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The costs of uncoordinated infrastructure management in multi-reservoir river basins
| Content Provider | Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) |
|---|---|
| Author | Jeuland, M. Baker, J. Bartlett, R. Lacombe, Guillaume |
| Spatial Coverage | Laos [LA] |
| Description | Though there are surprisingly few estimates of the economic benefits of coordinated infrastructure development and operations in international river basins, there is a widespread belief that improved cooperation is beneficial for managing water scarcity and variability. Hydro-economic optimization models are commonly-used for identifying efficient allocation of water across time and space, but such models typically assume full coordination. In the real world, investment and operational decisions for specific projects are often made without full consideration of potential downstream impacts. This paper describes a tractable methodology for evaluating the economic benefits of infrastructure coordination. We demonstrate its application over a range of water availability scenarios in a catchment of the Mekong located in Lao PDR, the Nam Ngum River Basin. Results from this basin suggest that coordination improves system net benefits from irrigation and hydropower by approximately 3–12% (or US$12-53 million/yr) assuming moderate levels of flood control, and that the magnitude of coordination benefits generally increases with the level of water availability and with inflow variability. Similar analyses would be useful for developing a systematic understanding of the factors that increase the costs of non-cooperation in river basin systems worldwide, and would likely help to improve targeting of efforts to stimulate complicated negotiations over water resources. |
| Related Links | https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/003120e5-b377-40fa-8dbc-8ba486760d6e |
| File Format | |
| ISSN | 17489326 |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/9/10/105006 |
| Journal | Environmental Research Letters |
| Issue Number | 10 |
| Volume Number | 9 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing |
| Publisher Date | 2014-10-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Rights License | CC-BY-3.0 |
| Subject Keyword | Water, Land and Ecosystems Decision Analysis and Information Managing Resource Variability and Competing Use River Basin Management Reservoirs Costs Water Resources Water Power Hydrology Economic Aspects Models Infrastructure Flood Control Irrigation Dams |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
| Subject | Agronomy and Crop Science Food Science Plant Science |
