Water Uses and Misuses: A World View

Population growth and development efforts are generating mounting demands for larger, more reliable water supplies. Egypt's Aswan dam and Pakistan's recently completed Tarbela dam are two of the largest projects ever undertaken to increase command over a nation's water supplies. As countries undertake more and larger projects to meet their rising demands, the physical limits of natural water resources are becoming apparent. So are the implications of excessive and abusive uses of water. Increasingly, societies are finding that the most accessible and least expensive supplies have already been developed and that large environmental and economic costs are associated with developing new ones. Alternative water uses such as irrigation, recreation, and waste removal are becoming more competitive and irreconcilable through supply expansion alone, and some water sources are beginning to run dry.

Planning and management institutions almost universally fail to provide a socially efficient water use. The principal reasons for this are the nature of the resource and the problems of evaluating the benefits and costs of many water uses. Water resources are generally "fugitive" in time or space. When water flows from one property to another, a characteristic of most surface and groundwater supplies, it is difficult to establish clear property rights to it. Consequently, water is called a common property resource: it is accessible to many but it belongs to no one unless and until it is withdrawn for use.

Management of common property resources is difficult because a user seldom bears the full costs of using them. For example, virtually all the costs of using a stream for waste disposal are borne by those downstream rather than by the polluter. Even when a farmer spends sizable sums to pump groundwater, these costs do not include loss to either neighboring farmers or future users. When the capacity of streams to assimilate wastes, or the rates of natural recharge to groundwater stocks are exceeded, the costs not borne by the users can be substantial. Consequently, when left to private decisions, water use tends to exceed socially desirable levels.

In part because of the limitations of private markets in dealing with common property resources, government agencies often develop and manage them. Unfortunately, government regulation has been notoriously inflexible in adjusting water management practices to underlying changes in the supply and demand conditions for water. Limits on the authority of government agencies to alter traditional water-use patterns contributes to this inflexibility. But a more fundamental and pervasive deficiency of these agencies is their inability to evaluate the social benefits and costs associated with alternative water uses. Although major advances have been made in the theory and methodology of water resource planning and management in recent decades, the application of these advances lags far behind.

As the costs of inefficient water use mount, pressures for more effective water planning and management are rising. This need was recognized by organizers of the United Nations Water Conference that was held from March 7 to 18, 1977 in Buenos Aires and was designed "to stimulate public awareness of, and interest in the critical water situation" and "to consider how the planet's fixed stock of water can best be managed for domestic, agricultural and industrial use."

The relative abundance of technical, financial, and natural resources within the United States has not prevented the overuse and misuse of its water resources. Rather, the rapid pace of economic development has contributed to a degree of use and abuse not yet reached in most other countries. Consequently, U.S. experience may be more instructive for lessons on the adverse impacts of intensive water use than for examples of farsighted water planning and management.

The quality threat. In the past, the abundance of water in the eastern United States generated a complacency not found in the arid areas—a complacency that has been shaken in recent decades because the enormous concentration of people and economic activity in the humid East now pose serious challenges to water management and planning. Planners are forced to go further afield and to build larger and more expensive storage and transmission facilities to meet urban water needs during periods of extended drought. Yet, the greatest political and economic challenges to water planners in the eastern United States lie not in increasing supplies but in resolving the conflicts among users. These conflicts result from the use of water for waste disposal. The capacity of rivers, lakes and coastal areas to assimilate wastes has long been exceeded in most urban areas, and many of these are now unfit for recreation and fishing. Furthermore, concern is rising as to the long-term ecological implications of the mounting quantity and toxicity of the wastes reaching the oceans.

The 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Act committed the country to cleaning up and maintaining the quality of its waters. The program has proven costly and often frustrating. In 1975 alone an estimated $14.7 billion were spent to control water pollution, and from 1975 to 1984 annual expenditures are expected to average nearly $25 billion (in 1975 dollars). Even with these expenditures, deadlines for achieving objectives of the 1972 legislation will not be met. The act's 1977 pollution control objectives will not be reached, and the 1983 deadline for achieving "fishable and swimmable" waters probably will have to be extended. Despite the delays and the high costs, however, pollution control efforts are not being abandoned. Although the costs of neglecting water quality are not readily quantifiable, the foregone amenity and productive resources and health problems associated with deteriorating water quality are real and substantial costs to the society. Indeed, pollution control is expected to be less costly.

The scarcity threat. In much of the western United States, natural water resources are scarce relative to the land, mineral, energy, and amenity resources. While this has made water supply a primary concern of regional development efforts, it has not yet prevented development. Development of huge population and farming centers out of virtual desert in Southern California is striking evidence that natural water scarcity has not prevented economic growth. Irrigated agriculture consumes much larger quantities of water per unit of output than any other sector of the economy. More than 90 percent of the region's total water withdrawals is diverted to irrigate more than 35 million acres in the seventeen western states. This indicates that much of the water is consumed by relatively low-value uses, and efficient water management techniques are rarely encountered on the region's farms, illustrating the general absence of water conservation.

Traditional patterns of water use, however, are becoming increasingly inconsistent with development of the region. Nearly all readily accessible water in the West is now in use, and in some cases existing activities are dependent on rapidly declining groundwater stocks or must be curtailed when precipitation falls much below normal. The winter and early spring drought gripping much of the West has necessitated sharp reductions in residential as well as agricultural water use in the hardest-hit areas. Yet, the pressures for further development and expanded water use are strong: favorable farm prices encourage the expansion of irrigated agriculture; large quantities of water are required to develop the region's enormous coal and oil shale deposits; and amenity resources—abundant sunshine, clean air, magnificent vistas—attract people to the region.

It is becoming clear that development will require either water importation or a more efficient use of local supplies. It is also apparent that the costs, both economic and environmental, of imported water will be much higher than those encountered in developing local supplies. And while the potential for improving the efficiency of water use both among current users and alternative users is great, change will be difficult to implement. The problems in the Colorado River Basin (including parts of the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming as well as a portion of northwest Mexico) and the High Plains (especially the regions within the states of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) illustrate some of these issues.

Demands on the Colorado. The Colorado River originates with snow melt on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains in the State of Colorado and flows nearly 1,400 miles through an arid to semiarid area into northern Mexico to its mouth in the Gulf of California. Even though the seven-state region is sparsely populated (about 3.4 people per square mile), the water is virtually fully utilized. Little water still flows into the Gulf. The situation is aggravated by water transfers out of the basin to supplement supplies to both the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the California coast.

In addition to being one of the most intensely utilized rivers, the Colorado may be one of the most thoroughly studied rivers in the world. Computerized models of the river—simulating water use under a variety of assumptions—indicate the serious nature of the threat to the region posed by the combined water quality and supply problems. For example, when a moderate increase in water demand for energy development in the upper basin and a moderate level of federal construction are assumed, results suggest that: (1) total water demands in the basin states will exceed long-term flow by 1985-87; (2) use of Colorado River water in California, which currently exceeds California's legal quotas, must be curtailed soon after 1985; (3) the basic water needs of the basin can be met until about 1995 by drawing down reservoir stocks; (4) by 2000, both ground and surface water stocks within the basin will be severely depleted; (5) estimated annual damages because of salinity will rise from about $53 million as of 1973 to $124 million by 2000, if no control measures are applied. This is due to the fact that the salt content of the river increases as it picks up salts from the soil and as the flow is reduced by evaporation and consumption. Irrigation return flows are the primary source of the rising salt concentrations which now threaten the viability of some downstream water uses.

The distribution of the Colorado River water is subject to a complicated set of interstate compacts, a U.S. Supreme Court decision, a treaty with Mexico and subsequent national commitments to it, and numerous acts of the U.S. Congress. These have evolved out of years of jockeying by interested parties for larger shares of the river's flow. Despite this long record, several factors suggest that the long-term inter-state distribution of the Colorado has yet to be settled. For example, expectations as to its long-term flow have been revised downward since the initial division of water rights among the states. Consequently, more water has been promised than can be delivered. The rights of some users also are threatened by the increasing salinity of the water that reaches them. The federal government as owner of 70 percent of the basin's land has made some nebulous but potentially sizable water claims, and the water claims of Indian tribes in the basin have not been resolved by either the Congress or the courts.

State water laws control intrastate water distribution, and in all these states priority is based on the date of first use. In part because of the stimulus provided over the years by government subsidies, irrigated agriculture, which is both a major polluter and a relatively low-value user of the water, has the highest claim on most of the region's water.

Future management of the Colorado River is confronted with two fundamental and interrelated problems—satisfying the rising demands for water within the region and improving the quality of the water delivered to users in the lower basin. Unfortunately, the laws and agencies governing the distribution and use of water are not suited to resolving these problems in a manner consistent with the long-term interests of the whole region. In fact, the law aggravates the situation by (1) encouraging states in the upper basin, which have claims in excess of current use, to increase their water use to protect their claims, and (2) failing to make upstream states and individuals responsible for the effects of their actions on the quality of the water downstream. There is no agency with the authority, technical capacity, or broad interests to identify and implement measures for efficient basinwide water management. And any measures will threaten to upset existing water use patterns and rights are certain to encounter stiff resistance.

Although water importation has wide appeal within the basin, it faces enormous economic, political, and environmental obstacles. The costs of imported water would be well above the levels that the region's farmers could afford. And the political clout of opponents to transfers of water from the Pacific Northwest, the obvious source of any water that might be imported into the Colorado Basin, was demonstrated in 1968 when the U.S. Congress decreed a ten-year moratorium on efforts to plan for importing water into the Colorado River Basin. As the scarcity and declining quality of water increasingly threaten the region's growth and welfare, the pressures for both water imports and improved water management will mount. However, the costs associated with the misuse and abuse of the region's water resources may have to rise dramatically before significant change occurs, and even then the outcome is uncertain.

Growth in the High Plains. The High Plains region of the United States possesses vast stretches of deep, fertile soils and level terrain which, when combined with a reliable water supply, are ideally suited to farming. Rainfall, however, is erratic and averages only 12 to 22 inches per year. While dryland farming yields are relatively low and uncertain, the average value of agricultural production can be more than doubled and the risks associated with the weather greatly reduced with irrigation.

In recent decades the economy of the southern and central portions of the High Plains has prospered under the stimulus of a rapid (about 7.5 percent per year) increase in irrigated agriculture. By 1974 approximately 120,000 wells were irrigating 8.5 million acres.

The water for this irrigation comes almost exclusively from the Ogallala groundwater formation; surface water is negligible compared with total water use. Furthermore, groundwater recharge is negligible compared with current withdrawal rates. Thus, the High Plains economy is currently dependent on a rapidly declining and essentially nonrenewable supply of groundwater. Although irrigated agriculture for the region as a whole is expected to expand for another decade or two, farmers in some areas, especially in the southern High Plains, already have been forced to reduce the land under irrigation. The combination of increasing pumping depths, declining water extraction rates, and high energy costs will force many more farmers to return irrigated land to dryland farming or fallow in the corning decades. Current trends and resource estimates suggest that net irrigated land in the area will begin decreasing significantly by 1990 or shortly after the turn of the century.

The regional impact of a change in irrigated acreage extends well beyond that on farmers. Firms supplying the wells, pumps, and irrigation systems, as well as those supplying fertilizers and pesticides, would be affected too. Furthermore, other new enterprises such as large feedlots and meat packing plants were attracted to the area by the availability of low-cost feed. A significant decline in irrigated agriculture would eliminate many farm suppliers and jeopardize feedlots and meat processors. Hundreds of small towns and, indeed, the economic and social base of much of the area would be threatened by a rapid decline in irrigated agriculture.

In the southern plains, the area with the most imminent problem of declining water tables, hopes and efforts have focused on interbasin water transfers. The most thoroughly studied project for transferring water to the southern plains would move 8.5 million acre-feet of water annually to west Texas and eastern New Mexico from the Mississippi River. The dimensions and costs of this project illustrate the obstacles to large-scale water transfers to the High Plains. From its farthest points water would be moved about 1,100 miles and lifted almost 4,000 feet; construction of the diversion, storage, transmission, and pumping facilities would cost over $25 billion (at 1972 prices); and over 50 billion kilowatt hours of energy per year would be required to pump the water. At pre-OPEC energy prices, the cost of delivering Mississippi River water to the High Plains is estimated at about $330 per acre-foot. Even with this low estimate, the costs would be nearly eight times the estimated primary benefits and fifteen times the estimated repayment capability of the region's farmers. Furthermore, these costs make no allowance for the adverse environmental impacts that would be incurred in the water exporting area and along the diversion route. Environmental damage associated with the loss of fresh water in the Louisiana coastal area and the development of power to operate the system would be particularly significant. Despite the staggering costs and apparent unprofitability of water importation, commitment to the water transfer "solution" is still strong within the High Plains.

The belief that water imports will eventually provide relief has detracted from measures for increasing the efficiency with which water resources are used over time. The only effective restraints have been increase in water costs resulting from the declining water tables and rising energy costs. Rising energy costs have been particularly effective in encouraging the adoption of water conservation practices in the last few years. Nevertheless, in view of the common property characteristics of the region's groundwater resources, private decisions lead to an excessively rapid and wasteful use of the water. While all of the affected states now impose some restraints on use of the groundwater, these restraints fall well short of comprising an effective long-term regulation of the region's water resources.

The largest demands for new water supplies over the rest of this century are likely to be associated with efforts to increase food production in the developing nations. This conclusion is based on several factors. About 77 percent more food will be needed just to maintain average consumption levels in the developing countries, and substantially greater increases will be required to curtail the spread of malnutrition and hunger. Most of the additional food must be produced within the developing nations themselves, both to ensure that their economic growth is sufficient to support a higher food demand and to hold down the costs of food imports. Agricultural expansion will become increasingly dependent on improving yields because the best farm lands and most accessible water supplies already are developed. And finally, since high yields depend on reliable water receipts, efforts to increase supplies of and control over water will become increasingly important to agricultural development.

Agricultural expansion in the developing nations is only occasionally confronted with water supply problems as severe or confining as those in the Colorado River Basin and High Plains regions of the United States. Yet, the developing nations might profit from an understanding of the forces and management deficiencies that contributed to the problems of these areas. An agricultural development strategy which emphasizes investments to develop new land and water resources and neglects measures to improve the efficiency of resource use is likely to be frustrated by sharply rising costs, water quality problems, and the dissipation of natural agricultural resources.