IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/waterr/v27y2013i5p1221-1234.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Water Resources Sustainability Indicator: Application of the Watershed Characteristics Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Heidi Peterson
  • John Nieber
  • Roman Kanivetsky
  • Boris Shmagin

Abstract

The quantification of the renewable flux (i.e. sustainable limit) of the hydrologic system is the prerequisite for transitioning from unsustainable to sustainable water resources management. The application of the Watershed Characteristics Approach to estimate the renewable flux of the hydrologic system was demonstrated using Minnesota’s (USA) Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (TCMA). The methodology quantified the relationships between landscape properties and water balance characteristics, resulting in the development of functioning hierarchical hydrogeological units with corresponding recharge rates. This renewable flux is a key quantitative characteristic for the assessment of a sustainability indicator. The key indicator of sustainable water use is the ratio of the renewable capacity of the hydrologic system to the water use by humans and the environment. By incorporating water use estimates for the TCMA relative to the calculated recharge rates, sustainability indicators for groundwater and total flux were calculated for the metropolitan area. As far back as the 1890s, declines in TCMA groundwater levels have been observed, which correspond to the unsustainable groundwater extraction estimates identified in the results of this study. The non-stationary characteristics of urban watersheds influenced by ongoing land use/land cover changes as illustrated in this paper, emphasizes the need for conservative hydrologic planning to achieve sustainable water management. This approach can also be applied to other metropolitan areas as a hydrologic tool for decision-makers to design sustainable water policy and prevent the over-extraction of the water flowing through the hydrologic system. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Heidi Peterson & John Nieber & Roman Kanivetsky & Boris Shmagin, 2013. "Water Resources Sustainability Indicator: Application of the Watershed Characteristics Approach," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(5), pages 1221-1234, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:waterr:v:27:y:2013:i:5:p:1221-1234
    DOI: 10.1007/s11269-012-0232-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-012-0232-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11269-012-0232-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dedi Liu & Xiaohong Chen & Teddy Nakato, 2012. "Resilience Assessment of Water Resources System," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(13), pages 3743-3755, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Motilal Ghimire & Niroj Timalsina & Wei Zhao, 2024. "A Geographical approach of watershed prioritization in the Himalayas: a case study in the middle mountain district of Nepal," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(9), pages 23527-23560, September.
    2. Mehri Abdi-Dehkordi & Omid Bozorg-Haddad & Xuefeng Chu, 2021. "Development of a Combined Index to Evaluate Sustainability of Water Resources Systems," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(9), pages 2965-2985, July.

    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. Stella Santana & Gilberto Barroso, 2014. "Integrated Ecosystem Management of River Basins and the Coastal Zone in Brazil," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(14), pages 4927-4942, November.
    2. Dongying Sun & Jiarong Gu & Junyu Chen & Xilin Xia & Zhisong Chen, 2022. "Spatiotemporal differentiation and influencing factors of urban water supply system resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 114(1), pages 101-126, October.
    3. Dedi Liu & Shenglian Guo & Pan Liu & Hui Zou & Xingjun Hong, 2019. "Rational Function Method for Allocating Water Resources in the Coupled Natural-Human Systems," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(1), pages 57-73, January.
    4. Giada Felisa & Giulio Panini & Pietro Pedrazzoli & Vittorio Di Federico, 2022. "Combined Management of Groundwater Resources and Water Supply Systems at Basin Scale Under Climate Change," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(3), pages 915-930, February.
    5. Byungil Kim & Sha Chul Shin & Du Yon Kim, 2017. "A resilience loss assessment framework for evaluating flood-control dam safety upgrades," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 86(2), pages 805-819, March.
    6. Jiping Yao & Guoqiang Wang & Weina Xue & Zhipeng Yao & Baolin Xue, 2019. "Assessing the Adaptability of Water Resources System in Shandong Province, China, Using a Novel Comprehensive Co-evolution Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(2), pages 657-675, January.
    7. Nogal, Maria & O'Connor, Alan & Caulfield, Brian & Martinez-Pastor, Beatriz, 2016. "Resilience of traffic networks: From perturbation to recovery via a dynamic restricted equilibrium model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 84-96.
    8. P. Tamuno & M. Smith, 2013. "Fish Species as Eco-indicators in the Comparative Ecological Characterisation of two Creeks in the Central Niger Delta, Nigeria," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(7), pages 2645-2656, May.

    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:spr:waterr:v:27:y:2013:i:5:p:1221-1234. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.