IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/pugtwp/332875.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Modelling the millennium drought in the southern Murray-Darling Basin and subsequent drought in California

Author

Listed:
  • Wittwer, Glyn

Abstract

The irrigation regions of Australia’s southern Murray-Darling Basin (SMDB) and California’s Central Valley provide several contrasts. In the SMDB, reliance on groundwater is relatively limited. In drought, groundwater usage may double but it covers no more than one tenth or so of the shortfall in surface water availability. In the Central Valley, groundwater has compensated for a much larger share of the shortfall in surface water in the prolonged drought which started in 2013. A common feature of the two irrigation regions is that they both have extensive irrigated infrastructure. But in allocating water, that is where the similarity ends. Ongoing reforms in Australia’s water management have resulted in a separation of land and water ownership. With this have come water exchanges and local brokers and hence the ability to move water from annual to perennial activities during drought. In the Californian case, appurtenant water rights have provided a barrier to water trading. Such trading at best proceeds on an informal basis in thin volumes. The lack of water trading has an environmental consequence, with more wells being dug to provide water for existing plantations. This may worsen land subsidence and aquifer depletion.

Suggested Citation

  • Wittwer, Glyn, 2017. "Modelling the millennium drought in the southern Murray-Darling Basin and subsequent drought in California," Conference papers 332875, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332875/files/8420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter B. Dixon & Maureen T. Rimmer & Glyn Wittwer, 2011. "Saving the Southern Murray‐Darling Basin: The Economic Effects of a Buyback of Irrigation Water," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 87(276), pages 153-168, March.
    2. Glyn Wittwer, 2015. "From Almond Shaming to Water Trading: CGE Insights into Managing California's Drought," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers g-258, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    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. Glyn Wittwer & Peter Dixon, 2011. "Water trading, buybacks and drought in the Murray-Darling basin: lessons from economic modelling," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers g-222, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    2. Dinar, Ariel, 2012. "Economy-wide implications of direct and indirect policy interventions in the water sector: lessons from recent work and future research needs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6068, The World Bank.
    3. Wittwer, Glyn, 2021. "A review of CGE modelling of irrigation developments and policies in Australia," Conference papers 333263, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Wittwer, Glyn, 2022. "Preparing a multi-country, sub-national CGE model: EuroTERM including Ukraine," Conference papers 333470, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    5. Victor Nechifor & Matthew Winning, 2017. "The impacts of higher CO2 concentrations over global crop production and irrigation water requirements," EcoMod2017 10487, EcoMod.
    6. James A. Giesecke & John R. Madden, 2013. "Evidence-based regional economic policy analysis: the role of CGE modelling," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 6(2), pages 285-301.
    7. George Verikios & Xiao-guang Zhang, 2016. "Structural change and income distribution: the case of Australian telecommunications," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 549-570, October.
    8. Wittwer, Glyn, 2020. "The Murray Darling Basin Plan amid Drought and Civil Discontent," Conference papers 333230, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    9. Verikios, George & Zhang, Xiao-guang, 2013. "Structural change in the Australian electricity industry during the 1990s and the effect on household income distribution: A macro–micro approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 564-575.
    10. Wheeler, Sarah Ann & Zuo, Alec & Bjornlund, Henning, 2014. "Investigating the delayed on-farm consequences of selling water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 72-82.
    11. George Verikios, 2018. "Capital Account Liberalisation by China and the Effects on Global FDI and Trade," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 245-269, July.
    12. Perez Blanco, C.D., 2018. "Waters run deep: A coupled Revealed Preference and CGE model to assess the economy-wide impacts of agricultural water buyback," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277028, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Morrison, Mark & Wheeler, Sarah Ann & Hatton MacDonald, Darla, 2012. "Towards a more nuanced discussion of the net-benefits of sharing water in the Murray-Darling Basin," AFBM Journal, Australasian Farm Business Management Network, vol. 8(2), pages 1-12, April.
    14. Onil Banerjee & Martin Cicowiez & Mark Horridge & Renato Vargas, 2016. "A Conceptual Framework for Integrated Economic-Environmental Modelling," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0202, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    15. Wittwer, Glyn, 2015. "The TERM-H2O modeling experience in Australia," Conference papers 332657, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    16. Adamson, David, 2013. "Buying Paper and Giving Gold: The Murray Darling Basin Plan," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 156481, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    17. Grafton, R. Quentin & Horne, James, 2014. "Water markets in the Murray-Darling Basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 61-71.
    18. Alec Zuo & Sarah Ann Wheeler & Peter Boxall & W. L. (Vic) Adamowicz & Darla Hatton MacDonald, 2015. "Identifying Water Prices at which Australian Farmers Will Exit Irrigation: Results of a Stated Preference Survey," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 91(S1), pages 109-123, June.
    19. Grafton, Rupert & Jiang, Qiang, 2011. "Economic effects of water recovery on irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 55(4), pages 1-13.
    20. Glyn Wittwer, 2012. "Accelerated water savings and demand growth for farm outputs: impacts on the economy of the southern Murray-Darling Basin," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers g-232, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

    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:ags:pugtwp:332875. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gtpurus.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.