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Environmental costs of water transfers

Nature Sustainability volume 3, pages 408–409 (2020)Cite this article

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Besides, if the water transferred is sourced from human-intervened river basins, it may also contain toxic and other elements with negative ecosystem impacts for the recipient area. In Chile, the pulp and paper-mill industries discharge their treated effluents into some rivers, such as Biobío River in Central Chile, and standard treatment systems will not prevent the release of pollutants (for example, trace elements4, pesticides, dioxins and furans, and hydrocarbons5, or even the transport of invasive microorganisms). Moreover, under climate change scenarios, precipitation within the provider basins will substantially decrease, which in turn could limit freshwater access in these communities and their capacity to water crops for agriculture or to use it for other activities. Indeed, this region is a major producer and exporter of cherries, nuts, berries and chemical pulp (https://www.oecd.org/chile/).

These water transfer projects have several precedents around the world, mostly in Mediterranean regions (for example, Ebro, Spain and California, United States)6. Defining whether these projects are beneficial for society requires at least a sound cost–benefit analysis (CBA) that: ensures the estimation of the opportunity costs associated with alternative water uses in the provider basins; avoids overestimating receiver benefits (for example, increasing the accuracy of estimated marginal values for agriculture, which tend to be very low)7; and incorporates total economic value of environmental impacts6 in donor basins. This analysis should also assess other management strategies (for example, water quality protection and promotion of sustainable uses) that could provide the same water supply and create other social and environmental benefits, such as pollution reduction, ecotourism and recreation, or an increase in the value of ecosystems. Additionally, a sound evaluation should also consider other incommensurate environmental values that cannot be measured using money8 and the implications of altering community relationships and social capital9 in both the receiver and provider basins.

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Fig. 1: River discharges and the biogeochemistry and productivity of coastal oceans upon climate change scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the Millennium Science Initiative from Chile’s Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism, through both the Millennium Nucleus MUSELS (NC120086) and the Millennium Institute of Oceanography (IMO; IC120019). Additional support from the Water Research Center for Agriculture and Mining (CRHIAM), FONDAP/CONICYT 15130015 and FONDECYT 1170065 and 1190805 is also acknowledged. The views and opinions in this paper are the product of a multi-disciplinary group discussion. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily the views and opinions of their respective academic institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquatic Systems, Faculty of Environmental Sciences & Environmental Sciences Center EULA Chile, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile

    Cristian A. Vargas, Ricardo Barra & Oscar Parra

  2. Center for the Study of Multiple-Drivers on Marine Socio-Ecological Systems (MUSELS), Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile

    Cristian A. Vargas, Ricardo Barra, Felipe Vásquez-Lavin & Gonzalo S. Saldías

  3. Millennium Institute of Oceanography (IMO), Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile

    Cristian A. Vargas

  4. Department of Geophysics, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Rene Garreaud

  5. Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), Santiago, Chile

    Rene Garreaud & Felipe Vásquez-Lavin

  6. Water Research Center for Agriculture and Mining, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile

    Ricardo Barra

  7. School of Economics and Business, Universidad del Desarrollo, Concepcion, Chile

    Felipe Vásquez-Lavin

  8. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability, Department of Ecology, Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Felipe Vásquez-Lavin

  9. Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Concepción, Chile

    Gonzalo S. Saldías

  10. Centro FONDAP de Investigación en Dinámica de Ecosistemas Marinos de Altas Latitudes (IDEAL), Valdivia, Chile

    Gonzalo S. Saldías

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  1. Cristian A. Vargas
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Correspondence to Cristian A. Vargas.

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Vargas, C.A., Garreaud, R., Barra, R. et al. Environmental costs of water transfers. Nat Sustain 3, 408–409 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0526-5

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