Economic and policy drivers of agricultural water desalination in California’s central valley
Economic and policy drivers of agricultural water desalination in California’s central valley
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DOI：
10.1016/j.agwat.2017.07.024
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发表时间：
2016-12
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
P. Welle;J. Medellín-Azuara;J. Viers;M. Mauter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
P. Welle;J. Medellín-Azuara;J. Viers;M. Mauter
海水淡化是缓解干旱、土壤盐碱化和农业排水对生态影响的一种拟议解决方案。在本研究中，我们评估了加州中央谷（CV）分布式海水淡化的公共和私人成本和效益。我们采用环境和经济模型来估计降低灌溉水盐度的价值;在当前和未来气候情景下增加供水的价值;以及与发电淡化水相关的人类健康，环境和气候变化损害。我们发现，在严重干旱期间，海水淡化只可能在4%的CV中有利可图，并且目前的成本需要降低70-90%才能在中等英亩的土地上采用。化石燃料驱动的海水淡化技术也产生空气排放，造成人类健康和气候变化损害，造成重大公共成本，尽管这些损害因技术而异。减少农业排水所带来的生态系统服务效益的价值需要在每英亩英尺800美元至1 200美元之间，或几乎是海水淡化的全部资本和运营成本，海水淡化的净效益才能从社会角度来看是积极的。
Water desalination is a proposed solution for mitigating the effects of drought, soil salinization, and the ecological impacts of agricultural drainage. In this study, we assess the public and private costs and benefits of distributed desalination in the Central Valley (CV) of California. We employ environmental and economic modeling to estimate the value of reducing the salinity of irrigation water; the value of augmenting water supply under present and future climate scenarios; and the human health, environmental, and climate change damages associated with generating power to desalinate water. We find that water desalination is only likely to be profitable in 4% of the CV during periods of severe drought, and that current costs would need to decrease by 70–90% for adoption to occur on the median acre. Fossil-fuel powered desalination technologies also generate air emissions that impose significant public costs in the form of human health and climate change damages, although these damages vary greatly depending on technology. The ecosystem service benefits of reduced agricultural drainage would need to be valued between $800 and $1200 per acre-foot, or nearly the full capital and operational costs of water desalination, for the net benefits of water desalination to be positive from a societal perspective.