Elsevier

Agricultural Water Management

Volume 221, 20 July 2019, Pages 502-518
Agricultural Water Management

A system dynamics model of smart groundwater governance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.03.047Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This study develops a smart groundwater governance (SGG) model using a dynamics approach.

  • It introduces new smart and dynamic models to compensate policy deficiencies.

  • The study applied both secondary and primary data to model the groundwater cycle.

  • The results outline the benefits of the model for policy and decision makers in SGG.

  • The findings allow decision makers to choose the best alternative scenarios toward SGG.

Abstract

Groundwater is one of the most important and vital resources in the world. In current decades, increased water demand and pollution threaten groundwater availability. Yet, groundwater governance is a serious challenge and despite many studies focusing on groundwater assessments, its governance has been largely neglected. Smart groundwater governance is one of the most critical areas to improve the sustainable use of this resource in societies and people’s livelihood. The main goal of this paper was to introduce a model to evaluate and measure the smartness level of any policy or action as an index. To do so, this study uses a system dynamics (SD) approach to develop a smart groundwater governance (SGG) model to assist policy and decision makers to better understand the short and long-term impacts of their actions, plans, and policies. For this purpose, the SGG index was introduced in the dynamic model, including four indicators (i.e., equitability, efficiency, sustainability, and democracy) and was applied in Iran. The results indicate that groundwater balance is critical (i.e. negative) and the current trend of groundwater governance is highly non-smart in the country. This study concluded that the best strategy to manage this situation and to govern the groundwater resources in a smarter manner includes both increasing the infiltration rate and decreasing the extraction rate (or increase the water efficiency) as the left and right based scenarios. The obtained results also demonstrate the benefits of the SGG index for policy and decision makers in SGG.

Introduction

Water plays a critical role in sustainable development (Batchelor, 2007) and its scarcity is among the major global challenges today (Jacobson et al., 2013). Groundwater is one of the world’s most important water resources, accounts for over 98% of all liquid freshwater (Dunnivant and Anders, 2006; FAO, 2018). About one-third of humanity depends totally on groundwater for their daily needs. Also, 99% of the planet earth’s accessible freshwater is found in aquifers (FAO, 2015). According to the project of the groundwater governance of FAO (2018), groundwater extraction over the past 50 years (1960–2010) has increased by more than 300%. Recently, communities, agriculture and industry around the nation and the world have increased their use of groundwater (Megdal et al., 2015). In the future, the use of groundwater will continue to increase at higher rate than before, as there is a critical need to supply water for agriculture sector, urban areas, industry, and ecosystems. Groundwater provides drinking water to at least 50% of the world’s population and 43% of all of the water is used for irrigation (FAO, 2018). Therefore, groundwater is an essential natural resource to sustain life. It is also substantial to agriculture and food security. Over the past 50 years, groundwater irrigation has grown rapidly. It supplies over one-third of the world’s irrigated area (Shah, 2014). Increased water demand and pollution threaten groundwater availability. In order to share groundwater resources equitably among nations, regions, consumers per sector and generations, and to maintain the groundwater availability and quality, informed decisions need to be made about allocation and protection of groundwater resources (IGRAC, 2017). Groundwater is a critical component of the water supply for agriculture, urban areas, industry, and ecosystems, but its managing is a challenge because it is difficult to map, quantify, and evaluate groundwater. Until recently, study and assessment of governance of this water resource has been largely neglected (Megdal et al., 2015). Globally, more than 150 million people live below the altitude of 1 m a.s.l. and 250 million live below the altitude of 5 m a.s.l (IGRAC, 2017). Some countries (e.g. Africa) are in an initial stage in terms of protection areas of groundwater sources or they have not yet started these practices because more stringent problems, such as the scarcity of water resources, have taken the priority (Doveri et al., 2015).The crisis of groundwater in Iran is multifold especially because a) it is the most important water resource for most regions of Iran (Hojjati and Boustani, 2010) which means Iran is more dependent on groundwater. b) The average annual precipitation in Iran has been 228 mm/year (1994–2014) which means 6% less than the long term average (242 mm/year) (Moridi, 2017) which means water resources will be more limited. c) Iran's population (according to World Population Review) will reach 95 million over the next two decades (the current population of Iran is more than 80 million) and it means there will be more pressure on groundwater resources. d) Intensification of climate change and periodic droughts can worsen the quantity and quality condition of water resources. For example, in the last 50 years, Iran has faced ten severe and prolonged droughts, which have significantly threatened water availability in all sectors (Sadeghi, 2017). It is expected that climate change will further increase the risk of droughts in some parts of the country and cause floods in others. e) The recent acceleration of inland use and land cover changes, such as deforestation, destruction of rangelands and conversion of agricultural lands (Asadi et al., 2014; Azadi and Barati, 2013; Azadi et al., 2016; Barati et al., 2015) will increase natural disasters and climatic changes (e.g. flood, drought and frostbite) which will damage (i.e. drying up) the water resources more than before. f) Finally, mismanagement (Nabavi, 2017) and the lack of a good water management or governance (Hojjati and Boustani, 2010; Moridi, 2017) are at the top of all causes. For instance, low water efficiency in the agricultural sector (the biggest water consumer sector), dropping of the groundwater level and land subsidence1 are two main impacts of impractical water management and governance in Iran (Sadeghi, 2017). Therefore, it seems that the issue of water governance in Iran is a complex dynamic system; therefore, its study needs suitable methodologies and techniques.

Groundwater governance could be defined as a procedure which determines who gets, when, and how much of the water (UNDP Water Governance Facility at SIWI, 2015). It is the overarching framework of groundwater use laws, regulations, and customs, as well as the processes of engaging the public sector, the private sector, and civil society (Shah, 2014). Since it relates not only to the state or government but also to civil society and the private sector, its development takes place within different constellations of these three entities. In this sense, improved governance is path dependent and needs to be linked to particular development goals in society, such as water services and sanitation for all, equitable reallocation of water between users, or any other goals such as food and energy for all, or conservation and restoration of ecosystems (UNDP et al., 2017).

Now, despite the seriousness of the water crisis in most parts of the world and especially in arid and semiarid areas such as Iran (Madani, 2014; Nabavi, 2017), Middle East, and North Africa (FAO, 2012; Lezzaik et al., 2018; Mekki et al., 2017), the question is why the previous and current actions, plans, policies, and strategies have not been successful? Today increasing water scarcity is still one of the major global challenges. As local demand for water rises above available supply in many regions, the governance of available water resources becomes the key issue to achieve water security at the local, regional, and global level. Around the world, communities, agriculture, and industry are increasing their use of groundwater, sometimes with adverse impacts on riparian habitats and often with disregard for sustainability (Megdal et al., 2015). Poor and bad resource management, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia, insufficient capacity and a shortage of new investments undermine the effective governance of water in many places around the world (Jacobson et al., 2013).

After 113 years of the Persian constitution in 1906, the country is experiencing a serious water crisis (Nabavi, 2017). In the case of Iran, the over-use and abuse of increasingly precious water resources has been dramatically intensified over the recent decades. It is reaching a point where water shortages, water quality degradation, and aquatic ecosystem destruction are seriously affecting the prospects for socio-economic development, political stability, ecosystem integrity (Batchelor, 2007), the health and the welfare of natural systems, and human communities (Moridi, 2017). Blame is often attributed to the government’s management (Nabavi, 2017) or misgovernance of water resources including both surface and groundwater. Then, apparently there is a need to be a new and different kind of view about groundwater governance. This view should be holistic, dynamic, and systematic to achieve smart groundwater governance. This paper aims to address this issue. To deal with this, at first, this paper will model the system dynamics (SD) of groundwater in Iran, then it will define smart groundwater governance, and finally it will analyze the operation of the smart groundwater governance SD. There are some previous studies that tried to analyze water systems in different ways. For example Madani (2010) illustrated the utility of game theory in water systems analysis and conflict resolution and Loáiciga (2004) studied the roles of cooperation and non-cooperation in the sustainable exploitation of a jointly used groundwater resource using an analytical game-theoretic formulation. Bhattacharjee et al. (2018) evaluated the existing water related policies and functions of multidimensional institutions, and discussed the key challenges of effective groundwater management. Also, Huo et al. (2016) used a simulation method to develop an operational water governance model for predicting the future water cycle. Although these studies tried to analyze and explain the governance of water and groundwater systems, they could not develop a smart system to explain the dynamics of groundwater resources over time and under different scenarios. In addition, they could not tell us whether the governance system is smart or how much it is equitable, efficient, sustainable, and democratic. Accordingly, this study tries to introduce new smart and dynamic models to meet groundwater management deficiencies. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to introduce a model to forecast not only the future trend of groundwater balance, but also to evaluate and measure the smartness level of any policies or actions as an index. It also aims at assisting policy and decision makers to realize the impacts of their decisions, to better understand the short and long-term impacts of their actions, plans, and policies and to ask themselves whether their decisions on groundwater are smart.

Section snippets

Study area

The site of this study was Iran that is located in the world’s dry belt. According to the last formal census of Iran (2016), the total population of the country is 79,926,270 persons. Iran is one of the largest countries in southwestern Asia with an area of 1,648,000 square kilometers. The average of Iran’s annual precipitation is about 240 mm that is about a third of the global average. The rainy period in most of the country is from November to May. In the dry period between May and October,

Dynamic system of groundwater in Iran

To introduce a model for smart groundwater governance in Iran, at first it needs to realize the dynamics of Iran groundwater. According to AQUASTAT (2018) the annual average precipitation of Iran over the past twenty years has been 397.9 km³/year or 228 mm/year, which is about 6% less than the long term average (242 mm/year). In addition, the average surface run-off during this period has been 52 km³/year (Moridi, 2017). It is about 44% less than the long-term average (97.3 km³/year) (AQUASTAT,

Conclusion

Population growth, rapid urbanization, industrialization, economic development, food security and climate change are putting unprecedented pressure on groundwater consumption (Mechlem, 2016). In addition, the lack of precipitation as the main result of climate change has forced many nations to use groundwater resources more than in the past. While groundwater use has some short-term socioeconomic and political benefits, it has many long-term environmental, socioeconomic, and political costs and

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the DFG Cluster of Excellence-CliSAP.

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