Evaluating the Feasibility of Water Sharing as a Drought Risk Management Tool for Irrigated Agriculture
Evaluating the Feasibility of Water Sharing as a Drought Risk Management Tool for Irrigated Agriculture
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DOI：
10.3390/su13031456
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发表时间：
2021-02-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Holman, Ian P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chengot, Rishma;Knox, Jerry W.;Holman, Ian P.
干旱可能对区域水资源造成巨大压力，导致灌溉农业的取水限制，影响生产力和收入。虽然水交易可以支持更有效的水分配，但高昂的交易成本和审批延迟往往限制了用户对水交易的更广泛接受。合作水资源共享是正式水资源交易的替代方法，但受到的监管和行业关注要少得多。这项研究评估了干旱严重程度和水资源共享协议的空间规模如何影响水资源共享在减少农业水资源风险方面的潜在效益。研究集中在英格兰东部的一个集约化耕作的低地集水区，这是一个已知的灌溉强度和经常性取水压力的热点。在四个空间尺度上模拟了水资源共享的好处：（一）个人许可证（没有水资源共享），（二）小农群体之间的支流水资源共享，（三）子集水区和（四）集水区尺度。水资源共享的好处进行了评估的基础上模拟减少灌溉赤字发生的概率（减少干旱风险）和减少许可的“净空”（备用容量重新部署，以更公平的分配）。据发现，水资源共享的潜在效益随着规模的扩大而增加，但由于干旱管理的监管控制，在干旱严重程度较高的情况下，其影响有限。讨论了为缓解干旱影响而分享水资源的更广泛影响、更广泛吸收水资源的障碍以及环境后果。
Droughts can exert significant pressure on regional water resources resulting in abstraction constraints for irrigated agriculture with consequences for productivity and revenue. While water trading can support more efficient water allocation, high transactional costs and delays in approvals often restrict its wider uptake among users. Collaborative water sharing is an alternative approach to formal water trading that has received much less regulatory and industry attention. This study assessed how the potential benefits of water sharing to reduce water resources risks in agriculture are affected by both drought severity and the spatial scale of water-sharing agreements. The research focused on an intensively farmed lowland catchment in Eastern England, a known hot-spot for irrigation intensity and recurrent abstraction pressures. The benefits of water sharing were modelled at four spatial scales: (i) individual licence (with no water sharing), (ii) tributary water sharing among small farmer groups (iii) sub-catchment and (iv) catchment scale. The benefits of water sharing were evaluated based on the modelled reductions in the probability of an irrigation deficit occurring (reducing drought risks) and reduced licensed 'headroom' (spare capacity redeployed for more equitable allocation). The potential benefits of water sharing were found to increase with scale, but its impact was limited at high levels of drought severity due to regulatory drought management controls. The broader implications for water sharing to mitigate drought impacts, the barriers to wider uptake and the environmental consequences are discussed.