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by Steve Vanderheiden<\/p>\n
What can states do when their surface waters run short of the flows needed to satisfy water right schemes, and some valid claimants will need to be denied access?\u00a0 Such is a likely scenario under conditions in which climate change is expected to exacerbate the magnitude and frequency of drought seen across the American west in recent years.\u00a0 Australia and the Netherlands have each developed priority schemes for dealing with severe water shortages, identifying a hierarchy among water claims that supersedes systems governing allocation during normal flow periods.<\/p>\n
The Dutch, who are renowned for their efficiency in managing both water surpluses and shortages, have developed an allocation scheme that recognizes the priority of some categories of water use over others, as well as among uses with those categories.\u00a0 Of highest priority are the Category 1 \u201cwater safety and prevention of irreversible damage\u201d uses that include stability of the nation\u2019s water defenses as the highest priority use, followed by subsidence of peat grounds and the prevention of irreversible damage to ecosystems.\u00a0 Since all three are non-extractive uses, the national legal recognition of this category as of highest value requires that some water be left within river basins even in cases of severe drought, prioritizing these to all extractive uses.<\/p>\n
Category 2 \u201cutilities\u201d uses include the provision of drinking water first and production of energy second, except when \u201cthe supply of energy is not at risk,\u201d in which case further energy production becomes a category 4 use under the scheme.\u00a0 In Category 3 are two \u201csmall-scale, high-quality\u201d uses of water available after Category 1 and 2 uses are satisfied, including \u201csprinkling\u201d of \u201ccrops that are threatened by a total crop failure\u201d due to drought and where \u201ca small amount of water could prevent major damage,\u201d elevating it above general agricultural uses in Category 4, with all remaining uses relegated to Category 4, and with regional officials charged with determining priorities within the category.\u00a0 Remaining uses include major economic uses (shipping, industry, irrigation for agriculture, and fishing) as well as water recreation and environmental flows not involving irreversible damage.<\/p>\n
The Dutch scheme reflects a prioritization for security and critical ecological interests within Category 1, basic human needs within Category 2, and higher and low value economic and recreational values in Categories 3 and 4, mirroring principles found in the natural resource justice literature.\u00a0 As such, it represents the most fully developed water allocation priority system for addressing water scarcity, albeit one for a region that is more accustomed to dealing with having too much rather than too little surface water, and within a water governance system that is quite different from U.S. riparian law.<\/p>\n
Another innovative priority scheme has been developed in a system that more closely resembles the U.S. in terms of its system or water rights and recent experiences with severe drought.\u00a0 In response to recent severe drought conditions and in anticipation of further water shortages that exceed its ability to recognize historical water rights, Australia has adopted a rationing scheme that seeks to protect \u201ccritical human water needs\u201d (CHWN), defined in terms of the \u201cminimum amount of water needed to meet basic human needs.\u201d\u00a0 Under the Murry-Darling Basin Plan, for example, New South Wales requires 61GL, Victoria requires 77GL, and South Australia requires 204GL to satisfy CHWN, trumping water right claims under Tier 2 \u201cvery low water availability\u201d periods as well as Tier 3 \u201cextreme and unprecedented conditions\u201d for water quality or quantity.\u00a0 While not as developed as the Dutch category system, the prioritization of CHWN over routine legal water claims during drought periods represents an innovative reform designed to cope with environmental change through normative criteria that supersede and modify legal rights to water.<\/p>\n
Elements of an ad hoc priority scheme began to develop under California\u2019s recent drought and subsequent water emergency, in which municipal water districts faced mandatory reductions in use while rationing efforts did not require similar reductions from the state\u2019s agricultural sector.\u00a0 However, these allocation decisions were not made in the deliberate manner and according to the priority principled used in developing the Dutch category scheme, and do not trigger mandatory \u201cwater sharing\u201d responses capable of trumping water rights, as in Australia.<\/p>\n
In anticipation of climate change placing increasing strain upon standard schemes of water rights in the future and of water allocation decisions becoming a key component of routine adaptation to such change, these innovative approaches to water governance offer instructive cases for how we in the American West might meet future water supply challenges.\u00a0 Along with an Australian water scientist and a Dutch philosopher and engineer, I am studying these two priority schemes for insights into how the value choices that they embody get identified and operationalized, as well as how various stakeholders are included in processes by which such schemes get developed and implemented.\u00a0 Our goals is to understand how water governance systems may adapt to water shortages while maintaining commitments to equitable, sustainable, and efficient water uses.<\/p>\n
Photo above: The Murrumbidgee River near Hay in New South Wales<\/a>. Credit: Arthur Mostead.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Steve Vanderheiden What can states do when their surface waters run short of the flows needed to satisfy water right schemes, and some valid claimants will need to be denied access?\u00a0 Such is a likely scenario under conditions in … Continue reading