Final Learning Workshop for
GEF MENARID Project
June 16-18, 2014– Beirut, Lebanon
Groundwater economics
lbouchaou@gmail.com
l.bouchaou@uiz.acma
Prof Lhoussaine Bouchaou,
University Ibn Zohr of Agadir, Morocco
President of Mroccan Chapter of IAH

Third Learning Workshop for
GEF MENARID Project Managers
“Groundwater economics”
10- 12 December 2013 – Agadir, Morocco
Main points highlighted and discussed
During
Mrs Lucilla Minelli, UNESCO-IHP, l.minelli@unesco.org
Prof Lhoussaine Bouchaou, University of Agadir, lbouchaou@gmail.com

Problematic GW water resources
Economics:
Scarcity and physical aspects
Level Depletion and quality deterioration
(overexploitation under global changes and human
pressure
Renewability for long term sustainability
Water resources management
Governance and politic aspects (managing people)
Lack of leadership for guardian

Sectors using gw, type of values and drivers
• Irrigated agriculture
• Drinking water for livestock
• Mining
• Manufacturing and other industries
• Water Supply
• Households
• …
Sectors of the economy that use groundwater:

Discussion
The central questions to answer are:
• What is the contribution of groundwater to
the economy of a country? What is the
monetary value that groundwater produces in
different sectors?
• How can you raise the importance of
groundwater by assigning an economic value
to the resource?
• How much drainable groundwater is available
in the aquifers?

• How much is the economy depending on
groundwater? If there was no more/less
groundwater (especially in arid regions) –
• what would be the cost of alternative sources
of water supply (desalination, waste water
treatment and reuse, import of water?)
• How the groundwater resources will develop
under the pressure of global change?
• Which management or economic options can
be derived?

• How to convince the users?
• Shifting to new irrigation techniques (supporting
costs…)
• Participative approaches (Aquifer contract,
cooperative…successful….)
• Valuing GW as product for livelihoods,
socioeconomic,
• What’s strategy at the international, national and
local scale?

0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Année
m3/hab/an
PENURIESTRESS
M
aroc
Souss-Massa
Water ressources in the world
Note: Les ressources renouvelables correspond à la quantité maximale estimée d’eau disponible pour un pays dans une année moyenne (sur une période de référence longue)
Source: Nations Unies (Rapport Mondial sur l’Eau, 2006), Aquastat, www.fao.org (Max: >1 Mm³ / yr)
Many countries in MENA region are less thanThreshold of water scarcity of 1000
m3
/capita/yr
Available renewable water resources(m³/capita/yr)
0 10.000 12.500 15.000 17.500 20.000 22.5002.500 25.000 27.500 30.000 32.5005.000 7.500
Maroc (730)
Tunisie
Mauritanie (fleuve Sénégal)
Turquie (2 967)
Algérie
Egypte
Liban
Russie
(30 299)
Jordanie

society
economic
development
environment
water
scientific and Governmental authorities
– biogeography and evolutionary interest
- Provide important environment infos
Activities that imply the extraction of
water: tourism, agriculture, mining….
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT BY THE DIFFERENT SECTORS
Expected achievements:
 Agreements on the equitable use of water
 Avoid desertification and degradation of
soils - Improvements of irrigation systems
 Avoid rural exodus – Prevision of new
economic alternatives
 New technologies for a sustainable use of
water

Valuing groundwater
• Globally, water issues have always been economic issues.
• Groundwater Economics explore the application of
economic evaluation and cost/benefit analysis for the use,
protection, remediation and conservation of groundwater,
considering the major economic uses of and demand for
groundwater, ecosystem context, groundwater policy and
decisions, and groundwater sustainability.
• It requires a multi-disciplinary approach that takes into
account the many interdependencies between
groundwater and food, environment, energy,
development,…

There are four key drivers of the value of groundwater:
•SCARCITY: The price for water generally reflects the physical costs to supply the
water (such as piping infrastructure and treatment plants) and not the actual value of
the water itself. When water is scarce, people will tend to value it more highly.
•COST OF ALTERNATIVE WATER RESOURCES: The value of
groundwater will be significantly influenced by the availability of alternative water
sources and associated costs.
•QUALITY: The value of groundwater will also depend on its quality, especially in
terms of salinity levels and pollutant concentration. Different users will place
different values on groundwater quality.
•RELIABILITY: In comparison to surface water, which is generally dependent on
short term rainfall, groundwater is less influenced by short term climatic variability
than surface water systems and consequently provides a useful ‘buffer’ in times of
reduced surface water allocations.
Drivers of value

GROUNDWATERGROUNDWATER
for life and livelihoodsfor life and livelihoods
• enormous social benefits from use
in urban and rural water-supply
• many countries now have large
groundwater-dependent economies

GROUNDWATER VITAL FOR FOOD PRODUCTION
irrigated agriculture – the major user and consumeragriculture – the major user and consumer
• farmer control, drought reliability, sediment freefarmer control, drought reliability, sediment free
• critical to improving rural livelihoods atcritical to improving rural livelihoods at
subsistence levelsubsistence level
• in commercial agriculture its use generatesin commercial agriculture its use generates
more crops and jobs per drop than surface watermore crops and jobs per drop than surface water
(given market for high-value produce)(given market for high-value produce)

AQUIFER DEPLETIONAQUIFER DEPLETION
social and environmental costs ofsocial and environmental costs of
accelerated and uncontrolled developmentaccelerated and uncontrolled development
 phreatophytic vegetation stress
 aquifer compaction
 transmissivity reduction
 pumping lifts/costs increase
 borehole yield reduction
 springflow/baseflow reduction
REVERSIBLE
INTERFERENCE
 saline water intrusion
 ingress of polluted water
 land subsidence and related impacts
IRREVERSIBLE
DETERIORATION

GROUNDWATER AND THE ENVIRONMENTGROUNDWATER AND THE ENVIRONMENT
a vital role in creating/sustaining ecosystemsa vital role in creating/sustaining ecosystems

AQUIFER DEGRADATIONAQUIFER DEGRADATION
the root causesthe root causes
• resource governance has not kept pace with
resource development (government agencies
have focused more on development than
management )
• low public and political awareness :
– many still regard groundwater as an
unlimited and uncoupled resource
– lack of appreciation of critical linkages with
‘surface environment’ and land-use practices

AA PRESSING NEED
proactive groundwater management

INTEGRATED WATER MANAGEMENT
the general wisdom
• multi-disciplinary approach (managing people)
– socio-economic, legal and institutional
– (as well as) technical and environmental
• cross-sectorial vision (macro and micro level)
– urban infrastructure design and operation
– agriculture cropping policy and practice

GROUNDWATER RESOURCE GOVERNANCEGROUNDWATER RESOURCE GOVERNANCE
& PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT& PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT
harmonising ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’harmonising ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’
Economic
Instruments
Strategic Level
Local Level
Demand/Supply
Interventions
- enabling legal/institutional
framework for local action
- complementary national
policy for water, food,
energy
- role of local government
- stakeholder participation
- groundwater use
rights, etc

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENTGROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT
INTERVENTIONSINTERVENTIONS
supply-side versus demand-side

BENEFITS OF IMPROVED IRRIGATION METHODS
on real water-saving and energy conservation
engineering, agronomic
and operational measures

GROUNDWATER RESOURCE SAVINGSGROUNDWATER RESOURCE SAVINGS
key issues for agricultural sustainability
• improving irrigation efficiency alone does not necessarily
mean real resource savings (and can result in the reverse)
• need to constrain irrigated area and reduce groundwater
allocations
• crop changes can also be very effective for groundwater
savings (and in some cases increasing water
productivity)

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENTGROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT
some special cases
• Non-Renewable Groundwater
Resources
• Conjunctive Use with Surface Water
• Groundwater in the Urban Environment
some special cases

Renewable / Non-renewable groundwater

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENTGROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT
some special cases
• Non-Renewable Groundwater
Resources
• Conjunctive Use with Surface Water
• Groundwater in the Urban Environment

Understanding groundwater
Nnnmmmm
mmmnGroundwater and surface water are
inextricably related through the
hydrologic (or water) cycle. Extracting
groundwater can impact surface water
resources and vice versa.
Historically, groundwater and surface water have been treated as separate entities.
However, in times of drought and water scarcity, understanding and managing the
interconnection between groundwater and surface water has become more important

Conceptual model

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENTGROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT
some special cases
• Non-Renewable Groundwater
Resources
• Conjunctive Use with Surface Water
• Groundwater in the Urban Environment

GROUNDWATER AND THE CITY
-an intimate but often unrecognised relationship

GENERIC LESSON 2
‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches must be
reconciled to achieve effective groundwater
management
unrealistic to provide a ‘simple blueprint’ for
groundwater management because of wide
hydrogeologic, socioeconomic and institutional diversity
GENERIC LESSON 1

GENERIC LESSON 3
a local government agency having the legal mandate and
political backing to act as ‘groundwater guardian’ is
critical to successful groundwater management
GENERIC LESSON 4
to mobilise effectively it is essential to have a systematic
database of groundwater users, their use patterns and economic
characteristics
GENERIC LESSON 5
establishment of groundwater abstraction rights is
important for mobilising user participation in resource
management and eventually for resource reallocation

GENERIC LESSON 6
abstraction charging is an important demand management
tool but a transparent and acceptable basis for determining
use is an essential basis for effective implementation
‘demand-side interventions’ will generally make a
bigger contribution than ‘supply-side interventions’ to
stabilising the groundwater resource balance
GENERIC LESSON 7
GENERIC LESSON 8
in demand management it is essential to focus on ‘real
water-resource savings’ and not just on increased
water-use efficiency

For example: inequity inFor example: inequity in
accessing irrigation wateraccessing irrigation water
Agricultural water usesAgricultural water uses

Management mode
Level of training of managers Low level of training of managers: 77% of managers
have no technical training.
Technical supervision 44% of farms do not benefit from coaching
Choice of the crops 17% of farmers opting for a given culture because
their expertise
Staff responsible for
irrigation
80% of irrigation managers and other workers are
ignoring the basics of rational irrigation management
Irrigation control Low adoption of irrigation management (23%)
Controlling irrigation is absent or weakly practiced
for the crops using more water (alfalfa and banana) or
occupying large areas other than citrus (cereals,
maize, potato)
DIAGNOSTIC

Fist action
plan
Creation
of ABH
Current
situation
Gestion de la demande et maîtrise de la recharge et de la
ressource disponible
Possible strategiesPossible strategies
World Bank, GW-Mate, 2010

time
Average yearly input
average yearly deficit
Past Current
state
future Situation
2035
Objective of the new governance schemes :
The necessity to reach a new balance Demand/supply
Equilibrium point
When ?
Controlling demand
Mobilizing new resources
tendency
Scenario tendency

time
Annual average demand of
water
By type : Drinking, irrigation, industry
By source : GW, SW
By region
Annual contribution
by type : recharge, SW..
Déficit moyen annuel
past Current
Situation
futur Situation
2035
By mean of different solutions…
Quand ?
Rotation crops
Surfaces
Irrigation
Systems
lose
other 1
other n…
management
New dams
Recharge
Wastewater
Desalinization
Transferts…

Economical Deficit
–Low correlations
beteween irrigated
areas of a crop and
TO generated
–Vegetables generate
46% of turn over and
use only 13% of
irrigated area
% Area% Area
22 27
19
2
16
3
13
46
10
43 3
17 15
Irrigated
areas
Turn
over
Citrus (5 Dh/m3)
Cereals (2,5 Dhs/m3)
Olives (2 Dhs/m3)
Vegetables (20dh/m3)
Forages (4 Dh/m3)
Bananas (3 Dh/m3)
Other
100 % = 5,9 Mds DH133'000 ha
Inefficient crops% Production% Production

Socio-economic impacts of the
overexploitation of groundwater
Scénarios
Pumping
overcost
(Mdhs)
Abandoned irrigated lands Equivalent
employment
losses
Number Hectares
"Business as usual" 340 1590 20790 7 930
Conversion to micro
irrigation
273 1340 12520 6 680
Safeguard scenario 114 1050 10230 5 255
Revenues and employment
Displacement of agricultural activities
•Toward other area within Souss basin
•Towards other basins

‫شكرا‬
‫على‬‫تتبعكم‬‫و‬‫اهتمامكم‬
‫بالموضوع‬
MERCI
Thanks for your Attention

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