Water Allocations in the South Saskatchewan River Basin

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Water Allocations in the South Saskatchewan River
Basin
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SSRB area
Source Some SSRB info and Approved SSRB Water
Management Plan Implementation Project, Alberta
Environment
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SSRB River Basins
Source Some SSRB info and Approved SSRB Water
Management Plan Implementation Project, Alberta
Environment
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Current Allocation method
FITFIR First in time, first in right Oldest
water licenses get priority over newest Oldest
licenses are the largest Municipalities often
have the oldest licenses Licenses rarely
sequential geographically
Source Some SSRB info and Approved SSRB Water
Management Plan Implementation Project, Alberta
Environment
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Problems
All four river basins are oversubscribed. Two
river basins have experienced degraded
environmental conditions by not meeting Instream
Flow Needs (IFN). Large amounts of water have to
be moved between river basins to meet demand and
agreements with Saskatchewan. Economists believe
FITFIR is not economically efficient.
Source Some SSRB info and Approved SSRB Water
Management Plan Implementation Project, Alberta
Environment
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Goods
Source Adapted from Ostrom, Elinor (2005).
Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton
University Press. Princeton, NJ, U.S.A.
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Proposed solutions
1) Free market approach based on Murray-Darling
River Basin in Australia (new Water Act) 2)
Leave existing Water Act intact, but increase
Water Conservation Objectives (WCOs) and
clawbacks on transfers 3) Community-based
management/localized decision-making (minor
changes to Water Act)
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Issues
Market-based approaches ignore water is a common
pool resource, not a private good. Murray-Darling
River Basin had severe environmental degradation
during droughts. Economists reports are overly
optimistic? Not a lot of political support for
community-based management, but a lot of
political support for market-based approaches.
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Proposed Modeling
Need to compare predicted outcomes against each
other on the same playing field. Use
Institutional Analysis and Development framework
to develop the rules based on the proposed
solutions. Test if conditions such as IFN are
met. Test economic outcomes.
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Proposed Modeling
Likely choice would be agent based modeling,
using the rules developing through IAD
examination of the proposed solutions. Model has
to be able to handle both sequential and
simultaneous deterministic and stochastic events
and outcomes. Localized failures can affect
downstream agents.
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Parameters
Volume of water licenses Geographic location of
water licenses Priority numbers of water
licenses Inter-provincial and international
water agreements Inter-river basin
transfers Naturalized flow and natural recharges
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Variables
Rainfall Price of oil Price of selling water
license Price of short term transfer of water
license Population growth IFN/WCO levels