IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/acb/agenda/v15y2008i3p5-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Will we all be Rooned without a Desal Plant? Hanrahan's Lament and the Problem of Urban Water Planning under Climate Change

Author

Listed:
  • Donna Brennan

Abstract

Given the uncertainty of climate forecasts there is a danger of overly pessimistic forecasts justifying overly large and early investment in desalination plants. If the recent weather patterns turn out to be just a drought, water utilities will find themselves with redundant desalination plants or, worse still, a commitment to pay high costs to desalinate water when dams are regularly spilling. A case study of Western Australia argues that the construction of the touted second desalination plant will mean dams will spill significantly one year in two if the climate follows the average patter of the years 1975–2006. Further, the climate assumptions that are used to justify the plant imply a long-run cost potentially high enough to eliminate the demand for the water supplied by the plant.

Suggested Citation

  • Donna Brennan, 2008. "Will we all be Rooned without a Desal Plant? Hanrahan's Lament and the Problem of Urban Water Planning under Climate Change," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 5-20.
  • Handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:15:y:2008:i:3:p:5-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p87771/pdf/15-3-AN-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arbues, Fernando & Garcia-Valinas, Maria Angeles & Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2003. "Estimation of residential water demand: a state-of-the-art review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 81-102, March.
    2. Jasper M. Dalhuisen & Raymond J. G. M. Florax & JHenri L. F. de Groot & Peter Nijkamp, 2003. "Price and Income Elasticities of Residential Water Demand: A Meta-Analysis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(2), pages 292-308.
    3. Ralph Turvey, 1976. "Analyzing the Marginal Cost of Water Supply," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(2), pages 158-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo, 2015. "Long-Term Water Demand Forecasting," Post-Print hal-01183853, HAL.
    2. Gregorio Castro-Rosales & Ramiro Esqueda-Walle, 2021. "Spatial Analysis of Urban Water Use Management in the Northern Border Region of Mexico," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(11), pages 126-126, July.
    3. Marie-Estelle Binet & Fabrizio Carlevaro & Michel Paul, 2014. "Estimation of Residential Water Demand with Imperfect Price Perception," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(4), pages 561-581, December.
    4. repec:ags:aare05:139341 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Katrin Millock & Céline Nauges, 2010. "Household Adoption of Water-Efficient Equipment: The Role of Socio-Economic Factors, Environmental Attitudes and Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(4), pages 539-565, August.
    6. NAUGES Céline & VAN DEN BERG Caroline, 2006. "Water Markets, Demand and Cost Recovery for Piped Water Supply Services: Evidence from Southwest Sri Lanka," LERNA Working Papers 06.08.201, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    7. Gawel, Erik & Sigel, Katja & Bretschneider, Wolfgang, 2011. "Affordability of water supply in Mongolia: Empirical lessons for measuring affordability," UFZ Discussion Papers 9/2011, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    8. Xiaojia Bao, 2016. "Water, Electricity and Weather Variability in Rural Northern China," Working Papers 2014-07-02, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    9. Céline Nauges & Dale Whittington, 2010. "Estimation of Water Demand in Developing Countries: An Overview," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 263-294, August.
    10. Céline Nauges & Caroline Berg, 2009. "Demand for Piped and Non-piped Water Supply Services: Evidence from Southwest Sri Lanka," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(4), pages 535-549, April.
    11. Hanemann, W. Michael & Nauges, Celine, 2005. "Heterogeneous Responses to Water Conservation Programs: The Case of Residential Users in Los Angeles," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt1s43k3fd, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    12. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Anna Montini, 2006. "The determinants of residential water demand: empirical evidence for a panel of Italian municipalities," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 107-111.
    13. R. Quentin Grafton & Tom Kompas & Hang To & Michael Ward, 2009. "Residential Water Consumption: A Cross Country Analysis," Environmental Economics Research Hub Research Reports 0923, Environmental Economics Research Hub, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, revised Aug 2009.
    14. Schleich, Joachim & Hillenbrand, Thomas, 2009. "Determinants of residential water demand in Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1756-1769, April.
    15. Kostas Bithas & Chrysostomos Stoforos, 2006. "Estimating Urban Residential Water Demand Determinants and Forecasting Water Demand for Athens Metropolitan Area, 2000-2010," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 4(1), pages 47-59.
    16. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Vlach, Tomas, 2016. "Publication Bias in Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand," MPRA Paper 75247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Marie-Estelle Binet & Fabrizio Carlevaro & Michel Paul, 2012. "Estimation of Residential Water Demand with Imprecise Price Perception," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 201233, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    18. Christopher Boyer & Damian Adams & Tatiana Borisova & Christopher Clark, 2012. "Factors Driving Water Utility Rate Structure Choice: Evidence from Four Southern U.S. States," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(10), pages 2747-2760, August.
    19. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Tomas Vlach, 2018. "Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand: The Importance of Publication and Endogeneity Biases," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(2), pages 259-283.
    20. Ruijs, A. & Zimmermann, A. & van den Berg, M., 2008. "Demand and distributional effects of water pricing policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 506-516, June.
    21. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo, 2015. "Long-Term Water Demand Forecasting," Post-Print hal-01290178, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:15:y:2008:i:3:p:5-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.