scholarly journals Are the Modern Drought Management Plans Modern Enough? The Guadalquivir River Basin Case in Spain

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Carmen Hervás-Gámez ◽  
Fernando Delgado-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Drought Event ◽  
Drought Management ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Guadalquivir River

Droughts and water scarcity events are predicted to be more frequent and intense in the future, especially in Mediterranean countries. However, are the most recent drought management plans (DMPs) built on the latest technical, engineering, and scientific knowledge, as well as the learning experiences from managing historical droughts? The most significant challenge that surfaces, when a new drought event strikes, is the difficulty in predicting its duration (which can vary from months to years), the severity (or degree of affection to water resources), and the potential environmental, economic, and social impacts. Hence, there is an importance of integrating reliable forecasting and modeling tools in the development of modern DMPs, so the potential risk can be assessed under a range of possible drought scenarios. This will ensure that the proposed measures and actions of the DMP are sufficiently robust and proportionate to the drought and water scarcity situation. This paper provides a critical assessment of the core technical concepts and principles to be taken into consideration when developing the methodological and operational framework of a DMP. The case of study chosen is the Guadalquivir River Basin in southern Spain, which presents one of the most complex and paradigmatic cases in this regard. This region suffers recurrent episodes of drought and water scarcity, together with fierce competition among water users. Recently, a new strategic DMP has been approved and adopted in December 2018. The implications of applying the DMP in practice during the drought have been also evaluated. This study draws important lessons learned that could be applied in other areas suffering from water scarcity and droughts.

scholarly journals Correction: Hervás-Gámez, Carmen and Delgado-Ramos, Fernando. Are the Modern Drought Management Plans Modern Enough? The Guadalquivir River Basin Case in Spain. Water 2020, 12, 49

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2699
Author(s):  
Carmen Hervás-Gámez ◽  
Fernando Delgado-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Drought Management ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Guadalquivir River

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...]

scholarly journals Drought Management Planning Policy: From Europe to Spain

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Hervás-Gámez ◽  
Fernando Delgado-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Drought Management ◽  
Management Planning ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Common Diagnosis

Climate change is anticipated to exacerbate the frequency, the intensity, and the duration of droughts, especially in Mediterranean countries. This might lead to more serious water scarcity episodes and fierce competition among water users. Are we really prepared to deal efficiently with droughts and water scarcity events? This paper sheds light on this question by reviewing the evolution of European drought management planning policy, recently developed scientific and technical advances, technical guidance documents, and an extensive number of journal papers. More specifically, Spain presents an ideal context to assess how drought risk has been historically addressed because this country has periodically suffered the impacts of intense droughts and water scarcity episodes, and has developed a long track record in water legislation, hydrological planning, and drought risk management strategies. The most recent Drought Management Plans (DMPs) were approved in December 2018. These include an innovative common diagnosis system that distinguishes droughts and water scarcity situations in terms of indicators, triggers, phases, and actions. We can conclude that DMP should be a live and active document able to integrate updated knowledge. The DMP needs also to set out a clear strategy in terms of water use priorities, drought monitoring systems, and measures in each river basin in order to avoid generalist approaches and possible misinterpretation of the DMP that could lead to increase existing and future conflicts.

Cross-Subsidies between Water Users in Spain: the Guadalquivir River Basin Case

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (15) ◽  
pp. 4577-4591
Author(s):  
Carmen Hervás-Gámez ◽  
Fernando Delgado-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Guadalquivir River

Drought Management Plans in Spain: Are we improving the way we manage drought?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Urquijo Reguera ◽  
María Teresa Gómez Villarino ◽  
Lucia De Stefano
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Drought Management ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Spanish Law ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Management Plans

<p>Droughts affect all the socio-economic sectors and can have negative impacts on the environment. They are expected to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change, which makes their effective management a policy priority. Drought Management Plans (DMPs) are considered to be a key instrument to deal with drought in a proactive way, as they establish a framework for coordinated action when drought sets in. The development of DMPs is still incipient worldwide and the evaluation of their quality and performance is still very limited. In Spain, DMPs at river basin level were first approved in 2007. Following the legal obligation set in the Spanish law, those DMPs were revised after 10 years and a new version was approved in 2018. In order to analyze the adequacy, pertinence and utility of those plans, we developed a protocol based on content analysis for evaluating the DMPs of the eight river basins that are managed by the Spanish Central Government. We set the evaluation criteria using official guidelines and scientific literature on drought preparedness and we compared the first and the second round of DMPs to identify the main improvements, gaps and challenges. The comparison was both qualitative and quantitative, through the establishment of quality criteria/indicators.</p><p>The analysis showed that the scope and content of the DMPs is more homogeneous and consistent in 2018 than in 2007. Some aspects have clearly improved between the two planning periods, like the distinction between drought and water scarcity, the definition of indices to trigger different levels of drought alert and the inclusion of measures for drought management and coordination. Other issues still need further improvements, especially those related to the analysis of drought impacts, the assessment of vulnerability and the ex-post evaluation of DPM performance.</p><p>The DMPs developed for the Júcar and Segura river basins, both located in the Mediterranean region and prone to severe droughts, received the highest score according to our assessment criteria. All the DMPs show some improvements between 2007 and 2018, but the largest increase corresponds to the Duero river basin while the least is for the Júcar.</p>

scholarly journals Understanding Water Use Conflicts to Advance Collaborative Planning: Lessons Learned from Lake Diefenbaker, Canada

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 1756
Author(s):  
Jania Chilima ◽  
Jill Blakley ◽  
Harry Diaz ◽  
Lalita Bharadwaj
Keyword(s):  
Water Use ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Collaborative Planning ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Canadian Prairie ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Management Procedures ◽  
Lake Diefenbaker ◽  
Regulatory Instruments ◽  
Water Uses

Conflicts around the multi-purpose water uses of Lake Diefenbaker (LD) in Saskatchewan, Canada need to be addressed to meet rapidly expanding water demands in the arid Canadian prairie region. This study explores these conflicts to advance collaborative planning as a means for improving the current water governance and management of this lake. Qualitative methodology that employed a wide participatory approach was used to collect focus group data from 92 individuals, who formed a community of water users. Results indicate that the community of water users is unified in wanting to maintain water quality and quantity, preserving the lake’s aesthetics, and reducing water source vulnerability. Results also show these users are faced with water resource conflicts resulting from lack of coherence of regulatory instruments in the current governance regime, and acceptable management procedures of both consumptive and contemporary water uses that are interlinked in seven areas of: irrigation, industrial, and recreational water uses; reservoir water level for flood control and hydroelectricity production; wastewater and lagoon management; fish farm operations; and regional water development projects. As a means of advancing collaborative planning, improvements in water allocation and regulatory instruments could be made to dissipate consumptive use conflicts and fill the under-regulation void that exists for contemporary water uses. Additionally, a comprehensive LD water use master plan, as a shared vision to improve participation in governance, could be developed to direct the water uses that have emerged over time. This study suggests that these three areas are practical starting conditions that would enable successful collaborative planning for the seven areas of water uses. Focusing on these three areas would ensure the current and future needs of the community of water users are met, while avoiding reactive ways of solving water problems in the LD region, especially as the water crisis in the Canadian Prairie region where LD is located is expected to intensify.

scholarly journals Optimal Allocation of Surface Water Resources at the Provincial Level in the Uzbekistan Region of the Amudarya River Basin

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1446
Author(s):  
Min Wang ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Ayetiguli Sidike ◽  
Liangzhong Cao ◽  
Philippe DeMaeyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Water Allocation ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Optimal Allocation ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Aral Sea ◽  
Incoming Flow ◽  
Provincial Level ◽  
Water Users

Water users in the Amudarya River Basin in Uzbekistan are suffering severe water use competition and uneven water allocation, which seriously threatens ecosystems, as shown, for example, in the well-known Aral Sea catastrophe. This study explores the optimized water allocation schemes in the study area at the provincial level under different incoming flow levels, based on the current water distribution quotas among riparian nations, which are usually ignored in related research. The optimization model of the inexact two-stage stochastic programming method is used, which is characterized by probability distributions and interval values. Results show that (1) water allocation is redistributed among five different sectors. Livestock, industrial, and municipality have the highest water allocation priority, and water competition mainly exists in the other two sectors of irrigation and ecology; (2) water allocation is redistributed among six different provinces, and allocated water only in Bukhara and Khorezm can satisfy the upper bound of water demand; (3) the ecological sector can receive a guaranteed water allocation of 8.237–12.354 km3; (4) under high incoming flow level, compared with the actual water distribution, the total allocated water of four sectors (except for ecology) is reduced by 3.706 km3 and total economic benefits are increased by USD 3.885B.

scholarly journals Metahadzia Uncispina, A New Amphipod from Phreatic Ground-Waters of the Guadalquivir River basin of Southern Spain

1988 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
Jos Notenboom
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Southern Spain ◽  
The South ◽  
Apical Spine ◽  
Ground Waters ◽  
Guadalquivir River ◽  
Original Concept

Metahadzia uncispina n. sp. is described, being the second species of the genus on the Iberian Peninsula. The new species, well characterized by the transformation of the apical spine on the endopodite of the male uropod 2, is undoubtedly closely related with M. tavaresi (Mateus & Mateus, 1972) from the south of Portugal. Comments are made about recent emendations of the original concept of the genus Metahadzia Stock, 1977.

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