Water Trades in the Western US: Risk, Speculation, and Property Rights
- Resumen
- The increasing scarcity of water in Spain, Australia, and the Western US states will lead to an increase in the use of water markets to reallocate supplies. Depending on the relative importance of water supply uncertainty and impediments to water transfers, markets are forming differently across the western United States. In many locations, trades take the form of short-term leases of water, where the underlying property rights remains unaffected. In other regions, transfers of permanent water rights predominate. Econometric analysis of 3,696 transactions reported in the Water Strategist over 1990-2005 supports the conclusion that water property rights have influenced not only whether water trades occur, but also whether trades are permanent transfers of rights or short-term leases. The paper shows that for 14 western states during the years 1999¿2002, shortterm leases outnumbered permanent-rights sales by an average ratio of eight-to-one. In states with the largest volume of water trades (Oregon, Texas, Idaho, Arizona, and California) the ratio of leases to sales was nearly eleven-to-one. <br/> Some of the emerging trends in western water markets are reviewed and examined for ways to reconcile the quasi-public characteristics of water with the reallocation, risk reduction, and equity roles that influence water markets. Finally the different systems in the US and Australia for defining transferable water rides and minimizing externalities from water trades are compared.
- Autor
- Howitt, Richard
- Palabras Clave
- Estados Unidos, Planificación hidrológica, Recursos hídricos
- Idioma
- Inglés
- Documentos
- Ponencia ( 14 pag, 258 Kb )
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