Doctoral Dissertation Research: Water Use and Recharge in Arizona and Sonora

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Transboundary water management is of critical concern, as more than 263 river basins and an unknown number of aquifers span an international border. Experts from both academia and international institutions advocate ""benefit sharing"" as a key mechanism for promoting cooperation over internationally shared waters. Sharing the benefits that can be derived from transboundary waters, rather sharing than the water itself, has the potential to increase cooperation because it allows for a positive-sum game, whereas sharing water is necessarily a zero-sum game. Concrete examples of benefit sharing are few, however. Moreover, the literature on transboundary water tends to focus almost exclusively on economic benefits and overlooks the many stakeholders and non-economic interests that exist on each side of the border. This doctoral dissertation research project aims to advance the concept of benefit sharing by investigating negotiations over the allocation of the effluent from the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Upper Santa Cruz River Basin located along the U.S.-Mexico border between Arizona and Sonora. The doctoral candidate's goal is to determine the benefits that can be derived through the use of the effluent while accounting for the multiple interests of the multiple players within and across the border. Benefits may be manifest in terms of landscape preservation, endangered species protection, improved provision of water service, and economic growth. To accomplish this goal, a bi-national mathematical model of water in the basin will be developed to determine both the range of benefits and how those benefits vary depending on how the water is used. Because not all cultural and political considerations can be captured in a model, qualitative interviews and institutional mapping will be used to determine how the stakeholders and agencies responsible for water management on each side of the border impact cross-border cooperation. Water managers from both sides of the border will be invited to a workshop during which preliminary model results will be presented. Participants will be asked for feedback on model specification and about preferences and ranking of management goals. This project should contribute to basic understanding of transboundary water management by accounting for the multiple parties within as well as across the border as well as the non-economic and non-market values of water. By presenting a mechanism for determining the multiple benefits that can be derived through the use of water and the tradeoffs that exist between management goals, project results should be useful in enlarging the size of the bargaining space and thus increase the possibilities for future cooperation. The research also will result in the creation of a bi-national hydrologic model, which will be useful for evaluating future water management alternatives. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.