Water Markets, Licenses, and Conservation: Some Implications

Johannus Janmaat

Land Economics, 2011, vol. 87, issue 1, 145-159

Abstract: While water markets have long been advocated as a tool for both enhancing water use efficiency and enabling conservation purchases, their interaction with water rights and licenses has been little studied. It is shown that when water rights are not tradable, using spot markets to secure conservation needs may harm some water users. Ironically, while a spot market enhances the efficiency of water use, it may also increase the cost of conservation purchases. Further, a self-funding conservation program, where volumetric license carrying charges pay for conservation purchases, creates a transfer from junior water users to senior water users.

JEL-codes: Q25 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/87/1/145
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

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:uwp:landec:v:87:y:2011:i:1:p:145-159

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Land Economics from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().