The Environmental Costs of Water Flow Regulation: an Innovative Approach Based on the ‘Polluter Pays’ Principle

Silvestre García de Jalón (), Marta González del Tánago, Carlos Alonso and Diego García de Jalón
Additional contact information
Silvestre García de Jalón: Cranfield University
Marta González del Tánago: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, E.T.S.I. Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural
Carlos Alonso: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, E.T.S.I. Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural
Diego García de Jalón: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, E.T.S.I. Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2017, vol. 31, issue 9, No 17, 2809-2822

Abstract: Abstract The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) explicitly requires the full cost recovery of water services, including the environmental costs incurred from the damage that water uses inflict on the environment. Although flow regulation by river damming is one of the most prominent human impact on fresh water ecosystems its environmental costs are not properly included in water pricing. This paper presents a novel approach to assessing the environmental costs of flow regulation based on the polluter-pays principle. The methodology includes three steps: (i) assessing the admissible range of regulated flow variability, derived from the natural flow regime variability, (ii) estimating the daily environmental impact of regulated flows according to deviations from the admissible range of flow variability, and (iii) calculating the environmental costs of flow regulation. The procedure is applied to four river case studies in Spain, UK and Norway. The advantages over other water cost valuation methods are discussed. The methodology enlarges the current recognition of environmental costs of water use and represents a practical management tool within the WFD context, encouraging transparency and stakeholder communication.

Keywords: Environmental costs; Flow regulation; Environmental impact; Valuation; Water (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-017-1663-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:31:y:2017:i:9:d:10.1007_s11269-017-1663-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-017-1663-0

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().