BASINS UNDER PRESSURE: THE EBRO BASIN · R. Galvan Plaza and M. Omedas Margeli Confederacion Hidrogr´ ´afica del Ebro, Zaragoza, Spain When the Ebro River Basin Authority (Confederacion

BASINS UNDER PRESSURE:THE EBRO BASIN

EDITED BY Edoardo Borgomeo

CONTRIBUTORS

JOSE ALBIAC is a researcher at the Agrifood Research and Technology Center (CITA)at the University of Zaragoza, working on environmental and natural resource eco-nomics and policies, water management, nonpoint pollution and climate change.

LUCIA DE STEFANO is Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid(Spain) and international consultant on water management. Previously she hasworked on different facets of water management for the Water Observatory of theBotin Foundation, USAID, Oregon State University (USA), the World Wide Fundfor Nature and the Spanish private sector.

ROGELIO GALVAN PLAZA is the head of the hydrological planning office at the EbroRiver Basin Authority. He is a civil engineer and also holds a degree in history.He has 16 years of experience working on water planning and IWRM in the Ebrobasin. He was involved in the implementation of the European Water FrameworkDirective and of the Ebro Basin Management Plan. He is also in charge of inter-national projects and partnerships.

NINA GRAVELINE is a researcher in agricultural and water economics at the Bureaude Recherche Geologiques et Miniers in Montpellier since 2004 where she is in-volved and/or leads reseach and science support to policy projects dealing withwater management. As an economist she is concerned with the analysis and eval-uation of water uses and contaminations regulation. After a stay at the Universityof California, Davis in 2011 she defended a PhD on adaptation to global change

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in agriculture. She is interested in water policies and how they can be integratedwith economic mathematic programming approaches. She has worked in severalparts of France, La Reunion, Germany, North Africa and Spain on topics dealingwith water quality or quantity management.

CARLES IBANEZ holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona. He didhis postdoctorate in the Laboratory of Ecology of Fluvial Systems (CNRS), RhoneDelta, France (1993-1994). Since 2005 he is the Chief of the Aquatic EcosystemsArea of the Institute of Research and Technology of Food and Agriculture (IRTA).He is a member of the Council for Sustainable Management of Water of the Cata-lan Government. He specialized in ecology of rivers, estuaries and wetlands, with24 years of research experience in the Ebro Delta, but also in the Mississippi(USA), Rhone (France) and Po (Italy) deltas.

MANUEL OMEDAS MARGELI has been working at the Ebro River Basin Authority asthe Head of Water Planning since 2005. He holds degrees in Political Science,Sociology and Civil Engineering, Manuel Omedas is a specialist in integrated wa-ter management in river basins. He has 30 years of experience working in theEbro River Basin, and has seen first-hand the legal, socio-economic and technicalchallenges of managing of the largest river in Spain. He has authored numerouspublications and presentations on water management.

ALBERT ROVIRA holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Barcelona 2001and carried out his postdoctorate at the University of California at Berkeley (2004-2006). Since 2006 he is a senior researcher of the Institute of Research and Tech-nology of Food and Agriculture (IRTA) in the Aquatic Ecosystems Area. Special-ized in sediment transport and hydraulics, river restoration and water management,with more than 20 years of research experience.

MOHAMED TAHER KAHIL is a Ph.D researcher at the Agrifood Research and Tech-nology Center (CITA) at the University of Zaragoza, working on water resourcesmanagement at basin scale, drought and water scarcity, climate change and policyanalysis.

SERGIO VILLAMAYOR-TOMAS is currently assistant professor at the Division of Re-source Economics, Department of Agricultural Economics (Humboldt Univer-sity). He obtained his PhD in Public Policy and Management at the School ofPublic and Environmental Affairs and the Workshop in Political Theory and PolicyAnalysis (Indiana University, Bloomington). He has carried research on irrigationand watershed management, climate change adaptation, and the role of communi-cation and information in common pool resource contexts in Spain, Mexico andColombia. He is also interested in expanding common pool resource through thelenses of social movements theory and the environmental policy tool literature.

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CONTENTS

1 The Ebro River Basin Authority and the 2014 Basin Plan 1R. Galvan Plaza and M. Omedas Margeli

2 Restoring sediment fluxes downstream of large dams: Thecase of the Lower Ebro river 5Albert Rovira and Carles Ibanez

3 Climate change and water management in the Ebro basin 11M. Taher Kahil and J. Albiac

4 Beyond the public-private dichotomy: an institutional analysisof drought robustness in the Riegos del Alto Aragon irrigationproject 15Sergio Villamayor-Tomas

5 The Ebro basin: an example of the evolution of polycentricgovernance arrangements 21Lucia De Stefano

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6 Hydro-economic modelling of water scarcity: an application toan Ebro sub-catchment 25Nina Graveline

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CHAPTER 1

THE EBRO RIVER BASIN AUTHORITYAND THE 2014 BASIN PLAN

R. Galvan Plaza and M. Omedas Margeli

Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro, Zaragoza, Spain

When the Ebro River Basin Authority (Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro - CHE)was established in 1926 - the first institution of this kind in the world- it incorporatedtwo elements which were radically innovative at the time: (i) the natural watershedboundaries as the scale for water governance and (ii) water users‘ opinions as part ofthe decision making process.

In arid and semi-arid areas, where the lack of water is a limiting factor for devel-opment, the exploitation and use of water have always required a high degree ofcommunity involvement, often leading to the formation of collective resource man-agement organizations. In Spain, since the Middle Ages -when water shortages ledto the absolute need for collective decision-making and adequate water allocation todifferent irrigators- users organized themselves creating communities of users, realparapublic entities in charge of building diversion dams and acequias (communityoperated artificial watercourses), organizing irrigation scheduling and maintenance,collecting fees from the community members, or penalizing the misuse of water viaspecial irrigation tribunals.

River basin organizations in Spain, such as the Ebro River Basin Authority, were bornas a new symbiosis between the private and public spheres. These user communities

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were brought together under single public institutions, where they could elect theirrepresentatives and influence decisions that affected them. Today there are more than2000 user communities represented in the Ebro River Basin Authority, protected bothin national water laws and in the Ebro River Basin Authority. This structure meansthat all conflicts between users, even during times of drought, are minimized andresolved via appropriate discussions and negotiations. The 1985 Water Act articulatedand reinforced this collective management dimension by opening up participation toother stakeholders, particularly Spain‘s Autonomous Communities (regions) and civilsociety, and since the European Water Framework Directive adopted in 2000, activeparticipation has been further encouraged and extended to multiple stakeholders.

Moreover, water scarcity also required harmonious planning and management atthe watershed scale to: (1) enable the identification of the most efficient solutionsfor the entire basin, (2) allow for the development and implementation of policies notachievable by local private or public initiative and (3) overcome arbitrary administrativeboundaries. Therefore river basin authorities were created as effective watershedscale governance organizations since their inception and were also linked to theplanning and to the realization of a shared vision of water management within thenaturally defined boundaries of the basin.

Figure 1.1 Meeting of the Ebro River Basin Authority

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Today, the Ebro River Basin Authority is an autonomous body -although legally itis an administrative unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment- 70%self-financed through the collection of fees and charges to water users and polluters,embodying the paradigm of Integrated Water Resources Management. The EbroRiver Basin Authority has multiple responsibilities under Spain‘s water law: waterquality and ecological status management; wastewater discharges authorization andcontrol; environmental restoration activities; water use licensing, authorization andcontrol; construction and operation of infrastructure; prevention and managementof floods and droughts. The same water law defined the need for a River BasinManagement Plan to serve as a regulatory reference and as a road-map for futurewater management actions. The first River Basin Management Plan was approvedin 1998 and recently (February 28, 2014) the second plan was approved and framedwithin the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive.

The 2014 River Basin Management Plan aims to achieve good ecological status ofwater bodies in the basin, preserving and restoring the river environments that weresignificantly damaged in the 1960s and 1970s, and at the same time retain water’scapacity to generate wealth, particularly as a basis for preserving the Ebro basinagri-food system‘s role as one of the most important food producing areas in Europe.All of this within the complexity added by water scarcity, which makes planning evenmore necessary.

The 2014 Ebro Basin Management Plan, like any plan, is above all a societal effort infavor of a collective project. Therefore, during the Plan preparation stages the RiverBasin Authority interacted not only with stakeholders that traditionally have interestin the planning process, but also with other stakeholders traditionally excluded fromwater planning decisions, so as to represent interests from different sectors of society.A participatory process was performed at the sub-catchment scale, resulting in over120 meetings of 1609 representatives from 1205 different organizations and entities,each one making their case and proposing management actions, for a total of 7000comments and contributions during the meetings plus 500 comments in writing, allof which can be consulted on River Basin Authorityâ^s website. This process alsoincluded a basin-wide call of representatives of the major economic actors and citizengroups in the basin. Municipalities, water utilities, irrigators, hydropower representa-tives, businesses, recreational users, environmentalists, and researchers, institutionstook part in this process.

The participatory process culminates in the Water Council for the demarcation of theEbro, a formal participatory body regulated by law, which has 93 members distributedas follows (Figure 1.1):- 15 members representing various ministries- 5 members representing the River Basin Authority- 34 members representing the different Autonomous regions located within the Ebrobasin- 3 members representing local administrative bodies

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- 32 members representing water users (water utilities, irrigators, hydropower, otheruses)- 2 members representing agricultural associations- 2 members representing environmental organizations- One member representing business associations- One member representing labor organizations- 2 members with the right to participate and voice their concerns but without the rightto vote, on behalf of recreational users.

The Water Council met several times throughout the development of the ManagementPlan and ultimately approved the Ebro Basin Management Plan on July 4, 2013, with72 votes in favor, 9 votes against and 5 abstentions, achieving a broad consensusbeyond extreme or partial positions. The Ebro Basin Management Plan was finallyapproved by the Government on February 28, 2014. Water management in the EbroRiver Basin Authority is carried out in close contact with society, and especially waterusers, which gives them ability to influence decisions. The Management Plan, follow-ing this idea of empowering participation, has collected all of society‘s requests andinterests, which have been responsibly assimilated and prioritized by their represen-tatives on the Water Council, and in turn by the National Government.

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CHAPTER 2

RESTORING SEDIMENT FLUXESDOWNSTREAM OF LARGE DAMS: THECASE OF THE LOWER EBRO RIVER

Albert Rovira and Carles Ibanez

IRTA-Aquatic Ecosystems, Sant Carles de la Rapita, Spain

The construction of dams produces a number of social benefits. But, in producingthese benefits, dams also alter the natural balance of sediment flow in rivers byimpounding sediment within and upstream of the reservoir and discharging cleanwater downstream [1]. Sediment retained in reservoirs also leads to the disruptionof the transport continuity while reducing the land to ocean sediment transfer. Underthese conditions the morphological system is dramatically altered, leading to theimbalance between the fluvial and the marine processes that cause coastal retreatand land subsidence. A clear example is the case of the Ebro River, located in theNorth-East of the Iberian Peninsula (Figure 2.1).

The sediment transport of the lower Ebro River (drainage basin 85,530 km2) is beingaltered by the Mequinensa and Riba-Roja reservoir system constructed at the end ofthe 1960s. As a result, the lower Ebro River and its delta are facing a severe sedimentdeficit which is leading to a progressive change of the river channel morphology andsediment transport dynamics [2,3], the degradation of the fluvio-deltaic system [4],and the dramatic reduction of fluvial sediment inputs to the delta [5]. In the long-term, a significant elevation loss of the delta plain due to subsidence and sea levelrise is expected, with the prediction that 45% of the emerged delta will be undermean sea level by the end of this century [6]. Under these conditions, the sediment

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Figure 2.1 Map of the Lower Ebro river showing major dams and irrigation canals.

supply required to maintain the delta is estimated to be about 1.3 x 106 tonnes/yr,but considering the predictions of sea level rise for the year 2100 the value could beabout 2.1 x 106 tonnes/yr [7].

Confronted with this situation, the Catalan Autonomous Government has developed amanagement plan (SedMa), whose main goal is to achieve sustainable managementof the Ebro River and its delta through an integrated management of water, sedimentand habitats, following the European Union Water Framework Directive requirements.The successful implementation of the Plan requires an integrated approach includinglong-term research, intense consultation with local representatives and organizations,as well as the coordination of different administrative bodies where the stakeholders,administrations and experts are represented.

The SedMa plan mainly consists of the restoration of the sediment flux of the lowerEbro River by means of the removal of the sediment trapped behind the dams, andthe effective transport of the by-passed sediment to the river mouth and delta plainthrough an ecological engineering approach [8]. Three major elements constitute

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the framework of the SedMa plan: (i) the application of some kind of technology toremove and by-pass the sediment stored in the dams; (ii) the definition of a specificflow regime to transport the sediment from the river to the delta, including periodicalpulses (floods); and (iii) the establishment of a controlled system to deliver part of thesediment to the delta plain.

Figure 2.2 Satellite image of the Ebro river delta, one of the largest wetlands in theMediterranean.

Different options to mobilize the sediment stored into the Riba-Roja reservoir (e.g.generation of flushing floods; construction of a by-pass system; mechanic dredging,etc.) were analysed; and the ’flushing flood’ method was found to be the most suitable[10]. This method consists in partially or totally emptying the reservoir in order to erodethe stored sediments, and evacuate them through the bottom outlets by using the watercolumn pressure (in the first case) or by temporally restoring the water flow throughthe reservoir bed (in the second case) [1]. The application of this method in the EbroRiver is focused on the removal of the sediment stored in the Riba-Roja reservoir by:(1) emptying of the Riba-Roja dam. At this stage, sediment located close to the dambottom out-level outlets can partially be removed by using the water column pressure;(2) generation of discharges from Mequinensa reservoir. Sediment stored into Riba-Roja dam should be remobilised by water erosion; (3) closure of Riba-Roja bottomoutlets and refilling of the reservoir. Prior to flushing operations, a detailed analysis ofthe required operations of the reservoir system, and the associated economic costs(i.e. opportunity and marginal) and environmental impacts, has to be undertaken.

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Once the sediment is transferred downstream of the reservoirs and transported by theriver, it has to be deposited in the appropriate areas of the delta. The transport anddeposition of sand to the mouth area (and silt to the delta front) can be achieved withouttechnical intervention. However, some human intervention is needed to deliver partof the sediment transported from the river to the delta plain. This could be achievedby means of using the two irrigation canals that are diverting part of the water andsediment transported by the river through the delta plain (Figure 2.1). This systemwas designed at the end of the 19th century and is widely used by local farmers totransform the natural wetlands into rice fields by increasing land elevation with fertilesediments. This practice continued until the construction of the Mequinensa and Riba-roja dams [7, 9]. When considering the whole delta (excluding beaches) it has beenestimated that about 1.3 x 106 tonnes/yr of sediment would be needed to compensaterelative sea-level rise; this is 10 times more the present sediment load but 20 timesless the pre-dam sediment load [8]. It has been estimated that recovering about 20%of the original load (5-6 x 106 tonnes/yr) and supplying about 20% of this load to thedelta plain, a vertical accretion of 1 cm/yr could be achieved [11].Vertical accretioncan be also increased by means of stimulating wetland plant productivity and organicsoil formation [12, 13], and this alternative is being evaluated as a complementarymeasure to compensate relative sea level rise.

Overall, the sustainability of the lower Ebro River and its delta could only be guaranteedby the implementation of a new reservoir management concept with the allocation of anappropriate liquid and solid flow regime. The determination of this flow regime requirestaking into account a number of processes essential for the system‘s functioningand specific requirements for sediment transport (i.e. pulses) in order to avoid theloss of geomorphic functionality of the river and of the delta. However, the SedMaplan is a non-mandatory document and it has to be approved by the ConfederacionHidrografica del Ebro (CHE) (Ebro River Basin Authority) who has the full competencesand the legal responsibility of the water and sediment management of the whole Ebrobasin. Meanwhile, discharges released from reservoirs are designed as a functionof hydropower production and water demand (i.e. irrigation cycle), without takinginto account the hydromorphological and ecological needs of the river and delta.Furthermore, alternatives to the SedMa plan have not been yet evaluated.

References1. Morris GL, Fan J (1998): Reservoir sedimentation handbook. McGraw-Hill, NewYork.2. Guillen J, Palanques A (1992) Sediment dynamics and hydrodynamics in thelower course of a river highly regulated by dams: The Ebro River. Sedimentology39, 567579.3. Tena A., Batalla R.J., and Vericat D. (2012) Reach-scale suspended sediment bal-ance downstream from dams in a large Mediterranean river. Hydrological SciencesJournal, Vol. 57(5), pp. 831-849.

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4. Ibanez C., Alcaraz C., Caiola N., Rovira A., Trobajo R., Alonso M., Duran C.,Jimnez P.J., Munn A., and Prat N. (2012) Regime shift from phytoplankton to macro-phyte dominance in a large river: top-down versus bottom-up effects. Science of theTotal Environment, Vol. 416, pp. 314-322.5. Jimenez JA, Snchez-Arcilla A (1993) Medium-term coastal response at the EbroDelta, Spain. Marine Geology 114, 105118 6. Ibanez C., Sharpe P.J., Day J.W., DayJ.N., and Prat N. (2010) Vertical Accretion and Relative Sea Level Rise in the EbroDelta Wetlands (Catalonia, Spain). Wetlands, Vol. 30, pp. 979988.7. Ibanez C, Canicio A, Day JW, Curc A (1997) Morphologic development, relativesea level rise and sustainable management of water and sediment in the Ebre Delta,Spain. J Coastal Conservation 3, 191202.8. Rovira A. and Ibanez C. (2007) Sediment Management Options for the LowerEbro River and its Delta. Journal of Soils and Sediments, Vol. 7(5), pp. 285295.9. Gorria H (1877) Desecacin de las marismas y terrenos pantanosos denominadosde los alfaques. Technical report. Ministerio de Agricultura, Madrid.10. Martin-Vide JP, Mazza de Almeida GA, Helmbrecht J, Ferrer C, Rojas Lara DL(2004) Estudio tcnico-econmico de alternativas del programa para corregir la subsi-dencia y regresin del delta del Ebro. Technical Report (unpublished).11. Ibanez C, Day JW, Reyes E (2013) The response of deltas to sea-level rise: natu-ral mechanisms and management options to adapt to high-end scenarios. EcologicalEngineering, Vol. 65, pp. 122-130.12. DeLaune RD, Jugsujinda A, Peterson GW, Patrick WH (2003) Impact of Missis-sippi River freshwater reintroduction on enhancing marsh accretionary processes ina Louisiana estuary. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 58, 653, 662.13. Mendelssohn IA, Kuhn N (2003) Sediment subsidy: Effects on soil-plant re-sponses in a rapidly submerging coastal salt marsh. Ecological Engineering, Vol. 21,115128.

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CHAPTER 3

CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATERMANAGEMENT IN THE EBRO BASIN

M. Taher Kahil and J. Albiac

Department of Agricultural Economics, CITA, Zaragoza, Spain

The pressure on water resources has been mounting worldwide with water scarcitybecoming a widespread problem in most arid and semiarid regions around the world.Global water extractions have increased from 600 to 3,900 km3 in the last century,which is almost twice the rate of population growth. Both water scarcity and waterquality problems result from the intensive growth of population and income. Thisdegradation of water resources has resulted in 35 percent of the world populationliving under severe water scarcity. Furthermore, about 65 percent of global river flowsand aquatic ecosystems are under moderate to high threats of degradation [1].

Climate change is going to exacerbate the degradation of water resources in aridand semiarid regions, by reducing water availability and increasing the frequency andintensity of extreme drought events [2]. Spain is one of the regions where waterresources will suffer large negative impacts from climate change. The Ebro Basin ofSpain is presented as a case to explore water management options for addressingthe effects of climate change on water scarcity and droughts.

The Ebro Basin extends over 85,600 km2, covering a fifth of the Spanish territory,and carrying one of the largest stream flows in the country. The irrigation area in thebasin is considerable although the pressure on water resources from population and

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economic activities is less severe than in other Spanish basins. The river flow at themouth has been falling in recent decades but the river has not yet become a closedsystem, a problem found in other Spanish southeastern basins. Despite that, the newwater plan of the Ebro basin indicates that the limit of extractions has been reachedin most watersheds, especially in the basin southern tributaries [3].

Figure 3.1 Current and future water demands in the Ebro basin.

The Ebro basin renewable resources are estimated at 14,600 Mm3, and these re-sources sustain 8,400 Mm3 of water extractions, of which 8,050 Mm3 are surfacewater resources (including 200 Mm3 of inter-basin transfers to the Basque and Cat-alonia regions) and 350 Mm3 are groundwater resources (Figure 3.1). Extractions foragricultural production amount to about 7,680 Mm3 (92%) to irrigate 700,000 ha offield crops (wheat, barley, corn, rice, and alfalfa) and fruit trees. Extractions for urbanwater supply are 360 Mm3 serving 3 million inhabitants, including households andnetwork connected industries and services. Direct extractions by industries amountto 160 Mm3, and there are also non-consumptive extractions for cooling (3,100 Mm3)and hydropower (38,000 Mm3).

The fraction of consumptive extractions per year over renewable resources is 60percent, and further pressures from economic activities have to be curtailed to avoidthe gradual closing of the basin. This is not consistent with the planned demand inthe basin for 2027, which is projected to increase by 30 percent (Figure 3.1), whileclimate change impacts would reduce water availability 10% in 2040 and up to 30%in 2100 [4].

The current water extractions are already bringing about noncompliance with the min-imum environmental flow thresholds established in the previous basin plan of 1998.Noncompliance is occurring in between 10 and 30 percent of the river gauging sta-tions [5], with high noncompliance events in the Gallego and Guadalope tributaries.The Ebro river flow in Zaragoza (middle Ebro) and Tortosa (mouth) also shows signif-icant noncompliance events. The basin river flows have been stable during the lastdecade, but the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) involveshigher minimum thresholds for environmental protection. Some measures have beentaken to curtail water extractions in aquifers with serious overdraft problems (Alfamen,Campo de Carinena, Campo de Belchite), and new programs are being prepared to

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fulfill the new monthly flow regimes by improving flow measurements, and verifyingconcession licenses (rivers Aragon, Gallego, Cinca, Segre, Noguera-Pallaresa, andalong the Ebro).

The set of measures laid out in the 2014 Ebro basin plan to achieve the WFD objectivesincludes investments of 4.8 billion Euros: 2.75 billion for environmental objectives, 1.63billion for satisfying water demand, and 0.42 billion for coping with extreme events. Themain investments for environmental objectives are wastewater treatment plants andirrigation modernization, together with protection of the Ebro Delta and eliminationof chemical pollution sediments in Flix. The main investments for satisfying waterdemand are irrigation facilities in Catalonia, Aragon and Navarra.

The Ebro drought plan was approved in 2007 and it is part of the new Ebro basin plan.It includes a system of hydrological drought indicators, drought management rules forthe watershed boards, and urban emergency plans. There are progressively morestringent drought measures for the whole basin as drought severity intensifies. Thereare also specific measures for each watershed, which are taken by the watershedboards.

The drought plan allocates water among users following the priority rules that guar-antee the provision of urban, industrial and environmental demand, while giving lowerpriority to irrigation. During severe drought events, all stakeholders are involved inthe Drought Board with full power to manage water resources in order to mitigateeconomic and environmental damages. Drought damage costs in the Ebro could beconsiderable, with estimates of 400 million Euros during the last 2005 drought (agri-culture 280 million, urban sector 18 million, energy sector 90 million, and environment20 million) [6].

One key issue for water management in the Ebro basin is adaptation of water re-sources to the upcoming effects of climate change, which is projected to exacerbatewater scarcity and the intensity and frequency of droughts. Solving this adaptationissue requires more sustainable water management in the basin, backed by suitablepolicy instruments. The policy approach in the Ebro basin is institutional, based on thecooperation among stakeholders inside the basin authority. There is a strong traditionof cooperation among water user associations dating back centuries in all Spanishbasins.

The experiences in water governance worldwide show two different approaches forthe management of water scarcity. One approach is economic instruments such aswater markets and water pricing, where water is managed as a private good. Theother approach is institutional instruments based on collective action, where wateris managed as a common pool resource. Water markets seem more suitable thanwater pricing for allocation of irrigation water [7]. Water pricing is a good instrumentfor urban networks, but it fails in irrigation because of its common pool resource

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characteristics. Nevertheless, economic instruments can be introduced in irrigationprovided that irrigation water is transformed into a private good.

Water markets and collective action are alternative approaches to achieve welfaregains in the form of private and social benefits. Both approaches are intertwinedthough, because the water trading experiences worldwide indicate that markets tendto disregard third party effects, including environmental impacts [8]. Well functioningwater markets would require a great deal of cooperation by stakeholders within astrong institutional setting. Conversely, the institutional approach in basins such asthe Ebro would work better by using carefully designed economic instruments. Theseincentives would introduce more flexibility into the institutional process of decisionmaking and implementation leading to sustainable water management.

References1. Vorosmarty, C., McIntyre, P., Gessner, M., Dudgeon, D., Prusevich, A., Green, P.,Glidden, S., Bunn, S., Sullivan, C., Liermann, C., Davies, P. (2010) Global threats tohuman water security and river biodiversity. Nature, 467, pp. 555-561.2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2014) Climate Change 2014: Im-pacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the FifthAssessment Report of the IPCC. IPCC. Geneva.3. Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro. (2013) Propuesta de Proyecto de PlanHidrolgico de la Cuenca del Ebro. Memoria. CHE. MAGRAMA. Zaragoza.4. Centro de Estudios y Experimentacion de Obras Publicas. (2010) Estudio de losimpactos del cambio climtico en los recursos hdricos y las masas de agua. Ficha 1:Evaluacin del impacto del cambio climtico en los recursos hdricos en rgimen natural.CEDEX. MARM. Madrid.5. Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro. (2008) Esquema Provisional de Temas Im-portantes en Materia de Gestin de las Aguas en la Demarcacin Hidrogrfica del Ebro.CHE. MARM. Zaragoza.6. Henandez, N., Gil, M., Garrido, A., Rodriguez, R. (2013) La Sequia 2005-2008en la Cuenca del Ebro: Vulnerabilidad, Impactos y Medidas de Gestin. CEIGRAM.Universidad Politcnica de Madrid. Madrid.7. Cornish, G., Bosworth, B., Perry, C., Burke, J. (2004) Water charging in irrigatedagriculture. An analysis of international experience. FAO Water Reports 28. FAO.Rome.8. Connor, J., Kaczan, D. (2013) Principles for Economically Efficient and Environ-mentally Sustainable Water Markets: The Australian Experience. In K. Schwabe etal. (Eds) Drought in Arid and Semi-Arid Environments. Springer. Dordrecht (pp.357-374).

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CHAPTER 4

BEYOND THE PUBLIC-PRIVATEDICHOTOMY: AN INSTITUTIONALANALYSIS OF DROUGHTROBUSTNESS IN THE RIEGOS DELALTO ARAGON IRRIGATION PROJECT

Sergio Villamayor-Tomas

Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

The increased global exposure to climate change disturbances such as droughts andfloods has generated a new interest in understanding how communities at differentscales cope with those threats [1]. This paper aims to contribute to fill that gap byoffering some explanations of the ability of more than 10,000 farmers in the Riegosdel Alto Aragon (RAA) project to cope with droughts through a mixture of commonproperty and private property institutions.

The RAA project is located in the inter-basin of the Gallego and Cinca rivers. TheGallego and the Cinca are two snow-melt dependent rivers that flow from the PyreneesMountains to the Ebro river valley, Spain (see Figure 4.1). The local climate is semi-arid Mediterranean continental, with an annual precipitation of around 400 mm andreference evapotranspiration of around 1100 mm [2]. A series of reservoirs and canalsstore and divert the water from the rivers to the project, which encompasses morethan 100,000 irrigable hectares and an average demand of around 750 million m3 peryear [3]. The reservoirs serve the RAA systems as well as other systems outside theproject for a total average demand of around 1,500 million m3.

One key challenge in large irrigation projects like the RAA‘s is the allocation of wateracross farmers [4,5]. This challenge can be framed in collective action terms. As

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Figure 4.1 The RAA irrigation project.

coined by Hardin [6] in his “tragedy of the commons“ tale, users of common poolresources (CPR) like many irrigation systems, forests, fisheries and pastures do nothave the incentives to self-restrain resource extraction because they cannot excludeothers from the benefits of such effort, so the resource is overexploited and maycollapse.

Farmers in the RAA case seem to have overcome well the“tragedy of the commons“,as judged by the endurance of the project and the increasing production of irrigatedcrops over time [3]. In the last 40 years, however, the Ebro valley has witnessed anincreased climatic uncertainty caused by rapid changes between wet and dry periods[7]. As illustrated in Figure 4.2, the drought of 2005-2006 stands out as the severest ofthe period, with a decrease by almost 60% of the 1971-2003 series average inflows.

In the event of a drought, irrigators may need to adapt their cropping patterns toreduce collective water demand, which requires cooperation. In a context wherewater is shared, farmers may not be willing to decrease their irrigated acreage orswitch from higher to lower water demand crops- higher water demand crops like cornor alfalfa tend to yield higher economic returns than lower water demand crops likewheat or barley [2] - if they cannot prevent other farmers from free riding on such effort.

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Despite the severe decrease of water availability and salience of the social dilemma,the RAA project performed relatively well during the 2005 drought, with a decrease ofnot more than 25% in irrigation performance, where irrigation performance was firstcalculated as a ratio between “Water supplied to RAA“ and “RAA crop water needs“for each year [8]. Then the scores were transformed into percentages using 2004 asthe base year.

Figure 4.2 Series of total inflows in the RAA reservoirs (million m3). Series calculatedfrom October to September of each year. Drought threshold was set to one standard deviationbelow the series mean ( 1200 m3) after [20]

An important property of the project that permits explaining the RAA robustness todroughts is the implementation of a common pool quota policy. This policy can beunderstood as a mixture of common property and private property regime features.During non-drought periods, all farmers within the project share an equal right touse the water and then coordinate through a series of rules to allocate the resource.Water management involves three organizational actors, from the bottom to the top:water user associations (WUAs), which operate within the boundaries of irrigationsystems/districts (50 of them); the General Community of RAA (GCRAA), which co-ordinates WUAs; and the Ebro river basin authority that coordinates the RAA projectand other systems within the Cinca-Gallego and Ebro basins.

During droughts the water use rights are ‘privatized‘ at the district level, i.e. eachdistrict receives a quota of water based on its irrigable hectares. Quotas are exclu-

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Figure 4.3 Correlations between water, land and technology variables across RAA systemsin 2005.

sive, but some transferability is possible: farmers who own land in different districtscan request a transfer of their theoretical quota from one of the systems to the other.Pooled quotas allow users to share the risk of financial losses if the resource is morescarce than expected [9], i.e., conservation efforts by farmers with lower dependenceon irrigated agriculture can be used to serve the needs of those that are more de-pendent on irrigation. Also, transferability of rights can facilitate the concentration ofrights into uses that are more efficient or necessary [10], i.e., as irrigation water userights can be transferred from areas where the costs of reducing acreage or switchingcrops are higher to areas where the costs are lower [11,12]. In the RAA water tendsto be concetrated in districts where sprinkler irrigation is more dominant (see Figure4.3).

Figure 4.4 Spatial autoregressive models for drought performance in 2005 - calculated asthe difference between the irrigation performance in 2004 and 2005.

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The success of the quota policy depends also on features of the WUAs and irrigationdistricts. As illustrated in Figure 4.4, performance of the quota policy increases whenthe WUAs enjoy the monitoring role fulfilled by field guards (see “Formal monitoring“variable in Figure 4.4); the information-sharing and coordination leadership fulfilledby experience and legitimate presidents; high water retention soils (“Hydric soils“variable); and incoming water (quota) transfers.

The combination of different property right institutions for effective natural resourcegovernance has been recognized by scholars in different environmental sectors [13,14,15,16,17]; however, studies testing the conditions under which such institutions canbe successful are relatively rare [9,18,19]. This study addresses that gap by focusingon the successful combination of common property institutions with pooled transfer-able quotas in water scarcity scenarios. These effects, however, are contingent onother important bio-physical and institutional properties. Discounting the relevanceof these contextual variables when prescribing the use of pooled transferable quotasmight lead to undesirable outcomes.

References1. UN/ISDR. 2004. Living with Risk: A Global Review of the International Strategyfor Disaster Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Office for DisasterRisk Reduction (UNISDR).2. Lecina, S., D. Isidoro, E. Playn, and R. Arags. 2010. ”Irrigation modernizationand water conservation in Spain: The case of Riegos del Alto Aragn.” AgriculturalWater Management 97 (10):1663-1675.3. RRAA. 2010. Riegos del Alto Aragon 2010.Available from http://www.riegosdelaltoaragon.es/.4. Lam, Wai Fung. 1998. Governing Irrigation Systems in Nepal. San Francisco:CA: ICS Press.5. Subramanian, Ashok , N. Vijay Jagannathan, and Ruth MeinzenDick. 1997. UserOrganizations for Sustainable Water Services. Vol. 354. Washington DC: The WorldBank.6. Hardin, Garret. 1968. ”The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162 (5364):1243-48.7. Vicente-Serrano, S. M., and J. M. Cuadrat-Prats. 2007. ”Trends in drought inten-sity and variability in the middle Ebro valley (NE of the Iberian peninsula) duringthe second half of the twentieth century.” Theoretical and Applied Climatology 88(3):247-258.8. Salvador, R., A. Martnez-Cob, J. Cavero, and E. Playn. 2011. ”Seasonal on-farm irrigation performance in the Ebro basin (Spain): Crops and irrigation systems.”Agricultural Water Management 98 (4):577-587.9. Holland, D. S. 2010. ”Markets, pooling and insurance for managing bycatch infisheries.” Ecological Economics 70 (1):121-133.10. Copes, Parzival. 1986. ”A Critical Review of the Individual Quota as a Device

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in Fisheries Management.” Land Economics 62 (3):278-291.11. Chong, Howard, and David Sunding. 2006. ”Water Markets and Trading.” An-nual Review of Environment and Resources 31 (1):239-264.12. Garrido, Alberto. 2007. ”Water markets design and evidence from experimentaleconomics.” Environmental and Resource Economics 38 (3):311-330.13. Cole, Daniel. 1999. ”Clearing the Air: Four Propositions about Property Rightsand Environmental Protection.” Duke Envtl. L., Policy F. 10 (103).14. Costello, Christopher, Steven D. Gaines, and John Lynham. 2008. ”Can CatchShares Prevent Fisheries Collapse?” Science 321 (5896):1678-1681. doi: 10.1126/sci-ence.1159478.15. Ostrom, Elinor. 2010. ”Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance ofComplex Economic Systems.” American Economic Review 100 (3):641-72.16. Dietz, T., and P. C. Stern, eds. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protec-tion: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Edited by National ResearchCouncil Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. Washington, DC:National Academy Press.17. Dietz, Thomas, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern. 2003. ”The Struggle to Gov-ern the Commons.” Science 302 (5652):1907-1912.18. Calatrava, Javier, and Alberto Garrido. 2005. ”Modelling water markets underuncertain water supply.” European Review of Agricultural Economics 32 (2):119-142.19. Molle, Franois 2009. ”Water scarcity, prices and quotas: a review of evidenceon irrigation volumetric pricing.” Irrigation and Drainage Systems 23 (1):3-58.20. Hisdal, H., and L.M. Tallaksen. 2000. Drought Event Definition. In: Assess-ment of the Regional Impact of Droughts in Europe. Oslo, Norway: Department ofGeophysics, University of Oslo.

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CHAPTER 5

THE EBRO BASIN: AN EXAMPLE OFTHE EVOLUTION OF POLYCENTRICGOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

Lucia De Stefano

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

The Ebro river (85 362 km2 or 17% of Spain) is located in the north-east of Spainand provides an interesting example of the evolution of competences and strategiesto manage water in a changing institutional context. The Ebro river crosses nineautonomous regions and is managed by the Spanish government through the EbroRiver Basin Authority (RBA). Its evolution during the past century shows that poly-centric governance arrangements in federal rivers (or quasi-federal, as it is the caseof Spain) are not static and instead have adapted by renegotiating the balance ofdevolved decision-making and federal coordination[1].

Although relatively wet, the Ebro shows declining trends in historic runoff (average nat-ural runoff is 14.62 billion m3/yr, with a decrease of 11% during the past two decades)and faces large projected reductions in mean annual runoff (up to a 27% decrease)[2]. A large percentage of the basin‘s area is being irrigated, which magnifies theeffects of projected reductions in future runoff. The Ebro‘s water resources supportthe irrigation of about 800,000 hectares, livestock breeding, energy production andwater supplies for a sparsely populated territory (32.3 inhabitants per km2). Mostusers withdraw water from 135 reservoirs having a total capacity of 8 billion m3, whilegroundwater - a key source for river base flows - is still rather scarcely exploited. TheEbro delta hosts a high-value ecosystem that is affected by the decrease in water and

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sediment flows due to upstream water development and is threatened by projectedclimate change impacts on coastal dynamics [3]. Persistent pollutants from historicalmining and industrial activities, and organic pollution from agricultural and urban areasare also sources of concern in the basin.

From an institutional point of view, the Ebro basin was the cradle of one of the oldestriver-wide water authorities, when in 1926 the Spanish government created the EbroRiver Basin Authority (RBA) to manage the river with the participation of irrigators.Water allocation systems and strategies to achieve water security evolved with time,mirroring the changing power balance between the central government and regionalgovernments. During Franco‘s dictatorship (1939-1975), the powerful central govern-ment had a very centralized approach to water management. It determined waterallocation to users (individual or collective water rights) and executed it through theconstruction of large water infrastructure. The 1978 democratic Constitution, however,established the creation of 17 regions having broad powers and their own parliament(autonomous regions are roughly equivalent to ‘states‘ in federal contexts). In relationto water resources, the Constitution established that while intraregional rivers wouldbe managed by regions, interregional rivers like the Ebro would remain under thejurisdiction of the central government through its RBAs, with little involvement of theregions.

In 1985 the Water Act for the first time admitted representatives of regions into someof the RBA boards and committees, with participation quotas proportional to the re-gions‘ territory and population shares in the basin. According to the Water Act, wateruses should be regulated through River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs), whichallocate water volumes to basin subsystems sharing regulation and distribution net-works (exploitation systems) and to specific user groups (irrigators, industries, etc.)within each subsystem. Individual or collective water rights are nested in these sub-systems, where annual allocation quotas to rights holders are defined in user-basedRBA bodies based on annual precipitation and available water volumes. Althoughsince 1985 autonomous regions are represented in the RBA boards, allocation deci-sions are still largely controlled by a rather closed community of users and developers[4]. This inertia helps to explain the unrest of increasingly powerful regions, whichprogressively started claiming a larger control over water flowing within their borders.In 1992, Aragon, which has a large share of the Ebro basin, was the first region tomake its claims over water explicit through the Aragon Water Pact (AWP). The AWPincluded a list of more than 20 new hydraulic works that would allow for doublingAragon‘s irrigated surface. In 1998, the RBMPs of all the Spanish basins-includingthe Ebro-were approved. Three years later, the central government approved theNational Hydrological Plan (NHP) to address interbasin issues. Both the Ebro RBMPand the NHP incorporate the AWP water works. The NHP, however, also proposed thetransfer of 1 billion m3/yr from the Ebro to other basins along the Mediterranean coast,which triggered fierce opposition in the donor regions, mainly Aragon and Catalonia,and fueled regional expectations over the Ebro waters in the recipient regions. Eventhough the transfer was repealed in 2004 after a political shift in the central govern-

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ment, it marked a tipping point in the evolution of the power balance between regionsand the Spanish State. Since then, regions have engaged in intense political negoti-ations and in legal actions - with the Spanish government or amongst themselves - togain larger control over water and earmark additional resources, within or outside oftheir territorial boundaries.

The 2000 European Union Water Framework Directive set new challenges that theSpanish government began facing only in 2004, after the repeal of the Ebro transfer. Interms of water allocation, the WFD entailed opening a new 6-year planning cycle andadding a new layer of complexity to allocation, as water uses should be compatiblewith the achievement of good status of all waters. The new RBMP, approved inFebruary 2014, still includes Aragon‘s water claims and ‘water reserves‘ for otherregions in the Ebro, to be executed through new hydraulic works. The plan waspassed after strenuous negotiations over the in-stream flows in the Ebro delta (inCatalonia), whose maintenance is considered by many to be at odds with the currentand planned upstream regulation.

A glance at the history of interstate relationships in the Ebro basin shows that water al-location reforms have evolved from a centralized system to a complex web of sensitivepolitical relationships, where the central government manages to approve basin-wideplans only through political and economic concessions (e.g. via financing of publicwater works) to the regional powers. The strengthening of the decentralization modelis mirrored by a request for more competences by regions and attempts to ‘earmark‘water reserves for their own development. In the most recent RBMP new environmen-tal requirements and old territorial claims coexist on paper, while the viability of theircoexistence in practice still needs to be proven. Planning of supra-regional infrastruc-ture (the NHP and its controversial Ebro transfer) first, and EU-driven environmentaldemands later have been catalysts for changes in institutional balances. Federalâ^s-tate relationships are not static, but evolve as drivers and institutions interact andchange; and the balance between levels shifts and is increasingly impacted by politicsand by policy changes at very different levels.

References1. Garrick D, De Stefano L, Fung F, Pittock J, Schlager E, New M, Connell D. 2013Managing hydroclimatic risks in federal rivers: a diagnostic assessment. Phil TransR Soc A 371: 20120415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2012.0415.2. Quiroga S, Garrote L, Iglesias A, Fernandez-Haddad Z, Schlickenrieder J, deLama C, Sanchez-Arcilla A. 2011 The economic value of drought information forwater management under climate change: a case study in the Ebro basin. Nat. Haz-ards Earth Syst. Sci. 11, 643657. (doi:10.5194/nhess-11-643-2011).3. Sanchez-Arcilla A, Jimnez JA, Valdemoro HI, Gracia V. 2008 Implications ofclimatic change on Spanish Mediterranean low-lying coasts: the Ebro delta case. J.Coastal Res. 24, 306316. (doi:10.2112/07A-0005.1).

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4. Hernandez-Mora N, del Moral L, La Roca F, La Calle A, Schmidt G. 2013 Inter-basin water transfers in Spain. Interregional conflicts and governance responses. InGlobalized water (ed. G Schneier-Madanes). Dordrecht, Germany: Springer.

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CHAPTER 6

HYDRO-ECONOMIC MODELLING OFWATER SCARCITY: AN APPLICATIONTO AN EBRO SUB-CATCHMENT

Nina Graveline

Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Miniers, France

This chapter based on the work of Graveline et al. [1] highlights the importance ofadopting integrated hydro-economic models [2] to investigate the climate-water nexusand to assess the effects of global changes in terms of water scarcity, salinity andagricultural economics at a regional scale. We develop a hydro-economic model for asub-catchment of the Ebro basin -the Gallego catchment - that combines hydrologicalprocesses, regulation and operation of water reservoirs and economic processes thatdrive agricultural water demands.

The Gallego catchment covers a 4,009 km2 area and is located in the northern partof the Ebro basin (Figure 6.1). At the confluence with the Ebro river near the cityof Zaragoza, the Gallego river has an average annual discharge of 1090 hm3. Sev-eral reservoirs have been constructed in the Gallego catchment since the 1960s forhydropower production and irrigation purposes. Reservoirs mostly supply irrigationwater demand, which represents 94% of the water demand in the Gallego catchment.

The hydrological modelling system implements suitable modules for snow accumu-lation and melting, infiltration, evapotranspiration, subsurface flow generation andchannel routing and it is specifically designed to model climate change impacts onthis catchment [3]. The management of the 5 reservoirs present in the catchment is

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Figure 6.1 Map of the Gallego catchment: a sub-catchment of the Ebro basin.

simulated as a trade-off between maximizing water availability for agricultural uses,satisfying the minimum ecological flow conditions in the river and satisfying the reser-voir security margins for flood control. The economic model is a linear programmingmodel [4]. Irrigation water demands are simulated based on the water availability inthe system, which influences the farmers‘ choices with respect to cropping patternsand irrigation practices. This means that in dry years, farmers may choose cropsthat are less water intensive, leading to lower irrigation demands. The integrationof the different models is performed with a“compartment approach“ which consistsof an exchange of input/output data done at specific locations in the systems. Thisallows for the adoption of sophisticated models for each“compartment“, as opposed toholistic models that integrate in one unique model (which often includes oversimplifiedhydrological and economic modelling) the representation of all processes.

The technical implementation of the coupled modeling system can be summarized infive steps:- Step 1: Based on different levels of water availability for agriculture, economic modelruns have been performed in order to create a library of responses able to providethe input data for the hydrological model and the reservoir operation compartment(i.e. monthly water demand based on selected cropping pattern). The optimizationtime-horizon was fixed at one year, with each month being simulated separately.- Step 2: Based on the monthly water demands derived in Step 1 and on the reservoirmanagement rules, expected withdrawals from reservoirs and water supplies to riversand irrigation districts are fixed at daily time scale by the reservoir operation compart-ment.- Step 3: Based on output from Step 2, hydrological model runs are performed witha daily time-step, which provides data of water fluxes and water storage in selectednodes.

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- Step 4: Based on aggregated yearly values of water supplied as output from Steps2 and 3, the economic model provides irrigated area, crop yields, regional agriculturalincome and salt emissions.- Step 5: Coupling of the models is achieved by iterating steps 2, 3 and 4 over thesimulation period in which the hydrological model updates yearly values of wateravailability together with the input data provided by the agro-economic library and thereservoir management compartment.

Figure 6.2 Overview on impacts of scenarios on main indicators (average values for eitherthe reference period 2001-2005 or the 30 years period 2071-2100 for the climatic change andglobal change scenarios.

The hydro-economic model is then used to simulate different scenarios and their im-pact on water and agricultural economics (Figure 6.2). The impacts of three mainchanges are explored (i) projected changes in climate as characterized by previouswork conducted in the catchment [5], (ii) an expansion of water storage capacity byreservoir enlargement, and (iii) the modernization of irrigation technology (from gravityirrigation to sprinkler irrigation for 50% of irrigated land) resulting in a decrease in perhectare-water demand by the improvement of water application efficiency. Further-more, two global change scenarios are also considered. They are both characterizedby the modernization of irrigation technology and climatic change. The first, GC1,includes the enlargement of water storage capacity and the second, GC2, does not.In particular, the effect of reservoir expansion in the GC1 scenario is negligible if com-pared to thr GC2 scenario. As a result, the outcomes of both global change scenariosare almost identical.

The results suggest that in this part of the Ebro basin reservoir expansion appears notto be an effective solution for adapting to the impacts of climate change and for meet-ing water demands for extra irrigated land. The results also suggest that investmentsin modernization of irrigation technology would mitigate the negative impacts of cli-mate change on the agricultural sector. However, irrigation technology modernizationhas high implementation costs, which would slightly outweigh the extra regional agri-cultural income, and would result in negative enviromental impacts through increasedsalinity. Furthermore, we show that adoption of more efficient water-saving irrigationtechnologies does not result in an increased water-availability at the basin scale in dryyears.

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Our integrated hydro-economic model is practically relevant to decision-makers in theEbro basin because it enables for the simultaneous assessment of different factors ofchange, both natural and socio-economic, and for the simulation of their impacts onfuture water availability. Different water management policies can be simulated in ourmodel and results can be used to assist water planning decisions in the Ebro basin.

References1. Graveline, N., Majone, B., Van Duinen, R., and Ansink, E. (2014). Hydro-economic modeling of water scarcity under global change: an application to theGallego river basin (Spain). Regional Environmental Change, 14(1), 119-132.2. Harou, J.J., Pulido-Velazquez, M., Rosenberg, D.E., Medelln-Azuara, J., Lund,J.R., Howitt, R.E., 2009. Hydro-economic models: concepts, design, applications,and future prospects. Journal of Hydrology. 375(3-4), 627-643.3. Majone, B., Bovolo, C. I., Bellin, A., Blenkinsop, S., Fowler, H. J. (2012). Mod-eling the impacts of future climate change on water resources for the Gllego riverbasin (Spain). Water Resources Research, 48(1).4. Hazell, P.B.R., Norton, R.D., 1986. Mathematical Programming for EconomicAnalysis in Agriculture. Macmillan, New York.5. Burger, C. M., O. Kolditz, H. J. Fowler, and S. Blenkinsop (2007), Learningmachines for rainfall-runoff modelling in the Upper Gallego catchment (Spain), En-vironemental Pollution, 148, 842854.

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