BOOK
Drying Wells, Rising Stakes Towards Sustainable Agricultural Groundwater Use
(2016)
Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
Groundwater has provided great benefits to agriculture irrigation in semi-arid OECD countries, but its intensive use beyond recharge in certain regions has depleted resources and generated significant negative environmental externalities. The report provides a characterisation of the diversity of groundwater systems, reviews policies in OECD countries, and proposes a package of recommendations to ensure that groundwater can sustain its services to agriculture and contribute to climate change adaptation.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| Table of contents | 5 | ||
| Executive summary | 9 | ||
| Chapter 1. The worrisome trends in groundwater irrigation expansion | 11 | ||
| Key messages | 12 | ||
| The increasing significance and challenges of groundwater irrigation | 13 | ||
| Groundwater irrigation expansion: A silent revolution | 13 | ||
| Leading to increasing pressures in areas of intensive irrigation | 14 | ||
| Identifying policy solutions to address the growing and diverse challenges of groundwater resource management in agriculture in OECD countries | 15 | ||
| Groundwater use in agriculture accounts for over half of OECD countries’ total groundwater withdrawals, with large differences across countries | 16 | ||
| The challenges of collecting information on an “invisible” resource | 16 | ||
| Agriculture groundwater use in OECD countries: From non-users to major irrigators | 18 | ||
| From groundwater use to groundwater stress | 24 | ||
| Expected effects of climate change: Increased reliance on groundwater, reduced recharge and increased salinity | 28 | ||
| Notes | 31 | ||
| References | 33 | ||
| Annex 1.A1. Agricultural activities supported by groundwater in OECD countries | 39 | ||
| Groundwater use for livestock and aquaculture | 39 | ||
| Groundwater use for irrigated crops | 39 | ||
| Annex 1.A2.Groundwater use: 2010 estimates and national trends in other OECD countries | 40 | ||
| Annex 1.A3. Explanatory note on Margat and Van der Gun (2013) data | 42 | ||
| Estimating values of annual groundwater abstraction (year 2010) | 42 | ||
| Estimating the break-down of annual groundwater abstraction (year 2010) | 43 | ||
| Chapter 2. Understanding agricultural groundwater systems and challenges | 45 | ||
| Key messages | 46 | ||
| A need to move beyond the wide heterogeneity in agricultural groundwater systems | 47 | ||
| Characterising agriculture groundwater systems in OECD countries | 48 | ||
| Existing aquifer typologies | 48 | ||
| Main criteria of importance for OECD agriculture | 52 | ||
| Proposed characterisation | 54 | ||
| Key implications of groundwater use in agriculture | 55 | ||
| Extraction cost externalities | 57 | ||
| Environmental externalities | 58 | ||
| Stream depletion (surface water-groundwater interaction) | 58 | ||
| Groundwater salinity | 60 | ||
| Land subsidence | 61 | ||
| Agricultural irrigation effects on groundwater recharge | 63 | ||
| Notes | 63 | ||
| References | 65 | ||
| Annex 2.A1. Existing typologies on groundwater and irrigation systems | 69 | ||
| Chapter 3. What policy instruments help to manage agricultural groundwater use sustainably? | 73 | ||
| Key messages | 74 | ||
| Looking for efficient and effective management solutions | 75 | ||
| Scope for public action: Managing long-term depletion and externalities | 75 | ||
| Choice of policy instruments: A wide range of options | 77 | ||
| What factors count in the choice of instruments? | 79 | ||
| A simplified economic model to develop key intuitions | 79 | ||
| Adjusting agricultural groundwater use to limit overall aquifer depletion | 80 | ||
| Dynamic management to control aquifer depletion or stream depletion | 81 | ||
| Demand-side policy instruments to manage groundwater use | 82 | ||
| Regulatory instruments: Pumping entitlements, quotas and zoning | 83 | ||
| Economic instruments: Redressing farmers’ incentives | 83 | ||
| Pricing: The efficiency-acceptability trade-off of taxes and subsidies | 84 | ||
| Groundwater markets: Cost effective but involves transaction costs | 85 | ||
| Indirect control: Irrigation entitlements retirements is a conservation tool whose cost depends on targeting | 86 | ||
| Collective management approaches: Locally adapted but reliant on stakeholder participation | 87 | ||
| Other related conditions for effective groundwater management: Enforcement and policy alignment | 87 | ||
| Monitoring and enforcement: A key necessary condition for functional policy frameworks | 87 | ||
| Interaction with other policies: Aligning energy and agriculture policies | 88 | ||
| Supply-side approaches: Relieving the constraints for users, at a cost | 89 | ||
| Synthesizing lessons from the economics literature: A call for adaptive management policies | 90 | ||
| Notes | 91 | ||
| References | 94 | ||
| Annex 3.A1. Analytical model | 99 | ||
| Case 1: Static model | 99 | ||
| Case 2: Simple dynamic model | 100 | ||
| Annex 3.A2. Case study: Choice of policy instruments for groundwater management | 103 | ||
| Results | 105 | ||
| Chapter 4. What agricultural groundwater policies exist in OECD countries? | 107 | ||
| Key messages | 108 | ||
| An analysis based on findings from a 2014 OECD survey on groundwater management approaches | 109 | ||
| A wide spectrum of agricultural groundwater management approaches | 111 | ||
| Demand-side management approaches: Shared core approaches, diverse instruments | 111 | ||
| Different legal status and entitlement characteristics stemming mostly from legal traditions | 111 | ||
| Widely used management plans and groundwater regulations, often operating at the sub-national level, face enforcement challenges | 114 | ||
| A growing interest in economic approaches, especially market mechanisms | 120 | ||
| Partial use of collective management approaches, covering a mixes set of schemes and drivers | 123 | ||
| Supply-side approaches: An increasing interest in storage options | 125 | ||
| Other sectorial policies affecting groundwater use | 127 | ||
| Few countries tax or subsidise electricity | 127 | ||
| Half of respondents apply land policies with implications on groundwater use | 128 | ||
| Several watershed conservation programs indirectly affect groundwater use | 129 | ||
| A growing set of climate change adaptation plans, some drought insurance programs | 129 | ||
| Farm support policies generally not biased towards water intensive crops | 130 | ||
| Are policy instruments corresponding to specific groundwater characteristics? Findings from a regional analysis | 130 | ||
| Notes | 135 | ||
| References | 137 | ||
| Annex 4.A1. Deriving regional indicators of groundwater characteristics and management | 145 | ||
| Annex 4.A2. Results of the regional indicator analysis | 149 | ||
| Chapter 5. Towards adaptive groundwater management in agriculture | 153 | ||
| Key messages | 154 | ||
| Drawing recommendations from successes, failures, and lessons learned | 155 | ||
| Limited reporting evidence, but multiple lessons from the literature | 155 | ||
| Conditions for an effective groundwater management | 155 | ||
| Proposed policy package for sustainable management: A “tripod” combination | 157 | ||
| Are these recommendations used in current policy frameworks of OECD countries? | 161 | ||
| An increasing need for a more sustainable management of groundwater resources to face a changing climate | 162 | ||
| Notes | 166 | ||
| References | 167 | ||
| Glossary | 171 |