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Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

SANITAS

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Assessing the feasibility of the Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project. Theoretical and methodological aspects and preliminary results

3rd SANITAS e-seminar

Xavier Garcia Acosta, PhD. - ER4 - Yarqon River Authority

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Index

• 1. The Yarqon: Features, degradation,

rehabilitation aspects.

• 2. Methodology: inform policy-makers on

the trade-offs involved on decisions (CBA).

• 3. Preliminary results: estimate the

willingness to pay for ecological services (with no market).

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

The Yarqon River

• Flows east to west to the Mediterranean Sea.
• Situated in a coastal plain valley.
• Length of 28 Km.
• Size of the watershed is about 1800 km2 and begins in the Samarian Hills.

Almost two thirds of the basin lies beyond the “green line” (pre-1967 border).

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

The historic Yarqon

• Sources of the Yarqon. Large Yarqon-Taninim karstic

aquifer.

• 220 million m3 (MCM) per year. (Avisar et al., 2006)

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

The degradation of the Yarqon

State of Israel: 1948

• Population
• Industrial activities
• Agricultural activities

The failure of policy:

• The 1959 Water Law
• Drainage and Flood Control

Law 1957

• Planning and Building Law,

1965 Social environmental awareness

• Yarqon-Negev pipeline: Inflow from

the sources being less than 4 MCM.

• Discharge of poorly treated urban

WW.

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Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

1966 Housing front

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Period 1960-2000

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The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP)

Government representatives Local authorities Corporations related to the river Riparian landowners Public representatives

(Council Board)

Objectives:

• Rehabilitate the river in order to upgrade its

ecological status

• Providing solutions to drainage problems to

prevent flooding

• Promote the social use of the river

Yarqon Master Plan (1996)

1988 - “Order for the Yarqon River Authority” 1965 - “Rivers and Springs Authorities Law”

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Yarqon Master Plan

The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP)

Land Use Plan Water Plan

• Allocating more spring water

from the River’s source.

• Improving and expanding the

treatment processes (constructed wetlands) and effluent quality coming from the WWTPs.

• Water reuse project. Membrane

plant aimed at irrigation of parks and agriculture.

• Habitat restoration
• Creation of a Mega-park
• District Outline Plans (statutory

land use planning)

IWRM: Promotes the co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in

• rder to maximize the resultant

economic and social welfare (GWP, 2000).

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Yarqon Master Plan

The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP)

• Habitat restoration
• Creation of a Mega-park

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Yarqon Master Plan

The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP)

Land Use Plan (District Outline Plans) 40 hectares

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Water Plan

Water allocation: 600 m3/h (June 2011). 850 m3/h (July 2012) Upgrading WWTPs: Kfar Sava-Hod Hasharon plant, Ramat Hasharon plant (310 m3/h). Constructed wetlands: enabled upgrading and levelling out fluctuations in the quality of the

• effluents. 1000 m3/h

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Post - 2000 Housing front

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How to inform policy-makers on the trade-offs (social, environmental, economical) among alternative projects or policies involved in the Yarqon rehabilitation? Cost-benefit analysis

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Cost-benefit analysis

Monetize the trade-offs of decisions implying environmental goods or services allowing a direct integration of social and environmental elements of a decision with its financial aspects. Policy sphere:

• It provides a basis for rational thinking about losses and gains

subjected to decisions.

• Identifies who are the beneficiaries and losers (“utility” or

“well-being” being counted) in both the spatial and temporal dimensions.

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Cost-benefit analysis

Decision-making involved trade-off Values:

• Environmental
• Social
• Economical

Market value is NOT available Costs Benefits

• WWTPs’ upgrading
• Water reuse project
• Constructed wetland
• Urban parks construction
• Maintenance operations
• Water loss in the channel
• Etc…

Market value

• Ecological services: Aesthetic and recreational

services.

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1) Stated preference methods

• Construction of a hypothetical, or ‘simulated’, market

via a questionnaire.

• Involves directly asking people in a survey.

2) Revealed preference methods

• Seek the valuation of non-marketed services by observing actual

individual’s behaviour (purchases made in actual markets).

• Using real market data instead of unbiased data from a hypothetical

market scenario.

How do we estimate the willingness to pay of the society for these services with no market?

Hedonic pricing (HP) method: Estimate economic values for ecosystem services that directly affect market prices (housing prices). WFD Article 9 (Recovery of costs for water services).

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Market price of a house House features Environmental amenity Environmental dis-amenity Neighbourhood attributes

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Market price of a house House features Environmental amenity Environmental dis-amenity Neighbourhood attributes

Coefficientsa 12,495 ,240 52,141 ,000 ,138 ,047 ,078 2,932 ,004 ,248 ,058 ,134 4,274 ,000

• ,090

,033

• ,068
• 2,716

,007 ,109 ,034 ,093 3,228 ,001

• ,111

,022

• ,126
• 5,081

,000

• ,264

,014

• ,526
• 19,322

,000 ,802 ,042 ,670 18,913 ,000 (Constant) Pent_Atic Detached Cond_Norm parking lndistyarqon lndistsea lnap_size Model 1 B

• Std. Error

Unstandardized Coefficients Beta Standardized Coefficients t Sig. Dependent Variable: lnprice a.

Model Summary

,871a ,758 ,754 ,29204 Model 1 R R Square Adjusted R Square

• Std. Error of

the Estimate Predictors: (Constant), lnap_size, lndistyarqon, Cond Norm, Pent_Atic, lndistsea, parking, Detached a.

Functional form. Double-log: The price and all quantitative variables are presented in natural logarithmic form

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When all the other variables are held constant, the increase of a 1% in the distance (in meters) of the house from the Yarqon decreases the price 0.111% Evaluated at the mean house price of $779,027 at the initial distance of 500 meters, moving 250 meter closer to the Yarqon increases the average house price by $62,244.

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Conclusions

1) The pollution and degradation of the Yarqon significantly influenced the land use planning of the riparian landscapes. 2) The environmental upgrading of the Yarqon has significantly influenced the neighbouring housing market prices (0.1% significance level). 3) Proper IWRM can positively influence the ecological status of our rivers as well as the welfare of society. 4) Hedonic pricing (HP) has been proven to be an effective method to estimate the economic value for ecosystem services of the rehabilitated Yarqon.

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Thank you!

www.sanitas-itn.eu

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under REA agreement 289193. This presentation reflects only the author’s views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.