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"WATER CONCESSIONS"
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Quebec hydropolitics : the Peribonka concessions of the Second World War
\"The construction in the 1940s of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs, Lakes Manouan and Passe Dangereuse, were enormous projects that had consequences not only on the environment but also on international affairs. Built by the Aluminium Company of Canada (Rio Tinto Alcan), the project helped meet the American and Allied Forces demand for electrical power and aluminium ingot during the Second World War but also forced Innu/Montagnais hunter-trappers from their ancestral lands.
Book
Coyotes, concessions and construction companies: Illegal water markets and legally constructed water scarcity in Central Mexico
Many regions of (semi)arid Mexico, such as the Valley of Toluca, face challenges due to rapid growth and the simultaneous overexploitation of groundwater. The water reform of the 1990s introduced individual water rights concessions granted through the National Water Commission (Comisión Nacional del Agua, or CONAGUA). Since then, acquiring new water rights in officially 'water-scarce' aquifers is only possible through official rights transmissions from users ceding their rights. With the law prohibiting the sale of water rights, a profitable illegal market for these rights has emerged. The key actor in the water rights allocation network is the coyote, functioning as a broker between a) people wanting to cede water rights and those needing them, and b) the formal and informal spheres of water rights allocation. Actors benefitting from water rights trading include the coyote and his 'working brigades', water users selling surplus rights, and (senior and lower-level) staff in the water bureaucracy. The paper concludes that legally constructed water scarcity is key to the reproduction of illegal water rights trading. This has important implications regarding the current push for expanding regularisation of groundwater extraction in Mexico. Currently, regularisation does not counter overexploitation, while possibly leading to a de facto privatisation of groundwater.
Journal Article
The impact of private sector participation in infrastructure : lights, shadows, and the road ahead
Infrastructure plays a key role in fostering growth and productivity and has been linked to improved earnings, health, and education levels for the poor. Yet Latin America and the Caribbean are currently faced with a dangerous combination of relatively low public and private infrastructure investment. Those investment levels must increase, and it can be done. If Latin American and Caribbean governments are to increase infrastructure investment in politically feasible ways, it is critical that they learn from experience and have an accurate idea of future impacts. This book contributes to this aim by producing what is arguably the most comprehensive privatization impact analysis in the region to date, drawing on an extremely comprehensive dataset.
eBook
Hydrological regionalization of streamflows for the Tocantins River Basin in Brazilian Cerrado biome
The Brazilian Cerrado biome is the largest and richest tropical savanna in the world and is among the 25 biodiversity hotspots identified worldwide. However, the lack of adequate hydrological monitoring in this region has led to problems in the management of water resources. In order to provide tools for the adequate management of water resources in the Brazilian Cerrado biome region, this paper develops the regionalization of maximum, mean and minimum streamflows in the Tocantins River Basin (287,405.5 km2), fully located in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. The streamflow records of 32 gauging stations in the Tocantins River Basin are examined using the Mann-Kendall test and the hydrological homogeneity non-parametric index-flood method. One homogeneous region was identified for the estimate of the streamflows Qltm (long-term mean streamflow), Q90% (streamflow with 90% of exceeding time), Q95% (streamflow with 95% of exceeding time) and Q7,10 (minimum annual streamflow over 7 days and return period of 10 years). Two homogeneous regions were identified for maximum annual streamflow estimation and the Generalized Extreme Value distribution is found to describe the distribution of maximus events appropriately within the both regions. Regional models were developed for each streamflow of each region and evaluated by cross-validation. These models can be used for the estimation of maximum, mean and minimum streamflows in ungauged basins within the Tocantins River Basin within the area boundaries identified. Therefore, the results provided in this paper are valuable tools for practicing water-resource managers in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Keywords: l-moments, statistical hydrology, water use rights concessions.
Journal Article
Organizational Challenges of the (Local) Water Supply in the European Union Member States
The authors discuss challenges of water supply in the European Union and the Member States, which mainly refer to local systems. The Member States retain autonomy in the water supply, however European Union general rules, and in particular the competition rules, are used for 'soft' liberalization (and privatization). The authors expose complex public policy issues of water supply; taking into account characteristics of the water sector. The article highlights typical models of the water sector organization with advantages and shortcomings. Dogmatic favouring or ranking of certain models, already at the abstract level, shall be rejected. Authors opt for case-by-case ranking of such organizational models. Dogmatic favouring of private participation and market competition is disputable and a credible discussion shall not be limited only to their advantages but also to their costs and risks.
Journal Article
Approaches to private participation in Water services: A toolkit
Approaches to Private Participation in Water Services is an informative toolkit that provides options for the design of policies to facilitate the delivery of good quality water and sanitation services to the poor. It highlights the need for tariffs, investment, stakeholder consultation, and regulatory policies to address the affordability and sustainability of those services. Targeted to an audience that includes government advisors as well as consultants, lawyers, and donors, the toolkit builds on previous global experience in private participation in water and sanitation supply. Developing country governments and those interested in private participation in water and sanitation supply will find this toolkit an invaluable resource.
eBook
Conceptual aspects of the hydrological regime for the definition of environmental hydrograph
Considering the instruments established by the Brazilian National Policy for Water Resources (Law 9,433/1997), the water right concession has the aim to limit water use of surface and groundwater reservoirs. In this sense, the sum of all granted uptake rights must take into consideration the natural ecological flows. It has been a complex challenge to establish a trade off between the management of water and environmental resources since various aspects have to be considered involving many knowledge areas such as ecology and hydrology. This paper focuses on the need for a closer dialogue between these areas by considering the space-time interpretation of the restrictions on natural flow regimes of the water resources. These regimes can be observed in hydrographs, which are indispensable tools for better understanding the hydro-ecologic behavior of rivers.
Journal Article
Feasibility of a water market in Colombia
Over the last 20 years there have been advances in changes to the legislation surrounding water resource management in several Latin American countries, with the objective of improving the government’s role in water protection through more active participation on the part of the private sector in the provision of utilities, essentially through the use of a market-based mechanism. The main objective of this paper was to analyse the feasibility of creating a water market in Colombia, provided that the three necessary conditions for the commercialisation of this resource exist: property rights distribution, public information of demand and supply of water rights and the physical and legal feasibility of executing this exchange.
Journal Article
AJAR DOOR TO PRIVATE INTERESTS IN WATER (DRINKING WATER SUPPLY) MARKET – RARE CASE OF SLOVENIA, TRIGGERED BY THE EU PROPOSAL OF THE DIRECTIVE ON CONCESSIONS
This article discusses a new constitutional right, a right to (drinking) water in Slovenia, especially elements of the public service for the supply of drinking water. This change of the Constitution was triggered by the 2011 proposal of the EU Directive on concession, which had proposed concessions for the supply of drinking water. A harsh reply from the wider public changes the mainstream of this idea. At the same
time, it had triggered certain political sphere to think how to preserve the supply of drinking water out of the private interests. Corollary, in Slovenia, the supply of drinking water is taken out of the market, that way also from the EU internal market and the competition rules, which both might be contestable. Arguments are put forward to support the exclusion of the above services from overall water market, claiming that the supply of drinking water has certain distinctive elements from other public services, where the natural resources are not in foreground, especially where every individual is not only potential, but real end-user. The article emphasizes that the measure is more important for future generations and for our inheritors and adds supportive arguments in this respect.
Journal Article
Africa's water and sanitation infrastructure : access, affordability, and alternatives
The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has produced continent-wide analysis of many aspects of Africa's infrastructure challenge. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africa's Infrastructure: a time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African Union Commission Heads of State Summit on Infrastructure. Although the flagship report served a valuable role in highlighting the main findings of the project, it could not do full justice to the richness of the data collected and technical analysis undertaken. There was clearly a need to make this more detailed material available to a wider audience of infrastructure practitioners. Hence the idea of producing four technical monographs, such as this one, to provide detailed results on each of the major infrastructure sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), power, transport, and water, as companions to the flagship report. These technical volumes are intended as reference books on each of the infrastructure sectors. They cover all aspects of the AICD project relevant to each sector, including sector performance, gaps in financing and efficiency, and estimates of the need for additional spending on investment, operations, and maintenance. Each volume also comes with a detailed data appendix, providing easy access to all the relevant infrastructure indicators at the country level, which is a resource in and of itself.
eBook