022;Ong 2012;Piniewski et al. 2022;Stachowicz et al. 2022). This quest is vital in dry and semidry areas due to increased water demand and water loss caused by a high rate of evapotranspiration (ET) (Edwards and Null 2019;Micklin 2016;Parsinejad et al. 2022). Water deficiencies in these areas lead to problems with public health, civil conflicts, and cultural and economic issues (Gleick 1993;Petersen-Perlman et al. 2017). ...
Lake Urmia in the northwest of Iran is one of the largest vanishing lakes in the world. Several water-saving strategies have been implemented in the lake basin over the last decade, but they are not producing efficient results. This study employed a modified version of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), an agrohydrological model, to investigate the basin-scale effectiveness of some water-saving plans implemented at the farm scale. Data collected from 301 monitoring sites in the Lake Urmia basin were applied to the modified SWAT model. The modified SWAT model was used to estimate water balance components and was coupled with the Water Accounting Plus framework (WA+). Six discharge stations, crop yields, evapotranspiration, and groundwater level tables were calibrated and validated from 1987 to 2015 within the Zarrineh Rud Basin (ZRB), the most crucial subbasin in the Lake Urmia basin. Next, four individual water-saving plans-changes in irrigation management and developments in irrigation systems, changes in fertilizer type and regime, changes in the type and method of cultivation, and farm size and shape adjustments-as well as seven combinations of the water-saving plans, were applied to the agrohydrological model. The results reveal that assessing restoration plans for Lake Urmia without considering both farm and basin scales provides no reliable results. With changes in management and the development of irrigation systems, considerable differences in water withdrawal were observed. Developing irrigation systems leads to enhanced water consumption and evapotranspiration, which is expected to improve water yield and crop productivity. However, individual plans such as developments in irrigation systems cannot increase the inflow to Urmia Lake, and combined water-saving strategies can help restore the lake only to a limited extent, because the changes in inflow are not substantial.
... (2020) analyzed the effects of water development for Utah's Great Salt Lake level, salinity, and biology. Potential solutions to reduce consumptive water uses to stabilize Great Salt Lake level include water conservation projected to cost $14-96 million (Edwards and Null, 2019), water markets projected to cost $6-48 million, and a future water supply dam projected to cost $1.5 billion. With Wurtsbaugh et al. 2017), this research has been referenced by the Utah Legislature, forming the impetus for the state legislature to advance a 2022 $40 million Great Salt Lake restoration bill. ...
The goal of this project was to represent aquatic habitat with multiple environmental attributes to solve the problem of quantifying aquatic habitat in water resources system modeling for robust decision-making. Specific goals were to: 1) Test the accuracy and generality of publicly-available, large spatial scale environmental data to represent aquatic habitat with varying levels of complexity. 2) Quantify the robustness of aquatic habitat and hydro-economic tradeoffs in water resources systems models with uncertainty. 3) Expand public science literacy for water resources decision-making by integrating science with art.
... The economic effects of pollution are much more obvious, when the pollution has settled despite of the cost of pollution prevention which is relatively lower, generating a reduction in the value of production or consumption activities [21]. Costs and cost-savings are sensitive to alternative allocation, inflow, and cost assumptions [22]. In addition, global warming and changes in rainfall will have major consequences for salt lakes and other ecosystems [23,24]. ...
The present research brings an input of information regarding the evolution of several physico-chemical parameters of two salt lakes (Lake Ocnei and Lake Rotund), part of the ”Salina Turda” resort, Cluj County, Romania, by means of on-site determinations. Measurements were carried out at six depths for each sampling point. We attempted to describe the behaviors of the two lakes under different natural conditions, in order to identify the impact of anthropogenic activities on the quality parameters of the two lakes. Our studies showed that the qualitative parameters of the water fluctuate as an effect of anthropogenic activities. A comparative analysis of the results gathered during three monitoring campaigns in 2016, 2018, and 2020 indicated that water quality was affected by anthropogenic activities such as mixing water layers which were characterized by different salinity values. The lakes tended to lose basicity, pH values varying between 9 at the surface level and 7 at −4 m. The thermal stratification phenomenon was only evident in the first year of monitoring; later on, the waters of both lakes appeared thermally homogenous down to the depth of −2 m. It was determined that the lakes had an uppermost freshwater layer, which disappeared during the bathing season because of vertical mixing. Interestingly, the two lakes showcased different behaviors at depths beyond −3 m. In addition, the infiltration of meteoric water that was polluted with nitrites and nitrates demonstrated the fact that anthropogenic activities that take place in the vicinity of the lakes generate negative effects on water quality. The presence of the heliothermal phenomenon was confirmed by the measurements made in the upper segment of the lakes. This layer of water consists of a mixture of fresh and salt water. The purpose of the research was to evaluate the water quality of the lakes, monitor its evolution during the bathing season and update the situation regarding the water quality of the two salt lakes by testing specific parameters.
... Similar to acid pit lakes, saline pit lake rehabilitation strategies would focus on water quality improvement or minimization of pit outflows (Mehanna et al., 2010;Mouhamad et al., 2017;Nielsen, 2020). Natural saline lakes provide ecosystem services such as minerals, water, habitats, aquaculture, tourism, and recreational activities (Williams, 1996;Wurtsbaugh et al., 2017;Edwards and Null, 2019). Similar services may be found in saline pit lakes, although this may require changing public perception (Lopez and Blanchette, 2020;Rosa et al., 2020;Svobodova et al., 2021). ...
Pit lakes are one of the greatest legacies of open-cut mining. Despite the potential hazards of these lakes, they represent newly formed ecosystems with great scientific and ecological potential. Although thousands of pit lakes occur on every inhabited continent, with more being created, the microbial ecology of pit lakes is relatively under-researched. We evaluated the current state of microbial research in pit lakes by performing a Web of Science search and creating a literature database. Study lakes were categorized according to location and water quality (pH and conductivity) which is a key community and environmental concern. Research technology employed in the study was also categorized. We compared research effort in lakes, rivers, and streams which are the more “charismatic” inland aquatic ecosystems. Pit lake publications on microbes from 1987 to 2022 ( n = 128) were underrepresented in the literature relative to rivers and streams ( n = 321) and natural lakes ( n = 948). Of the 128 pit lake publications, 28 were within the field of geochemistry using indirect measures of microbial activity. Most pit lake microbial research was conducted in a few acidic lakes in Germany due to social pressure for remediation and government initiative. Relatively few studies have capitalized on emerging technology. Pit lake microbial research likely lags other more charismatic ecosystems given that they are viewed as performing “ecosystem disservices,” but this is socially complex and requires further research. Improving understanding of microbial dynamics in pit lakes will allow scientists to deliver safer pit lakes to communities.
... At least 861 dams greater than 1.8 m in height impede streamflow (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2018) with many more barriers from road crossings, diversion dams, and culverts (Kraft et al., 2019). With state-wide population projected to nearly double between 2015 and 2065 (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2016) and global climate change predicted to alter snowmelt hydrology (Adam et al., 2009;Ficklin et al., 2022), there is considerable pressure to continue developing and conserving Utah's freshwater resources (Bear River Development Act, 1991;Edwards & Null, 2019;Lake Powell Pipeline Development Act, 2006). ...
Generalizable methods that identify suitable aquatic habitat across large river basins and regions are needed to inform resource management. Habitat suitability models intersect environmental variables to predict species occurrence, but are often data intensive and thus are typically developed at small spatial scales. This study estimated mean monthly aquatic habitat suitability throughout Utah (USA) for Bonneville Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii utah) and Bluehead Sucker (Catostomus discobolus) with publicly available, geospatial datasets. We evaluated 15 habitat suitability models using unique combinations of percent of mean annual discharge, velocity, gradient, and stream temperature. Environmental variables were validated with observed conditions and species presence observations to verify habitat suitability estimates. Stream temperature, gradient, and discharge best predicted Bonneville Cutthroat Trout presence, and gradient and discharge best predicted Bluehead Sucker presence. Simple aquatic habitat suitability models outperformed models that used only streamflow to estimate habitat for both species, and are useful for conservation planning and water resources decision‐making. This modeling approach could enable resource managers to prioritize stream restoration across vast regions within their management domain, and is potentially compatible with water management modeling to improve ecological objectives in management models.
... Many species in danger, especially migratory birds adapted to use these sites for critical parts of their annual cycle. The mismanagement of these systems will likely lead to the further collapse of saline lakes across arid regions and the species dependent upon them for survival (Wurtsbaugh et al., 2017;Edwards and Null, 2019;Foroumandi et al., 2022). Saline lakes occur in many arid lands round the world (and are largely restricted to arid and semi-arid systems), and are essential for various migratory bird species, but with the shrinkage of lakes, and changing chemical properties due to agriculture in proximal regions, these changes have directly contributed to declining populations of many of migratory bird species (Senner et al., 2018;Naik and Sharma, 2022). ...
Biodiversity in arid-lands is very sensitive to some forms of perturbation and very slow to recover. • Arid-lands are vulnerable to agriculture such as grazing of cattle and irrigation, which need certification standards to ensure best practice and reduce impact. • Combined efforts of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and local communities are needed to adopt a socio-ecological approach. The strategic goals of the United Nations and the Aichi Targets for biodiversity conservation have not been met. Instead , biodiversity has continued to rapidly decrease, especially in developing countries. Setting a new global biodiversity framework requires clarifying future priorities and strategies to bridge challenges and provide representative solutions. Hyper-arid, arid, and semi-arid lands (herein, arid lands) form about one third of the Earth's terrestrial Science of the Total Environment 857 (2023) 159695 ⁎ Corresponding authors. surface. Arid lands contain unique biological and cultural diversity, and biodiversity loss in arid lands can have a disproportionate impact on these ecosystems due to low redundancy and a high risk of trophic cascades. They contain unique biological and cultural diversity and host many endemic species, including wild relatives of key crop plants. Yet extensive agriculture, unsustainable use, and global climate change are causing an irrecoverable damage to arid lands, with far-reaching consequences to the species, groundwater resources, ecosystem productivity, and ultimately the commu-nities' dependant on these systems. However, adequate research and effective policies to protect arid land biodiversity and sustainability are lacking because a large proportion of arid areas are in developing countries, and the unique diversity in these systems is frequently overlooked. Developing new priorities for global arid lands and mechanisms to prevent unsustainable development must become part of public discourse and form the basis for conservation efforts. The current situation demands the combined efforts of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and local communities to adopt a socio-ecological approach for achieving sustainable development (SDGs) in arid lands. Applying these initiatives globally is imperative to conserve arid lands biodiversity and the critical ecological services they provide for future generations. This perspective provides a framework for conserving biodiversity in arid lands for all stakeholders that will have a tangible impact on sustainable development, nature, and human well-being. Contents
... Many species in danger, especially migratory birds adapted to use these sites for critical parts of their annual cycle. The mismanagement of these systems will likely lead to the further collapse of saline lakes across arid regions and the species dependent upon them for survival (Wurtsbaugh et al., 2017;Edwards and Null, 2019;Foroumandi et al., 2022). Saline lakes occur in many arid lands round the world (and are largely restricted to arid and semi-arid systems), and are essential for various migratory bird species, but with the shrinkage of lakes, and changing chemical properties due to agriculture in proximal regions, these changes have directly contributed to declining populations of many of migratory bird species (Senner et al., 2018;Naik and Sharma, 2022). ...
The strategic goals of the United Nations and the Aichi Targets for biodiversity conservation have not been met. Instead, biodiversity has continued to rapidly decrease, especially in developing countries. Setting a new global biodiversity framework requires clarifying future priorities and strategies to bridge challenges and provide representative solutions. Hyper-arid, arid, and semi-arid lands (herein, arid lands) form about one third of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Arid lands contain unique biological and cultural diversity, and biodiversity loss in arid lands can have a disproportionate impact on these ecosystems due to low redundancy and a high risk of trophic cascades. They contain unique biological and cultural diversity and host many endemic species, including wild relatives of key crop plants. Yet extensive agriculture, unsustainable use, and global climate change are causing an irrecoverable damage to arid lands, with far-reaching consequences to the species, ground-water resources, ecosystem productivity, and ultimately the communities' dependant on these systems. However, adequate research and effective policies to protect arid land biodiversity and sustainability are lacking because a large proportion of arid areas are in developing countries, and the unique diversity in these systems is frequently overlooked. Developing new priorities for global arid lands and mechanisms to prevent unsustainable development must become part of public discourse and form the basis for conservation efforts. The current situation demands the combined efforts of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and local communities to adopt a socio-ecological approach for achieving sustainable development (SDGs) in arid lands. Applying these initiatives globally is imperative to conserve arid lands biodiversity and the critical ecological services they provide for future generations. This perspective provides a framework for conserving biodiversity in arid lands for all stakeholders that will have a tangible impact on sustainable development, nature, and human well-being.
... Cache Valley water banking could have provided an average of 2.2 percent, 4.3 percent, or 5.8 percent more streamflow per year for Conservative, Mid-level, or Optimistic water banking, respectively. Previous research has recommended 20 percent, 26 25 percent, 27 and 29 percent 28 more water to Great Salt Lake for a sustainable water level range most years. This implies that more widespread water banking would be required to sustain Great Salt Lake or that water banking could be one strategy among a portfolio of water management solutions for the lake. ...
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a treasured resource, yet dedicated flows have not been established to preserve the economic, ecological, and cultural values that the lake provides. Utah’s prior appropriation law allocates water rights based on time of first use, meaning agricultural water uses typically have senior rights. Utah’s Water Banking Act, which was adopted in 2020, presents an opportunity to reallocate some water to the environment within existing appropriative rights water law. Under the act, water users can create local water banks to temporarily lease water. Leased water can be used for various purposes, including environmental or agricultural uses. Water banking under the act allows right holders to lease some or all of their water and, crucially, protects banked water rights from forfeiture. Additionally, the water and money from leases remain in the local watershed. Water banking presents an opportunity to flexibly manage water and help preserve the dwindling Great Salt Lake. This analysis estimates the volume of water that could be delivered to Great Salt Lake and the lake’s water level based on wet-year water banking in
Utah’s Cache Valley.
... A sink landscape is a landscape type that contributes negatively to the development of the same ecological process and exhibits a sink function. Due to its flexibility, LWLI has been applied to (1) evaluating NPS pollution risk [42], (2) indicating species migration and protection [43,44], (3) determining water conservation function [45], (4) assessing soil erosion [46,47] and (5) identifying the urban heat island effect [37,48]. However, the above studies using LWLI have mainly applied it to source-landscape-dominated regions, but not to sink-dominated ones. ...
Understanding the influence of landscape patterns on the water quality of agricultural wetlands is critically important for their management and related decision-making. However, the question of how to quantify this objectively remains a challenge in the relevant scientific fields. In this study, the location-weighted landscape index (LWLI), a process-oriented indicator that integrates ecological processes with landscape patterns based on the source and sink theory, was modified into the SLWLI by assigning nutrient-based weights in the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site (HHRT). The results indicate that the five watersheds are dominated by sink landscapes, representing 64 percent of the total area. Rice terraced fields were a composite “source–sink” landscape, and their areas in the five watersheds ranged from 4.82% to 20.40%. The nutrient retention function of the sink landscapes of total nitrogen (TN) ranged from 0.64 to 0.86, whereas the total phosphorus (TP) ranged from 0.72 to 0.82, showing good retention function in regard to both nutrients. The contribution rates of forest land and rice terraces to TN and TP retention were greater than 47.07% and 17.07%, respectively, which indicates their key regulation of the nutrient retention function, reducing the risk of water eutrophication and leading to optimized conservation. The vertical pattern of the HHRT plays an important role in nutrient retention function. The SLWLI is an effective index that can be used to assess nutrient retention function and to identify sink landscapes for regulating water pollution in agricultural wetlands.
... In arid regions around the world, the increasing demand for water and sometimes global climate change have caused endorheic saline lakes to decline or nearly disappear (Wurtsbaugh et al., 2017). Such is the story of Mono Lake (USA), Walker Lake (USA), the Dead Sea (Jordan, Israel, and Palestine), the Great Salt Lake (USA), and the Aral Sea (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) (Edwards and Null, 2019;Elias et al., 2011;Elmore et al., 2016;Hart, 1996;HDR, 2020;Micklin, 2016;Rosenberg, 2011;White et al., 2015). In each case, lake declines caused human health, cultural, economic, and other problems. ...
Public concern over environmental issues such as ecosystem degradation is high. However, restoring coupled human-natural systems requires integration across many science, technology, engineering, management, and governance topics that are presently fragmented. Here, we synthesized 544 peer-reviewed articles published through September 2020 on the desiccation and nascent recovery of Lake Urmia in northwest Iran. We answered nine questions of scientific and popular interest about causes, impacts, stabilization, recovery, and next steps. We find: (1) Expansion of irrigated agriculture, dam construction, and mismanagement impacted the lake more than temperature increases and precipitation decreases. (2) Aerosols from Lake Urmia's exposed lakebed are negatively impacting human health. (3) Researchers disagree on how a new causeway breach will impact salinity, evaporation, and ecosystems in the lake's north and south arms. (4) Most researchers tried to restore to a single, uniform, government specified lake level of 1274.1 m intended to recover Artemia. (5) The Iranian government motivated and funded a large and growing body of lake research. (6) Ecological and limnological studies mostly focused on salinity, Artemia, and Flamingos. (7) Few studies shared data, and only three studies reported engagement with stakeholders or managers. (8) Researchers focused on an integration pathway of climate downscaling, reservoirs, agricultural water releases, and lake level. (9) Numerous suggestions to improve farmer livelihoods and governance require implementation. We see an overarching next step for lake recovery is to couple human and natural system components. Examples include: (a) describe and monitor the system food webs, hydrologic, and human components; (b) adapt management to monitored conditions such as lake level, lake evaporation, lake salinity, and migratory bird populations; (c) improve livelihoods for poor, chronically stressed farmers beyond agriculture; (d) manage for diverse ecosystem services and lake levels; (e) engage all segments of society; (f) integrate across restoration topics while building capacity to share data, models, and code; and (g) cultivate longer-term two-way exchanges and public support. These restoration steps apply in different degrees to other Iranian ecosystems and lakes worldwide.
... Therefore, the response of lakes to hydrological and meteorological variables has been addressed previously in many studies (e.g. Herche and Hartmann 1992, LaValle et al. 2000, Aksoy et al. 2013, Ghorbani et al. 2017, 2018, Keskin et al. 2017, Bonakdari et al. 2019, Edwards and Null 2019. Despite a vast literature on the case of Lake Urmia, however, there is no consensus regarding the decline of its water level. ...
This study develops a set of models to investigate water budget of Lake Urmia in Iran, a permanent hypersaline lake that suffers a decline on water level since late 1990s. The models are in the form of the regressive-stochastic type that are composed of the combination of multi-linear regression and autoregressive integrated moving average stochastic models. The multi-linear regression models were used to construct the core of the relationship between the lake water level; and streamflow, precipitation, evaporation, and groundwater depths. Afterward, stochastic models were used to generate data for each independent variable to estimate the oscillation in the lake water depth. Several criteria were used to compare the performance of the models on the aggregated and disaggregated cases with which the pre- and post-encroachment periods are considered, respectively. The regressive-stochastic models are found competitive in comparison with the existing models developed so far for Lake Urmia water level.
... The Bear River's average annual yield of 1,100 Mm 3 supplies approximately 60% of the inflow to the iconic Great Salt Lake. The river also supports extensive wetlands that provide critical avian habitat (Downard and Endter-Wada 2013;Downard et al. 2014;Wurtsbaugh et al. 2016;Edwards and Null 2019). Upstream of these wetlands, the Bear River supports 194,000 acres (78,509 hectares) of irrigated agriculture in Cache Valley and Box Elder County (U.S. ...
Research Impact Statement: Hydro-social investigation of the potential water security impacts and tradeoffs of reallocation through water banking in an arid region of a highly industrialized country. ABSTRACT: Reallocation is often promoted as a response to water security dilemmas in the western United States. Water banking is a form of reallocation utilized in several states to facilitate temporary water rights transfers. This article frames and examines water banking's potential influences on water security from a hydro-social perspective through a case analysis of water banking policy in Utah. It analyzes the challenges of integrating the market-based economic incentives of water banks with the legal precedents of the prior appropriation doctrine to reallocate water in overappropriated basins with hydrologically interdependent uses. Key-informant interviews and focus groups were used to examine water security's meaning to stakeholders and analyze how water banking could affect the water security of disparate users and uses at multiple scales. Stakehold-ers predominately saw water security as assurance in water quantity, but water security was further equated by participants with the legal protections afforded by water rights. Multiple complexities in water bank implementation are to be expected when multiscalar contexts are considered, including societal and hydrologic trade-offs in settings with diverse and interconnected interests. Our research shows that examining the potential ramifications of water banking policy through stakeholder perspectives can reveal nuanced insights on individual and collective water security issues not only within Utah but other arid regions in general.
... At these and other locations, restoration efforts may restore fisheries, improve biodiversity, reduce or mitigate dust, reduce salinity, conserve islands and lakeshore, improve recreational access, and conserve brine shrimp (Table A.1 in the Appendix and references within). Actions to achieve these objectives-such as inter-basin transfers, water conservation, diking, and dust mitigation-can cost billions of dollars (Edwards and Null, 2019; Great Salt Lake Advisory Council, S.L.C., 2019; White et al., 2015). ...
Study Region
Lake Urmia, Iran.
Study focus
There is widespread interest in restoring drying saline lakes. At Iran’s hypersaline Lake Urmia, managers have sought a uniform target lake level of 1274.1 m above sea level to lower salinity below 263 g L⁻¹ and recover Artemia to sufficient densities to support flamingos. We suggest that addressing a broader range of objectives will allow more flexibility for managing the lake. We define eight restoration objectives to lower salinity, sustain Artemia and flamingo populations, separate islands from each other and the mainland, reduce lakebed dust, maintain commercially valuable ions, and improve recreational access from resort beaches. We use 40 years of experimental, field, satellite, and model data to relate each objective to lake level. We describe variations through time and associated uncertainties for meeting each objective.
New hydrological insights
We show that:1) Lake variations prevent setting a precise target restoration level; 2) The current target may not sufficiently lower salinity to recover Artemia to sufficient densities to support flamingos; 3) Restoration objectives do not converge to a single lake level; tradeoffs are murky; 4) Lake Urmia managers should focus on multiple ecosystem services and track how they are met as lake level varies over time; and 5) As information about the lake improves, managers should adapt their management strategies to meet the most attainable objectives.
... Water use far exceeds that of other arid regions in the world (Fig. 11). Permanently implementing water cutbacks to urban and agricultural water users could cost between $14 -96 million ($5 to $32 per person), depending on upper and lower cost estimates (Edwards and Null, 2019). However, with a water conservation market between water users and watersheds, costs drop substantially to $6 -48 million ($2 to $16 per person). ...
Utah's Great Salt Lake covers 5500 km 2 (2100 mi 2) at its unimpacted elevation and is the eighth largest saline lake in the world. Its highly productive food web supports millions of migratory birds and the economic value of the lake is estimate at 14-96 million (32 per person). Water conservation paired with water markets reduce costs further, costing between 16 per person. Descriptions of potential solutions to reduce consumptive water uses and stabilize Great Salt lake level are a starting point to encourage discussion. Strategies have yet to be prioritized or thoroughly evaluated. Quantifying water diversions from rivers that feed Great Salt Lake and consumptive water uses will allow Utahns to make de-fensible decisions to manage water resources and the lake's biology for long term ecological, recreational, and economic benefit.
... Some of the conducted studies assessed the impacts of the cap-andtrade policy on surface water and groundwater resources, which is widely considered as one of the putative solutions for sustainable use of limited resources (Edwards and Null, 2019;Gonzales and Ajami, 2019;Gonzales et al., 2017;Grafton and Wheeler, 2018;Khan and Brown, 2019;Smajgl et al., 2009;Thompson et al., 2009). The main idea of this policy is to put a restriction on the extraction of limited resources or pollutants emission and facilitate the trades of permits. ...
Cap-and-trade policy is generally considered an effective instrument in groundwater markets since it can facilitate environmental protection and sustainable groundwater use. While this policy is implemented in several aquifers all over the world, there is a limited understanding of its social impacts, like how compliance and noncompliance behaviors may emerge. This study presents an agent-based groundwater model to evaluate the effects of monitoring and enforcement levels on farmers' social behaviors, namely boldness and vengefulness. The social, economic, and hydrologic impacts of implementing the cap-and-trade policy in the Rafsanjan Plain, located in Iran, are assessed. To this end, the groundwater market model is evaluated under different monitoring and enforcement scenarios. Results show that the efficacy of the cap-and-trade policy in groundwater markets substantially depends on the monitoring level and enforcement power. The appropriate monitoring and enforcement settings can lead to the emergence of a social norm that is enough to discourage violation and can bring about a functioning market in which the farmers can be better off economically, and the annual drawdown can become less severe. Furthermore, water buyback programs can increase market competition, compliance level, and farmers' profits. This study specifically demonstrates that as a result of the implementation of the cap-and-trade policy, social norms emerge that affect the whole system, from farmer agents to the efficacy of the policy. While this study concentrated on the application of the cap-and-trade policy in groundwater management, the results can provide a foundation for specifying frameworks of the cap-and-trade policy for managing other limited resources or greenhouse gasses emission.
... In many regions, concerns have grown over the impacts of climate change, increased nutrient inputs, and salinization on aquatic ecosystems (Lind et al., 2018). For the GSL, regional increases in human population, urban and agricultural effluent, and fresh water diversion, as well as global climate change, will increase lake salinity, nutrient levels, and temperatures and contribute to declining lake levels (Cook et al., 2015;Wurtsbaugh et al., 2016;Edwards & Null, 2019), likely surpassing typical ranges that occur in the GSL (Barrett & Belovsky, 2020). The results from our study highlight the impact that these changes may have on microbialite primary producers and the need for increased study of benthic communities in inland saline lakes. ...
Microbialites are microbial communities that create a carbonate structure. They are abundant in the Great Salt Lake, a hypersaline lake in the arid Great Basin of the USA, where they contribute to overall primary production, seasonally up to 55%. While the microbial diversity of microbialites has been investigated, how abiotic factors affect the abundance of their primary constituents is not well understood. We examined how microbialite primary producers respond to varying levels of temperature, salinity, and nitrogen within ranges observed in the Great Salt Lake. All abiotic factors and their interactions significantly affected the maximum chlorophyll-a abundance, suggesting that these factors co-limit microbialite primary producers in the Great Salt Lake. Maximum chlorophyll-a concentrations increased with nitrogen additions and showed a parabolic relationship with salinity and temperature with peaks around 60 ppt and 20°C, respectively. While salinity had a strong effect on microbialite primary producers, we found that temperature and nitrogen were more impactful, accounting for 40 and 30% of the variance in maximum abundance, respectively, while salinity contributed just 15%. Our results show the importance of the interplay of abiotic factors on Great Salt Lake microbialites and highlight the need for increased study of benthic communities in inland saline lakes.
... Water transfer projects (Shumilova et al., 2018) could also be used to avert negative water balance in inland waters. Edwards and Null (2019) suggest water conservation markets as a possible solution to address the desiccation of the Great Salt Lake. Taking California's Mono Lake as an example of a conservation success story, the effort involved sustained and organized commitment by a conservation organization, freedom of expression, a judicial process that assigned value to the continued existence of the lake, and action on the part of government (Williams, 2002). ...
Abstract Lakes—quintessential features of Earth's surface prized from perspectives of water security, aquatic ecosystems, and recreation alike—are shrinking in water‐limited regions of all of Earth's inhabited continents. Here we assessed Landsat‐derived long‐term decrease in global lake area relative to historical lake extent aiming to determine the role of recent Anthropocene levels of irrigated agriculture in the global phenomenon of lake desiccation. As of 2015, 11% (1.8 · 105km2) of global lake area has already been lost, primarily due to increased water consumption in support of irrigated agriculture in endorheic basins within water‐limited regions. However, current levels of irrigated agriculture portend substantial additional shrinkage of global lakes before reaching new equilibria with present‐day inflows, with an additional 60–130% increase in endorheic lake loss anticipated. The time required for shrinking lakes to attain new equilibria ranges from decades to centuries depending on lake hyposometry. Even a small decrease in lake area can portend lake transition from exorheic to endorheic and dramatic reductions in water quality. Thus, lake area changes severely understate the perilous condition of global lakes. The watershed area contributing to shrinking (endorheic and exorheic) lakes accounts for 18% of Earth's land area, far too large for the irrigated agriculture therein to be transferred elsewhere in order to save these lakes, though continued developments in the efficiency of water consumption in agriculture and urban areas can save significant quantities of water. This suggests that global lake shrinkage may be a harbinger signaling mankind having exceeded Earth's sustainable carrying capacity.
... In many cases, discriminating between climate impacts and water development [2,12,18,42] will only be understood with more thorough analyses than those attempted by [1]. Managers must be aware of this issue and support thorough water balance analyses, and then take the appropriate actions to preserve these ecosystems [43]. We support the recommendation of [44] that: "Aquatic ecosystems may be most effectively managed in the context of global climate change if both the more pressing anthropogenic threats [of water development] and the occurrence of extreme events are considered and incorporated into management plans." ...
A recent article reviewed data on Great Salt Lake (Utah) and concluded falsely that climate changes, especially local warming and extreme precipitation events, are primarily responsible for lake elevation changes. Indeed climatically influenced variation of net inflows contribute to huge swings in the elevation of Great Salt Lake (GSL) and other endorheic lakes. Although droughts and wet cycles have caused lake elevation changes of over 4.5 m, they have not caused a significant long-term change in the GSL stage. This recent article also suggests that a 1.4 • C rise in air temperature and concomitant increase in the lake's evaporative loss is an important reason for the lake's decline. However, we calculate that a 1.4 • C rise may have caused only a 0.1 m decrease in lake level. However, since 1847, the lake has declined 3.6 m and the lake area has decreased by ≈50%, despite no significant change in precipitation (p = 0.52) and a slight increase, albeit insignificant, in river flows above irrigation diversions (p = 0.085). In contrast, persistent water extraction for agriculture and other uses beginning in 1847 now decrease water flows below diversions by 39%. Estimates of consumptive water use primarily for irrigated agriculture in the GSL watershed suggest that approximately 85% (2500 km 2) of the reduced lake area can be attributed to human water consumption. The recent article's failure to calculate a water budget for the lake that included extensive water withdrawals misled the author to focus instead on climate change as a causal factor for the decline. Stable stream flows in GSL's headwaters, inadequate temperature increase to explain the extent of its observed desiccation, stable long-term precipitation, and the magnitude of increased water consumption from GSL together demonstrate conclusively that climatic factors are secondary to human alterations to GSL and its watershed. Climatization, in which primarily non-climatic processes are falsely attributed to climatic factors, is a threat to the credibility of hydrological science. Despite a recent suggestion to the contrary, pressure to support Earth's rising human population-in the form of increasing consumption of water in water-limited regions, primarily to support irrigated agriculture-remains the leading driver of desiccation of inland waters within Earth's water-limited regions.
... In many cases, discriminating between climate impacts and water development [2,12,18,42] will only be understood with more thorough analyses than those attempted by [1]. Managers must be aware of this issue and support thorough water balance analyses, and then take the appropriate actions to preserve these ecosystems [43]. We support the recommendation of [44] that: "Aquatic ecosystems may be most effectively managed in the context of global climate change if both the more pressing anthropogenic threats [of water development] and the occurrence of extreme events are considered and incorporated into management plans." ...
Meng (2019) reviewed data on Great Salt Lake (Utah) and concluded falsely that climate changes, especially local warming and extreme precipitation events are primarily responsible for the elevation changes in this, and other saline lakes worldwide. Meng is correct that climatically influenced variation of net inflows contribute to huge swings in the elevation of Great Salt Lake (GSL) and other endorheic lakes. Although droughts and wet cycles have caused lake elevation changes of over 4.5 m, they have not caused a significant long-term change in GSL stage. Meng also suggests that a 1.4°C rise in air temperature and concomitant increase in the lake's evaporative loss is an important reason for the lake's decline. Although Meng provided no quantitative explanation for this, we calculate that a 1.4°C rise may have caused only a 0.1 m decrease in lake level. However, since 1847 the lake has declined 3.6 m and lake area has decreased by ~50%, despite there being no significant change in precipitation (p = 0.52) and a slight increase, albeit insignificant, in river flows above irrigation diversions (p = 0.085). In contrast, persistent water extraction for agriculture and other uses beginning in 1847 now decreases water flows below diversions by 39%. Estimates of consumptive water use primarily for irrigated agriculture in the GSL watershed suggest that approximately 85% (2500 km 2) of the reduced lake area can be attributed to human water consumption. Meng's failure to calculate a water budget for the lake that included extensive water withdrawals misled him to focus instead on climate change as a causal factor for the decline. Stable stream flows in GSL's headwaters, inadequate temperature increase to explain the extent of its observed desiccation, stable long-term precipitation, and the magnitude of increased water consumption from GSL-together demonstrate conclusively that climatic factors are secondary to human alterations to GSL and its watershed. Climatization, in which primarily non-climatic processes are falsely attributed to climatic factors, is a threat to the credibility of hydrological science. Despite a recent suggestion to the contrary, pressure to support Earth's rising human population-in the form of increasing consumption of water in water-limited regions, primarily to support irrigated agriculture-remains the leading driver of desiccation of inland waters within Earth's water-limited regions.
... Team Geographos' hope that the State of Utah's Great Salt Lake may someday become a paying Salton Sea PLUS-SWAP customer [45]! ...
p> Abstract: Two tractable New World west-coast Mediterranean climate zones, burdened with increasing urbanized populations, must each be transformed by humans because of inherent North-South variances of natural precipitation. In other words, each politically-defined landscapes must technically devise its own anthropogenic dimension for future prosperity induced by the prospect of a plentiful freshwater supply. Both the nation of Chile, as well as the State of California (USA), have investigated the hypothetical use of gigantic offshore buoyant freshwater pipelines to serve their coastal and inland population’s needs. This report is meant to inspire and engage the next generation of Macro-Imagineering experts.
Key words: S ubmarine pipeline, freshwater transport, Chile, State of California, geographical similarities.
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Duas zonas de clima Mediterrâneo na costa oeste do Novo Mundo, sobrecarregadas com o aumento das populações urbanizadas, devem ser transformadas por seres humanos devido às variações inerentes de precipitação natural entre o Norte e o Sul. Em outras palavras, cada cenário politicamente definido deve tecnicamente conceber sua própria dimensão antropogênica para a prosperidade futura, induzida pela perspectiva de um suprimento abundante de água doce. Tanto o Chile como o Estado da Califórnia (EUA) investigaram o uso hipotético de dutos de água doce flutuantes ( offshore ) gigantescos para atender às necessidades de suas populações costeiras e interiores. Este relatório tem como objetivo inspirar e engajar a próxima geração de especialistas em Macro-Imagineering .
Palavras-chave: Aqueduto submarino, transporte de água doce, Chile, Estado da Califórnia, semelhanças geográficas.</p
... Team Geographos' hope that the State of Utah's Great Salt Lake may someday become a paying Salton Sea PLUS-SWAP customer [45]! ...
p>The macroproject proposed, encompassing the arid Southwest of the USA and northern Mexico, has the potential to more than pay for itself. If a radical volumetric enlargement were competently completed by correctly educated advocates of Macro-Imagineering, supplemented by geothermal power-plants, it could make benign an over-polluted aquatic “monster” — the present-day stagnant and putrid Salton Sea — through induced importation of diluting Gulf of California saltwater resulting in rapid areal increase of the inanimate “creature”, converting it from its presently degraded smelly status to an amply beneficial condition as an anthropogenic extension of Mexico’s Gulf of California! Formation by Macro-Engineering means of a sustainable human development around and thereon can result in profitable voluminous desalinated seawater exportation from the State ofCaliforniato adjacentArizona,Nevadaand nearbyUtahas well asMexicobordering theUSA’s Southwest. The key infrastructure permitting these developments is a centralized multi-segment photovoltaic-powered desalination factory resting atop named Introduction floating artificial islands covering most of a deliberately enlarged and robotized Salton Sea. A particular macroproject proposed, the Southwest Water Alliance Project (SWAP), is fashioned somewhat after NEOM, an announced ecopolis, but still structurally unspecified robot megacity, scheduled to be built in northern Saudi Arabia connected by a yet-to-be-constructed fixed sea-strait crossing linking Tabuk, Saudi Arabia to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula of bordering Egypt.
Key words: Seawater desalination, floating photovoltaic platforms, arid Southwest USA and Mexico development, Macro-Imagineering, Macro-Engineering.
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O macroprojeto proposto, abrangendo o árido sudoeste dos EUA e norte do México, tem potencial para mais do que pagar por si mesmo. Se um aumento volumétrico radical fosse conduzido por defensores competentes da Macro-Imagineering, suplementado por usinas de energia geotérmica, seria possível tornar benigno um "monstro" aquático extremamente poluído — o atual e estagnado Mar de Salton — por meio de importações induzidas de água salgada diluente do Golfo da Califórnia, resultando em um rápido aumento de área da "criatura" inanimada, resgatando-a de seu estado atual degradado como uma extensão antropogênica do Golfo da Califórnia! Por meio da Macroengenharia é possível conduzir um desenvolvimento humano sustentável e lucrativo capaz de garantir uma expressiva exportação de água do mar dessalinizada do estado da Califórnia para os adjacentes Arizona, Nevada e Utah, além do México na fronteira com o sudoeste dos EUA. A principal infraestrutura que permite esse desenvolvimento é uma fábrica centralizada para dessalinização multissegmento baseada em energia fotovoltaica, formada por ilhas artificiais flutuantes que cobririam a maior parte do Mar de Salton em um sistema ampliado e robotizado. Em particular, um macroprojeto semelhante proposto é o Southwest Water Alliance Project (SWAP) — criado um pouco depois do NEOM —, uma ecópolis anunciada, megacidade robótica estruturalmente ainda não especificada, programada para ser construída no norte da Arábia Saudita, conectada por uma passagem estreita ligando Tabuk, na Arábia Saudita, a Sharm el-Sheikh, na Península do Sinai (fronteira com o Egito).
Palavras-chave: Dessalinização da água do mar, plataformas fotovoltaicas flutuantes, desenvolvimento do sudoeste dos EUA e do México, Macroengenharia.
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... Team Geographos' hope that the State of Utah's Great Salt Lake may someday become a paying Salton Sea PLUS-SWAP customer [45]! ...
p>Based mainly on the Fourier Law valid for parallel material layer temperature gradients, a massive floating seawater desalination macro-project almost entirely covering the Golfo de Cariaco, NE Venezuela, is proposed. The purpose of the geographically-scalable unsinkable Fountain-Barge Desalination Factory (FBDF) formed chiefly of composite metal foam is bulk freshwater production then to be utilized domestically for commercial crop irrigation and urban population maintenance and increase. Brine reject from the huge FBDF could allow 21st Century development of a commercial aquaculture industry during a potential local encompassing region BSw Koppen Climatic Classification change as well as adjacent southern Caribbean Sea changes [1].
Key words: Freshwater production, aquaculture industry, solar thermal-powered desalination fountain-barge.
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Com fundamento na Lei de Fourier, válida para gradientes de temperatura em camadas paralelas de material, propõe-se um macroprojeto flutuante de dessalinização da água do mar cobrindo quase inteiramente o Golfo de Cariaco, NE Venezuela. O objetivo da Fountain-Barge Desalination Factory (FBDF), geograficamente escalável e formada principalmente de espuma de metal compósito, é a produção de água doce para ser utilizada em residências, em irrigação comercial e demais aplicações da população urbana. A rejeição de salmoura da grande FBDF poderia permitir o desenvolvimento, no século XXI, de uma indústria de aquacultura coetânea à potencial transformação da região de BSw Koppen, assim como às mudanças adjacentes no sul do Caribe [1].
Palavras-chave: Dessalinização da água do mar, indústria de aquacultura, barcaça-fonte termosolar.</p
Aquatic habitat suitability models are increasingly coupled with water management models to estimate environmental effects of water management. Many types of habitat models exist, but there are no standard methods to compare predictive performance of habitat model types for use with water management models. In this study, we compared three common aquatic habitat model types: a hydraulic-habitat model, a habitat threshold model, and a geospatial model. Each of the models predicted native Bonneville Cutthroat Trout distribution in the Bear River Watershed (Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, USA) at a monthly timestep. We compared the differences in predictive performance among models by validating 1) environmental predictors of the models with field observations from summer 2022, using the coefficient of determination (R 2), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) index, and percent bias (PBIAS) and 2) habitat suitability estimates generated by each model with fish presence data and three accuracy metrics developed for this study. Validation of environmental predictors revealed observed conditions were not well represented by any of the three models-a function of either outdated, incorrect, or over-generalized input data. Validation of habitat suitability predictions using Bonneville Cutthroat Trout presence data showed the habitat threshold model most accurately classified fish presence observations in suitable habitat, but suitable habitat was likely overpredicted. While more precise habitat modeling methods may be useful to support generalized habitat estimates for native fish, overall, simple models, like the habitat threshold model, are promising for incorporating ecological objectives into water management models.
Download link: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1k7fM15DJ-DHcX
This study investigates the dynamics of daily Urmia Lake level (ULL) changes using spectral analysis tools to discover fluctuating patterns in the ULL series. Therefore, in the present research, the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), variational mode decomposition (VMD), empirical wavelet transform (EWT), and empirical Fourier decomposition (EFD) were used to analyze the ULL signal. ULL series were decomposed into subseries, and the optimized outcome was used. All methods concluded that the ULL series has a steep downward trend. Signal reconstruction was performed, and it was inferred that EFD could not estimate the ULL series appropriately and had root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 12.26. Different from EFD, other methods performed better signal construction according to RMSE and error analysis. The mode-mixing issue was the last step in verifying the capabilities of signal-analyzing methods. Based on the power spectral density (PSD), it was seen that EMDs had mode-mixing problems and limitations in signal decomposition, whereas VMD and EWT did not have these issues. Results demonstrated that the present study has some limitations. Overall, it was concluded that VMD performed better in terms of RMSE, error analysis, reconstruction, mode-mixing problems, and PSD analysis while decomposing and extracting features from the ULL signal.
Terminal lakes throughout the American West provide important amenity and environmental values, but many are shrinking due to reduced inflows and warming temperatures. In California's Imperial Valley, agricultural water use reductions diminish inflows supporting the Salton Sea, a terminal desert lake and important environmental amenity for both the region and the state as a whole. The costs of these reduced inflows are difficult to monetize yet complicate management decisions. We assess the costs of potential future drought‐induced transfers by linking novel hydrologic scenarios to an economic framework for quantifying local and regional damages based on existing estimates of non‐market environmental values from the literature. The costs of lost wetland ecosystems, increases in particulate matter from exposed playa, and other local disamenities are substantial. For the scenarios considered, they range between approximately 1 billion in present value (2019 USD). Estimated damages per acre‐foot (or thousand m3) of reallocated water exceed several thousand dollars. The majority arise from loss of wetland habitat; incremental particulate matter damages are relatively modest in our modeling but exacerbate salient air quality issues in the region. Interest in reallocating water from Imperial Valley, the largest user of Colorado River water, to other applications will increase over time. Our work highlights the importance of evaluating the impacts of such efforts.
Great Salt Lake (GSL) is a hypersaline terminal lake and has varied historically in salinity from 6 to 28%. Because the lake’s salinity is much greater than in marine environments (~3.5%), salinity is often assumed to be the driving factor for GSL benthic and pelagic food webs. Certainly, many species cannot live in a hypersaline environment (e.g., fish), and the diversity of species capable of coping with hypersaline conditions is limited. However, the GSL’s benthic and pelagic food webs are adapted to these extreme saline conditions, and their dynamics (primary and secondary production, species abundances, etc.) respond in a complex fashion to the interplay of salinity, temperature, and nutrient availability. Therefore, focusing solely on salinity is not appropriate. In this chapter, we first explore historically how GSL food webs have been reported to change and found salinity to have limited impact. We next demonstrate that in recent years (1994–2018) GSL food webs varied far less with salinity than might be expected, even though salinity varied by 8.2–17.5%, because temperatures and nutrient availability covaried with salinity and showed more impacts than salinity alone. Finally, we employ the observations on the interplay of salinity, temperature, and nutrients to project how future climatic changes in the GSL watershed will affect primary producers and consumers and impact GSL food webs. These future climatic changes will have profound effects on GSL food web dynamics.
Great Salt Lake (GSL) covers 5500 km² (2100 mi²) at its unimpacted elevation and is the eighth largest saline lake in the world. Its highly productive food web supports millions of migratory birds and the economic value of the lake is estimated at 14–96 million (2 and $16 per person. Descriptions of potential solutions to reduce consumptive water uses and stabilize GSL level are a starting point to encourage discussion. Strategies have yet to be prioritized or thoroughly evaluated. Quantifying water diversions from rivers that feed GSL and consumptive water uses will allow Utahns to make defensible decisions to manage water resources and the lake’s biology for long-term ecological, recreational, and economic benefit.
Evaporation exceeds precipitation/run-off over the Mediterranean Sea Basin. Nature replaces all of this evaporation by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, Black Sea and Red Sea. If the Strait of Gibraltar were dammed, as Herman Soergel planned as early as 1929, the loss to the Earth's atmosphere will result in lowering the Mediterranean Sea artificially by 1. 65 m/year. Lowering the Mediterranean Sea by 100 m would cause the rest of the world ocean to rise by approximately 67 cm if glacial melting is ignored.
The rapid shrinkage of Lake Urmia, one of the world's largest saline lakes located in northwestern Iran, is a tragic wake-up call to revisit the principles of water resources management based on the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The overarching goal of this paper is to set a framework for deriving dynamic, climate-informed environmental inflows for drying lakes considering both meteorological/climatic and anthropogenic conditions. We report on the compounding effects of meteorological drought and unsustainable water resource management that contributed to Lake Urmia's contemporary environmental catastrophe. Using rich datasets of hydrologic attributes, water demands and withdrawals, as well as water management infrastructure (i.e. reservoir capacity and operating policies), we provide a quantitative assessment of the basin's water resources, demonstrating that Lake Urmia reached a tipping point in the early 2000s. The lake level failed to rebound to its designated ecological threshold (1274 m above sea level) during a relatively normal hydro-period immediately after the drought of record (1998-2002). The collapse was caused by a marked overshoot of the basin's hydrologic capacity due to growing anthropogenic drought in the face of extreme climatological stressors. We offer a dynamic environmental inflow plan for different climate conditions (dry, wet and near normal), combined with three representative water withdrawal scenarios. Assuming effective implementation of the proposed 40% reduction in the current water withdrawals, the required environmental inflows range from 2900 million cubic meters per year (mcm yr⁻¹) during dry conditions to 5400 mcm yr⁻¹ during wet periods with the average being 4100 mcm yr⁻¹. Finally, for different environmental inflow scenarios, we estimate the expected recovery time for re-establishing the ecological level of Lake Urmia.
Water utilities are increasingly relying on water efficiency and conservation to extend the availability of supplies. Despite spatial and institutional inter-dependency of many utilities, these demand-side management initiatives have traditionally been tackled by individual utilities operating in isolation. In this study, we introduce a policy framework for water conservation credits that enables collaboration at the regional scale. Under the proposed approach, utilities have the flexibility to invest in water conservation measures that are appropriate for their specific service area. When utilities have insufficient capacity for local cost-effective measures, they may opt to purchase credits, contributing to fund subsidies for utilities that do have that capacity and can provide the credits, while the region as a whole benefits from more reliable water supplies. This work aims to provide insights on the potential impacts of a water conservation credit policy framework when utilities are given the option to collaborate in their efforts. We model utility decisions as rational cost-minimizing actors subject to different decision-making dynamics and water demand scenarios, and demonstrate the institutional characteristics needed for the proposed policy to be effective. We apply this model to a counterfactual case study of water utility members of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency in California during the drought period of June 2015 to May 2016. Our scenario analysis indicates that, when the institutional structure and incentives are appropriately defined, water agencies can achieve economic benefits from collaborating in their conservation efforts, especially if they coordinate more closely in their decision-making.
Across the western US, growing populations and urbanization along with environmental demands and a changing climate have strained water allocation mechanisms originally designed to provide water to agriculture. This paper provides a methodology, using Utah as an example, for examining the options for new water supply via conservation, interpretable by policymakers, water agencies, and water users. Findings indicate that the largest potential water savings, at the lowest cost, are in agriculture and outdoor residential water use, where more efficient applications can maintain the acreage of crops and lawns at current levels while dramatically reducing use.
Lakes are key components of biogeochemical and ecological processes, thus knowledge about their distribution, volume and residence time is crucial in understanding their properties and interactions within the Earth system. However, global information is scarce and inconsistent across spatial scales and regions. Here we develop a geo-statistical model to estimate the volume of global lakes with a surface area of at least 10 ha based on the surrounding terrain information. Our spatially resolved database shows 1.42 million individual polygons of natural lakes with a total surface area of 2.67 × 10⁶ km² (1.8% of global land area), a total shoreline length of 7.2 × 10⁶ km (about four times longer than the world's ocean coastline) and a total volume of 181.9 × 10³ km³ (0.8% of total global non-frozen terrestrial water stocks). We also compute mean and median hydraulic residence times for all lakes to be 1,834 days and 456 days, respectively.
The Aral Sea in 1960 was a huge brackish water lake (4th in the world in surface area) lying amidst the deserts of Central Asia. The sea supported a major fishery and functioned as a key regional transportation route. Since 1960, the Aral has undergone rapid desiccation and salinization, overwhelmingly the result of unsustainable expansion of irrigation that dried up its two tributary rivers the Amu Darya and Syr Darya and severely damaged their deltas. The desiccation of the Aral Sea has had severe negative impacts, including, among others, the demise of commercial fishing, devastation of the floral and faunal biodiversity of the native ecosystems of the Syr and Amu deltas, and increased frequency and strength of salt/dust storms. However, efforts have been and are being made to partially restore the sea’s hydrology along with its biodiversity, and economic value. The northern part of the Aral has been separated from the southern part by a dike and dam, leading to a level rise and lower salinity. This allowed native fishes to return from the rivers and revitalized the fishing industry. Partial preservation of the Western Basin of the southern Aral Sea may be possible, but these plans need much further environmental and economic analysis. This paper, mainly utilizing hydrologic and other data as input to spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel)-based hydrologic and salinity models, examines the current efforts to restore the Aral and looks at several future scenarios of the Sea. It also delineates the most important lessons of the Aral Sea’s drying.
Managing terminal lake elevation and salinity are emerging problems worldwide. We contribute to terminal lake management research by quantitatively assessing water and salt flow for Utah's Great Salt Lake. In 1959, Union Pacific Railroad constructed a rock-filled causeway across the Great Salt Lake, separating the lake into a north and south arm. Flow between the two arms was limited to two 4.6 meter wide rectangular culverts installed during construction, an 88 meter opening (referred to locally as a breach) installed in 1984, and the semi porous material of the causeway. A salinity gradient developed between the two arms of the lake over time because the south arm receives approximately 95% of the incoming streamflow entering Great Salt Lake. The north arm is often at, or near, salinity saturation, averaging 317 g/L since 1966, while the south is considerably less saline, averaging 142 g/L since 1966. Ecological and industrial uses of the lake are dependent on long-term salinity remaining within physiological and economic thresholds, although optimal salinity varies for the ecosystem and between diverse stakeholders. In 2013, Union Pacific Railroad closed causeway culverts amid structural safety concerns and proposed to replace them with a bridge, offering four different bridge designs. As of summer 2015, no bridge design has been decided upon. We investigated the effect that each of the proposed bridge designs would have on north and south arm Great Salt Lake elevation and salinity by updating and applying US Geological Survey's Great Salt Lake Fortran Model. Overall, we found that salinity is sensitive to bridge size and depth, with larger designs increasing salinity in the south arm and decreasing salinity in the north arm. This research illustrates that flow modifications within terminal lakes cannot be separated from lake salinity, ecology, management, and economic uses.
This article tells the epic tale of the fall and rise of Mono Lake—the strange and beautiful Dead Sea of California—which fostered some of the most important environmental law developments of the last century, and which has become a platform for some of the most potentially important developments in the new century. It shares the backstory and legacy of the California Supreme Court’s famous decision in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, 658 P.2d 709 (Cal. 1983), known more widely as “the Mono Lake case.” Inspired by innovative legal scholarship and advocacy, the decision spawned a quiet legal revolution in public trust ideals, which has redounded to other states and even nations as far distant as India.
The Mono Lake dispute pitted advocates for the local ecosystem and community against proponents of the continued export of Mono Basin water to millions of thirsty Californians hundreds of miles to the south. The controversy itself spanned decades, but the story leading up to the litigation stretches back more than a hundred years, adding depth and dimension to the tale that is easily missed on a casual reading of the Audubon Society decision itself. It is a case study on the challenges and possibilities for balancing legitimate needs for public infrastructure and economic development with competing environmental values, all within systems of law that are still evolving to manage these conflicts. And at this particular moment in time, commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct that would threaten the lake and the twentieth anniversary of the State Water Board’s ultimate decision to save it, the Mono Lake story is especially worth revisiting.
Part II introduces the main cast of characters in the Mono Lake story, starting with the public trust and prior appropriations doctrines around which the legal controversy unfolds. Part III introduces the three places at the center of the drama—Los Angeles, the Owens Valley, and the Mono Lake Basin—in recounting the history of the Californian water struggles leading up to the Mono Lake case. Part IV discusses the Audubon Society litigation itself and its aftermath, reviewing the court’s conclusion and the subsequent decision by the California Water Resources Control Board implementing the judicial directive. After analyzing the most important doctrinal developments in the opinion, it discusses subsequent critiques and new developments in public trust law.
Part V concludes with parting reflections about important questions that the Mono Lake story leaves us to ponder, including whose interests count when we talk about the “public” trust, how they differ from aggregated private interests, and which to account for when balancing the economic, cultural, and environmental considerations in public trust conflicts. It considers the extent to which the doctrine creates substantive or procedural obligations, and the responsibilities of different legal actors and institutions in implementing them. The contested answers to these questions are what make the public trust doctrine so fascinating, so powerful, and so critical as we continue to confront the inevitable crises between competing natural resource values.
With growing water demand for cities and irrigation, periods of low inflow increasingly lead to “operative” droughts when supply is insufficient to meet all consumptive and environmental water demands. This chapter focuses on water markets as a mechanism for sharing scarce water in drought. The institutional arrangements in the Australian Murray Darling Basin (MDB) that have allowed emergence of what is arguably the world’s most active water market are outlined. The evidence, consistent with economic theory, confirming significant economic benefits from water trade during the recent Murray Darling Basin drought is presented. The yet unresolved challenges arising from increased efficiency of water use in response to water market incentives eroding environmental flow are discussed. The conclusions outline institutional design principles from Australian experience for realizing efficiency benefits and avoiding adverse environmental impacts when introducing water trade.
Great Salt Lake (Utah, USA) is one of the world's largest hypersaline lakes, supporting many of the western U.S.'s migratory waterbirds. This unique ecosystem is threatened, but it and other large hypersaline lakes are not well understood. The ecosystem consists of two weakly linked food webs: one phytoplankton-based, the other organic particle/benthic algae-based. Seventeen years of data on the phytoplankton-based food web are presented: abundances of nutrients (N and P), phytoplankton (Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyta, Cyanophyta), brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana), corixids (Trichocorixa verticalis), and Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis). Abundances of less common species, as well as brine fly larvae (Ephydra cinerea and hians) from the organic particle/benthic algae-based food web are also presented. Abiotic parameters were monitored: lake elevation, temperature, salinity, PAR, light penetration, and DO. We use these data to test hypotheses about the phytoplankton-based food web and its weak linkage with the organic particle/benthic algae-based food web via structural equation modeling. Counter to common perceptions, the phytoplankton-based food web is not limited by high salinity, but principally through phytoplankton production, which is limited by N and grazing by brine shrimp. Annual N abundance is highly variable and depends on lake volume, complex mixing given thermo-and chemo-clines, and recycling by brine shrimp. Brine shrimp are food-limited, and predation by corixids and Eared Grebes does not depress their numbers. Eared Grebe numbers appear to be limited by brine shrimp abundance. Finally, there is little interaction of brine fly larvae with brine shrimp through competition, or with corixids or grebes through predation, indicating that the lake's two food webs are weakly connected. Results are used to examine some general concepts regarding food web structure and dynamics, as well as the lake's future given expected anthropogenic impacts.
The Great Salt Lake is a closed basin lake in which level and volume fluctuate due to differences between inflows and outflows. The only outflow is evaporation, which depends directly on lake area and salinity, both of which depend on lake volume. The lake's level, volume, and area adjust to balance, on average, precipitation and streamflow inflows by evaporation. In this paper, we examine the sensitivity of lake volume changes to precipitation, streamflow, and evaporation and the interactions among these processes and lake area and salinity related to volume. A mass balance model is developed to generate representative realizations of future lake level from climate and streamflow inputs simulated using the k-nearest-neighbor method. Climate and salinity are used to estimate evaporation from the lake using a Penman model adjusted for the salinity-dependent saturation vapor pressure. Our results show that fluctuation in streamflow is the dominant factor in lake level fluctuations, but fluctuations in lake area that modulate evaporation and precipitation directly on the lake are also important. The results also quantify the sensitivity of lake level to changes in streamflow and air temperature inputs. They predict that a 25% decrease in streamflow would reduce lake level by about 66 cm (2.2 feet), while a +4°C air temperature increase would reduce lake level by about 34 cm (1.1 feet) on average. This sensitivity is important in evaluating the impacts of climate change or streamflow change due to increased consumptive water use on the level of the lake.
Water markets in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) and the US west are compared in terms of their ability to allocate scarce water resources. The study finds that the gains from trade in the MDB are worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Total market turnover in water rights exceeds 4.3 billion (2008 $) spent or committed by urban buyers between 1987 and 2008. The two-market comparison suggests that policy attention should be directed towards ways to promote water trade while simultaneously mitigating the legitimate third party concerns about how and where water is used, especially conflicts between consumptive and in situ uses of water. The study finds that institutional innovation is feasible in both countries and that further understanding about the size, duration, and distribution of third-party effects from water trade, and how these effects might be regulated, can improve water markets to better manage water scarcity.
Since the 1970s, supply augmentation strategies to meet water needs have waned, and governments have increasingly focused on demand management measures, including voluntary water transfers. Water demands have also changed as expanding urban growth, changes in agriculture, and increasing concern for the environment compete for water. Water rights regimes based on queuing principles lead to an inefficient allocation of water resources and may also result in other inefficiencies, such as overuse of land and inadequate adoption of capital-intensive conservation technologies. Water trading based on transferable water rights has been advanced as a solution to these problems. Trading helps equalize the marginal prices faced by various water users, thereby providing information about the value of water in alternative uses and creating compatible incentives. Putting water markets into practice introduces real-world complications of transaction costs and third-party externalities. We present these complications along with some major criticisms of water markets, and actual cases of water trading are discussed. We conclude with avenues of potential future research.
Satellite imagery has greatly influenced our understanding of dust activity on a global scale. A number of different satellites such as NASAs Earth-Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and Sea-viewing Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) acquire daily global-scale data used to produce imagery for monitoring dust storm formation and movement. This global-scale imagery has documented the frequent transmission of dust storm-derived soils through Earths atmosphere and the magnitude of many of these events. While various research projects have been undertaken to understand this normal planetary process, little has been done to address its impact on ocean and human health. This review will address the ability of dust storms to influence marine microbial population densities and transport of soil-associated toxins and pathogenic microorganisms to marine environments. The implications of dust on ocean and human health in this emerging scientific field will be discussed.
Climate change, water supply limits, and continued population growth have intensified the search for measures to conserve water in irrigated agriculture, the world's largest water user. Policy measures that encourage adoption of water-conserving irrigation technologies are widely believed to make more water available for cities and the environment. However, little integrated analysis has been conducted to test this hypothesis. This article presents results of an integrated basin-scale analysis linking biophysical, hydrologic, agronomic, economic, policy, and institutional dimensions of the Upper Rio Grande Basin of North America. It analyzes a series of water conservation policies for their effect on water used in irrigation and on water conserved. In contrast to widely-held beliefs, our results show that water conservation subsidies are unlikely to reduce water use under conditions that occur in many river basins. Adoption of more efficient irrigation technologies reduces valuable return flows and limits aquifer recharge. Policies aimed at reducing water applications can actually increase water depletions. Achieving real water savings requires designing institutional, technical, and accounting measures that accurately track and economically reward reduced water depletions. Conservation programs that target reduced water diversions or applications provide no guarantee of saving water.
• agriculture
• sustainability
• institutions
• hydrology
Rising urban and environmental demand for water has created growing pressure to re-allocate water from traditional agricultural uses. Water markets are powerful institutions for facilitating this re-allocation, yet the evolution of water markets has been more complicated than those for other resources. In this paper, we set the context for water marketing with an overview of western water law that highlights unique aspects of water law that affect how or whether a water market can develop. Second, we present new, comprehensive data on the extent, nature, and timing of water transfers across 12 western states from 1987-2005. We describe the methodology and decision rules used to collect water transfer information. Third, we identify water market trends and movements to provide a greater understanding of the institutional structure and the mechanisms by which water is transferred in the American West.
Many of the world's saline lakes are shrinking at alarming rates, reducing waterbird habitat and economic benefits while threatening human health. Saline lakes are long-term basin-wide integrators of climatic conditions that shrink and grow with natural climatic variation. In contrast, water withdrawals for human use exert a sustained reduction in lake inflows and levels. Quantifying the relative contributions of natural variability and human impacts to lake inflows is needed to preserve these lakes. With a credible water balance, causes of lake decline from water diversions or climate variability can be identified and the inflow needed to maintain lake health can be defined. Without a water balance, natural variability can be an excuse for inaction. Here we describe the decline of several of the world's large saline lakes and use a water balance for Great Salt Lake (USA) to demonstrate that consumptive water use rather than long-term climate change has greatly reduced its size. The inflow needed to maintain bird habitat, support lake-related industries and prevent dust storms that threaten human health and agriculture can be identified and provides the information to evaluate the difficult tradeoffs between direct benefits of consumptive water use and ecosystem services provided by saline lakes.
Since its historic low elevation of 4191.35 feet in 1963, the lake rose to a new historic high elevation of 4211.85 feet in 1986. The rise has caused $285 million of damage to lakeside industries, transportation, farming, and wildlife. Accompanying the rapid rise in lake level has been a decrease in salinity - from 28 percent in 1963 to about 6 percent in 1986. This has resulted in changes in the biota of the lake from obligate halophiles to opportunistic forms, such as blue-green algae and, most recently, a brackish-water fish. -from Authors
Pressure is increasing to reallocate water from agriculture to the environment. This article examines the performance of a
federal program in Nevada's Lahontan Valley under which water rights are purchased from willing sellers for environmental
restoration. Based on a data set combining information on growers' personal and financial characteristics with physical characteristics
of their farms, a model is estimated that explains who sells their water rights to the government. Results indicate that personal
characteristics, especially short-term financial constraints, have a powerful influence on the sales decision. This finding
suggests that the environmental agencies may wish to more actively target growers operating on poor quality soils or on the
periphery of irrigation projects to attain a more efficient outcome.
[1] Water year indices and drought indices are helpful for categorizing water years into similar types, allowing water managers and policymakers to quantify years, visualize variability, and guide water operations. Many water management decisions, such as environmental flow requirements and water supply allocations, are based on water year type designations. They vary by region and index, but are defined by runoff in the current water year compared to average historical runoff, with numerical thresholds categorizing year types. California's Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley Indices are used as case studies to examine how climate change affects indices. Modeled streamflow for 1951–2099 from the climate-forced Variable Infiltration Capacity hydrologic model estimate potential changes in runoff and water year type frequency. We show that the frequency of water year types changes significantly with climate change and different strategies to adapt water year classification indices to climate change affect water allocations as much as the impacts from changing hydroclimatic conditions.
Obtaining water for environmental purposes, such as habitat restoration or water quality improvements, has become an important objective in many parts of the world. Such water acquisitions are likely to become more challenging as regional water demand and supply patterns are altered by climate change. In regions where water supplies are already fully claimed, voluntary negotiated transactions have become a key means to obtain water for the environment. The cost of acquiring water in such transactions is hypothesized to vary with regional weather and climate conditions due to both the actual effects of temperature and precipitation on water supply and demand and the perceptions water users may hold about these effects.
This article develops econometric models to examine the effect of temperature and precipitation on water lease prices in four U.S. states located in the desert southwest. Water leases for environmental and nonenvironmental purposes are contrasted to understand the differing nature of these lease markets and the role of weather and climate variables. The authors’ analysis finds that temperature, precipitation, regional income, and population changes are variables that have differing effects in the two lease markets. Overall, analysis of over 20 yr of data shows the need to consider climate and weather factors given the growing importance of water leases as a tool to secure water for the environment.
Market purchases of water rights for environmental purposes in the western United States have involved purchases by public agencies of at least 88 850 acre feet of water over the last five years. Annual water leasing for environmental purposes has been more active, with 1.72 million acre feet leased in the western United States. The most frequent reasons for these transactions are for wildlife (primarily waterfowl), recreation and fisheries. The average price paid for a water right is 30 per acre foot for an annual water lease. As evidenced by the ability of government agencies to purchase water in voluntary transactions, environmental uses of water are often competitive with many low-value agricultural crops in the western United States.
Salt lakes are geographically widespread, numerous and a significant part of the world's inland aquatic ecosystems. They are important natural assets with considerable aesthetic, cultural, economic, recreational, scientific, conservation and ecological values. Some features, notably the composition of the biota, uniquely distinguish them from other aquatic ecosystems. The paper reviews the nature of environmental impacts and their effects upon salt lakes. Its aims are two-fold: to draw attention to the extensive damage that salt lakes have now undergone, and to indicate the likely status of salt lakes in 2025. Salt lakes develop as the termini of inland drainage basins where hydrological inputs and outputs are balanced. These conditions occur in arid and semi-arid regions (approximately one-third of total world land area). Many human activities threaten or have already impacted salt lakes, especially surface inflow diversions, salinization and other catchment activities, mining, pollution, biological disturbances (e.g. introduction of exotic species), and anthropogenically-induced climatic and atmospheric changes. The effects of such activities are always adverse and include changes to the natural character of salt lakes, loss of biodiversity and fundamental limnological changes. The effects are geographically widespread, mostly irreversible, and degrade the values of salt lakes. Four salt lakes are discussed, namely the Aral Sea in central Asia, Mono Lake in California, USA, and Lake Eyre and Lake Cantara South, in Australia. By 2025, most natural salt lakes will have undergone some adverse change. Many permanent ones will have decreased in size and increased in salinity, and many unnatural saline water-bodies will have appeared. In certain regions, many seasonally-filled salt lakes are likely to be drier for longer periods. The extent to which episodically-filled salt lakes will change by 2025 will largely depend upon the nature of climate change in arid regions. Objective cost/benefit analyses of adversely affecting salt lakes are rare, and international bodies have not properly recognized salt lakes as important inland aquatic ecosystems. To redress this situation, there is a need to raise awareness of: (1) the values of salt lakes, (2) the nature of threats and impacts from human activities, and (3) their special management requirements. More effective management and conservation measures need to be implemented. Mono Lake provides an example of what can be achieved in the conservation of salt lakes. Its conservation was largely brought about by (1) the commitment of a non-governmental organization which recognized its non-economic values, (2) the freedom to express views, (3) a legal system which took account of non-economic values, and (4) a legislature which implemented judicial findings. The conservation of Mono Lake was difficult; the conservation of other salt lakes is likely to be even more difficult. Only international pressure from appropriate organizations will be effective for the conservation of many.
Groundwater pumping can reduce the flow of surface water in nearby streams. In the United States, recent awareness of this externality has led to intra- and inter-state conflict and rapidly-changing water management policies and institutions. Although the marginal damage of groundwater use on stream flows depends crucially on the location of pumping relative to streams, current regulations are generally uniform over space. We use a population data set of irrigation wells in the Nebraska portion of the Republican River Basin to analyze whether adopting spatially differentiated groundwater pumping regulations leads to significant reductions in farmer abatement costs and costs from damage to streams. We find that regulators can generate most of the potential savings in total social costs without accounting for spatial heterogeneity. However, if regulators need to increase the protection of streams significantly from current levels, spatially differentiated policies will yield sizable cost savings.
The Aral Sea is a huge terminal lake located among the deserts of Central Asia. Over the past 10 millennia, it has repeatedly filled and dried, owing both to natural and human forces. The most recent des-iccation started in the early 1960s and owes overwhelmingly to the expansion of irrigation that has drained its two tributary rivers. Lake level has fallen 23 m, area shrunk 74%, volume decreased 90%, and salinity grew from 10 to more than 100g/l, causing negative ecolog-ical changes, including decimation of native fish species, initiation of dust/salt storms, degradation of deltaic biotic communities, and climate change around the former shoreline. The population resid-ing around the lake has also been negatively impacted. There is little hope in the foreseeable future to fully restore the Aral Sea, but mea-sures to preserve/rehabilitate parts of the water body and the deltas are feasible.
Common-property Arrangements and Scarce Resources: Water in the American West
- E Barbanell
Barbanell, E., 2001. Common-property Arrangements and Scarce Resources: Water in the
American West. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Conn.
Design and implementation of markets for groundwater pumping rights. Water Markets for the 21st Century
- N Brozović
- R Young
Brozović, N., Young, R., 2014. Design and implementation of markets for groundwater
pumping rights. Water Markets for the 21st Century. Springer, Dordrecht,
pp. 283-303.
Water rights for Great Salt Lake: is it the impossible dream? Utah Water Law. CLE International
- S E Clyde
Clyde, S.E., 2016. Water rights for Great Salt Lake: is it the impossible dream? Utah Water
Law. CLE International, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp. 1-29. http://www.clydesnow.com/
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Utah division of forestry, fire & state lands
- DNR
DNR, 2013. Utah division of forestry, fire & state lands. Final Comprehensive GSL Management Plan http://www.forestry.utah.gov/index.php/state-lands/great-salt-lake/
great-salt-lake-plans, Accessed date: 6 July 2017.
A Performance Audit of Projections of Utah's Water Needs
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Water Needs. Available at. https://water.utah.gov/1AuditProjectionsUtahWater%
20Needs.pdf.
Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District: 2016 Owens Valley Planning Area PM10 State Implementation Plan
- Ramboll Environ
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Valley Planning Area PM10 State Implementation Plan. http://go.nature.com/
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Paleolimnological analysis of the history of metals contamination in the Great Salt Lake
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Wurtsbaugh, W.A., 2012. Paleolimnological analysis of the history of metals contamination in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA. Final Report to the Utah Division of Water Quality, Salt Lake City, Utah (44 p.). http://www.deq.utah.gov/locations/G/greatsaltlake/
strategy/paleolimnological.htm.
Design and implementation of markets for groundwater pumping rights
- Brozović
Comparative assessment of water markets: insights from the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia and the Western USA
- Grafton
Water rights for Great Salt Lake: is it the impossible dream?
- Clyde
Principles for economically efficient and environmentally sustainable water markets: the Australian experience
- Connor
Paleolimnological analysis of the history of metals contamination in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA
- Wurtsbaugh