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- All Subjects: Water resources development
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ABSTRACT Water resources in many parts of the world are subject to increasing stress because of (a) the growth in demand caused by population increase and economic development, (b) threats to supply caused by climate and land cover change, and (c) a heightened awareness of the importance of maintaining water supplies to other parts of the ecosystem. An additional factor is the quality of water management. The United States-Mexican border provides an example of poor water management combined with increasing demand for water resources that are both scarce and uncertain. This dissertation focuses on the problem of water management in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. The city has attracted foreign investment during the last few decades, largely due to relatively low environmental and labor costs, and to a range of tax incentives and concessions. This has led to economic and population growth, but also to higher demand for public services such as water which leads to congestion and scarcity. In particular, as water resources have become scarce, the cost of water supply has increased. The dissertation analyzes the conditions that allow for the efficient use of water resources at sustainable levels of economic activity--i.e., employment and investment. In particular, it analyzes the water management strategies that lead to an efficient and sustainable use of water when the source of water is either an aquifer, or there is conjunctive use of ground and imported water. The first part of the dissertation constructs a model of the interactive effects of water supply, wage rates, inward migration of labor and inward investment of capital. It shows how growing water scarcity affects population growth through the impact it has on real wage rates, and how this erodes the comparative advantage of Ciudad Juarez--low wages--to the point where foreign investment stops. This reveals the very close connection between water management and the level of economic activity in Ciudad Juarez. The second part of the dissertation examines the effect of sustainable and efficient water management strategies on population and economic activity levels under two different settings. In the first Ciudad Juarez relies exclusively on ground water to meet demand--this reflects the current situation of Ciudad Juarez. In the second Ciudad Juarez is able both to import water and to draw on aquifers to meet demand. This situation is motivated by the fact that Ciudad Juarez is considering importing water from elsewhere to maintain its economic growth and mitigate the overdraft of the Bolson del Hueco aquifer. Both models were calibrated on data for Ciudad Juarez, and then used to run experiments with respect to different environmental and economic conditions, and different water management options. It is shown that for a given set of technological, institutional and environmental conditions, the way water is managed in a desert environment determines the long run equilibrium levels of employment, investment and output. It is also shown that the efficiency of water management is consistent with the sustainability of water use and economic activity. Importing water could allow the economy to operate at higher levels of activity than where it relies solely on local aquifers. However, at some scale, water availability will limit the level of economic activity, and the disposable income of the residents of Ciudad Juarez.
ContributorsGarduno Angeles, Gustavo Leopoldo (Author) / Perrings, Charles (Thesis advisor) / Holway, Jim (Thesis advisor) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
As urban populations rapidly increase in an era of climate change and multiple social and environmental uncertainties, scientists and governments are cultivating knowledge and solutions for the sustainable growth and maintenance of cities. Although substantial literature focuses on urban water resource management related to both human and ecological sustainability, few studies assess the unique role of waterway restorations to bridge anthropocentric and ecological concerns in urban environments. To address this gap, my study addressed if well-established sustainability principles are evoked during the nascent discourse of recently proposed urban waterway developments along over fifty miles of Arizona’s Salt River. In this study, a deductive content analysis is used to illuminate the emergence of sustainability principles, the framing of the redevelopment, and to illuminate macro-environmental discourses. Three sustainability principles dominated the discourse: civility and democratic governance; livelihood sufficiency and opportunity; and social-ecological system integrity. These three principles connected to three macro-discourses: economic rationalism; democratic pragmatism; and ecological modernity. These results hold implications for policy and theory and inform urban development processes for improvements to sustainability. As continued densification, in-fill and rapid urbanization continues in the 21st century, more cities are looking to reconstruct urban riverways. Therefore, the emergent sustainability discourse regarding potential revitalizations along Arizona’s Salt River is a manifestation of how waterways are perceived, valued, and essential to urban environments for anthropocentric and ecological needs.
ContributorsHorvath, Veronica (Author) / White, Dave D (Thesis advisor) / Mirumachi, Naho (Committee member) / Childers, Dan (Committee member) / Chester, Mikhail (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Cities are, at once, a habitat for humans, a center of economic production, a direct consumer of natural resources in the local environment, and an indirect consumer of natural resources at regional, national, and global scales. These processes do not take place in isolation: rather they are nested within complex coupled natural-human (CNH) systems that have nearby and distant teleconnections. Infrastructure systems—roads, electrical grids, pipelines, damns, and aqueducts, to name a few—have been built to convey and store these resources from their point of origin to their point of consumption. Traditional hard infrastructure systems are complemented by soft infrastructure, such as governance, legal, economic, and social systems, which rely upon the conveyance of information and currency rather than a physical commodity, creating teleconnections that link multiple CNH systems. The underlying structure of these systems allows for the creation of novel network methodologies to study the interdependencies, feedbacks, and timescales between direct and indirect resource consumers and producers; to identify potential vulnerabilities within the system; and to model the configuration of ideal system states. Direct and indirect water consumption provides an ideal indicator for such study because water risk is highly location-based in terms of geography, climate, economics, and cultural norms and is manifest at multiple geographic scales. Taken together, the CNH formed by economic trade and indirect water exchange networks create hydro-economic networks. Given the importance of hydro-economic networks for human well-being and economic production, this dissertation answers the overarching research question: What information do we gain from analyzing virtual water trade at the systems level rather than the component city level? Three studies are presented with case studies pertaining to the State of Arizona. The first derives a robust methodology to disaggregate indirect water flows to subcounty geographies. The second creates city-level metrics of hydro-economic vulnerability and functional diversity. The third analyzes the physical, legal, and economic allocation of a shared river basin to identify vulnerable nodes in river basin hydro-economic networks. This dissertation contributes to the literature through the creation of novel metrics to measure hydro-economic network properties and to generate insight into potential US hydro-economic shocks.
ContributorsRushforth, Richard Ray (Author) / Ruddell, Benajmin L (Thesis advisor) / Allenby, Braden (Committee member) / Chester, Mikhail (Committee member) / Seager, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
ContributorsFerrell, Janet (Author) / Spierre, Susan (Author) / Chester, Mikhail Vin (Author) / Arizona State University. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (Contributor) / Arizona State University. Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
Better methods are necessary to fully account for anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and the essential services provided by ecosystems that sustain human life. Current methods for assessing sustainability, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), typically focus on easily quantifiable indicators such as air emissions with no accounting for the essential ecosystem benefits that support human or industrial processes. For this reason, more comprehensive, transparent, and robust methods are necessary for holistic understanding of urban technosphere and ecosphere systems, including their interfaces. Incorporating ecosystem service indicators into LCA is an important step in spanning this knowledge gap.
For urban systems, many built environment processes have been investigated but need to be expanded with life cycle assessment for understanding ecosphere impacts. To pilot these new methods, a material inventory of the building infrastructure of Phoenix, Arizona can be coupled with LCA to gain perspective on the impacts assessment for built structures in Phoenix. This inventory will identify the origins of materials stocks, and the solid and air emissions waste associated with their raw material extraction, processing, and construction and identify key areas of future research necessary to fully account for ecosystem services in urban sustainability assessments. Based on this preliminary study, the ecosystem service impacts of metropolitan Phoenix stretch far beyond the county boundaries. A life cycle accounting of the Phoenix’s embedded building materials will inform policy and decision makers, assist with community education, and inform the urban sustainability community of consequences.
ContributorsFerrell, Janet (Author) / Chester, Mikhail Vin (Author) / Arizona State University. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (Contributor) / Arizona State University. Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management (Contributor)