Special Issue "Water Policy"

Guest Editor
Dr. Davide Viaggi
University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural Economics and Engineering Viale Fanin, 50, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Website: http://www.unibo.it/docenti/davide.viaggi
E-Mail: davide.viaggi@unibo.it
Interests: Agricultural policy evaluation; Water resource evaluation and management; Environmental impact assessment and resource economics; Evaluation of technical change and innovation in agriculture and food; Farm investment behaviour; Land markets

Dear Colleagues,

Water policies can be intended as mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals, mainly by public bodies in charge of water management. Water policies play a major role as determinant of water use and resource management. As they determine the interplay between resource availability and deliberate human action, they are also central in the debate about water use.

This special issue aims to encourage dialogue between researchers, policy makers and practitioners on the issue of improvement of water policy and related management practices, through an interdisciplinary perspective including in particular economics, political science and social sciences. In this framework, high quality papers illustrating original research about the following issues are sought:

• Experiences and open issues with recent regional policy approaches (e.g. water framework directive in EU countries).
• Innovative policy instruments and mechanisms (water markets, auctions, pricing mechanisms).
• Ex-post and ex ante policy evaluation approaches, methods and tools, and their application to cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis of water policy measures.
• Coordination between water policy and specific sector policies (e.g. agriculture, energy).
• Water policy in the context of drought and climate change management, adaptation and response.
• Water policy and wider economic and social issues (global economic networks, health, food security).
• Water policy and institutional settings.

Dr. Davide Viaggi
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 300 CHF (Swiss Francs). English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• policy design
• policy instruments
• pricing
• water markets
• water framework directive
• incentives
• policy evaluation

Title: Irrigation and Agricultural Performance in China, 2000 and 2008
Authors: Qiuqiong Huang ¹, Scott Rozelle ² and Jinxia Wang ³
Affiliations: ¹ Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota; E-Mail: qhuang@umn.edu
² Food Security and the Environment Program, Freeman Spogli Institute; Wood Institute, Stanford University; Adjunct Professor, LICOS, Katholic University, Leuven
³ Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Abstract: The overall goal of our paper is to understand the impact that irrigation in China has had on grain production and incomes over years. With a set of household data collected in six provinces in 2000 and 2008, we describe the relationship among irrigation status, yields and household crop revenue and changes in the relationship over years. Second, we use econometric analysis to estimate the magnitude of the effect that irrigation has on yields and crop revenue. Finally, we focus on the impact that irrigation has on incomes in poor areas.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Managing Water Supply through Joint Regional Authorities in Finland: Two Comparative Cases
Authors: Marko Stenroos ¹ and Tapio S. Katko ^2,*
Affiliation: ¹ University of Turku, FI-21004 University of Turku, Finland; tapio.katko@tut.fi
² Tampere University of Technology, P.O.Box 541, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland; E-Mails: marste@utu.fi
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse two Finnish Joint Regional Authorities for Water Supply—namely the Raisio-Naantali Federation of Municipalities for Water Supply (est. 1957) and the Tuusula Region Joint Municipal Authority for Water Supply (est. 1967)—for assessing the development of supra-municipal water governance. The above two cases make it possible to analyse and assess water policies in settings where the owners are groups of municipalities. The analysis is based on two separately conducted case studies. The study data consist of several types of materials: annual reports, local government documents, etc. The conducted interviews were semi-structured with some themes defined beforehand. The studies describe two authorities in the context of historical development and as a part of local development. In the case studies attention was paid especially to the following points: the role of customers, investments, the choice of technology, and management—namely the board of trustees and the CEO—in the decision making process. What were the most important strategic decisions and what was the role of stakeholders? The task was to discover any similar and dissimilar factors between the two cases. We found out that changes in the environment, (e.g., raw water quality) that changed demand for water affected the technical development of a water utility. Forming a Joint Regional Authority is one alternative for a group of municipalities which alone do not have sufficient resources to invest in the building of infrastructure. This allows regional use of water resources. A wholesale company with little staff can design and organise operations effectively. The representatives chosen by the municipalities participate in the decision making of the Joint Regional Authorities persistently and over a long period. The partners and customers considered  co-operation and interaction to be a challenge. The situation gets more complex if a big industrial customer gets involved in the decision-making of the Joint Regional Authorities. Since the division of responsibilities between Joint Regional Authorities and the partners is clear, the biggest disputes between the stakeholders concern the routing and building of main trunk lines.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Aquifer Assessment to Support Trans-Boundary Water Management: Challenges and Opportunities along the United States-Mexico Border
Authors: Sharon B. Megdal ¹ and Christopher A. Scott ²
Affiliations: ¹ Water Resources Research Center, University of Arizona 350 N. Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; E-Mail: smegdal@cals.arizona.edu
² Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and School of Geography & Development, University of Arizona, 803 E. 1st St., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
Abstract: Water policy depends fundamentally on the location of the supply and demand for water and the legal/institutional framework for water management. Within and across nations, laws and structures for water management decision making vary, often significantly. Recognizing these differences can present challenges to efforts to assess and manage trans-boundary waters. This paper examines current binational efforts to develop the scientific information to support water management decision making along the United States-Mexico border. The particular focus is the border shared by the states of Arizona in the United States and Sonora in Mexico. Legislation enacted in the United States (Public Law 109-448) established a governmental-academic partnership to assess trans-boundary aquifers. The paper discusses the establishment of a working partnership between Mexico and the United States, which led to an official binational cooperative framework for binational trans-boundary assessment. It explains how the extensive effort to recognize and accommodate asymmetries in the underlying legal and regulatory frameworks for water management was essential to meeting the objectives of both countries. Elements of the binational investigations are discussed. The paper concludes by exploring the opportunities for additional cross border scientific and water management collaboration, involving university researchers, government agencies and watershed-based stakeholders, should funding and institutional commitments continue.
Keywords: trans-boundary aquifers; trans-boundary waters; water policy; institutional asymmetries; water management