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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 3 rd 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 km 2 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 m 3 (MCM) per year. (Avisar et al., 2006)

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management The degradation of the Yarqon State of Israel: 1948 The failure of policy : ● The 1959 Water Law ● Population ● Drainage and Flood Control Social ● Industrial activities Law 1957 environmental ● Agricultural activities ● Planning and Building Law, awareness 1965 ● Yarqon-Negev pipeline: Inflow from the sources being less than 4 MCM. ● Discharge of poorly treated urban WW.

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management 1966 Housing front

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management Period 1960-2000

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP) 1965 - “Rivers and Springs Authorities Law” 1988 - “Order for the Yarqon River Authority” Corporations Riparian Local related to the river landowners authorities Government Public representatives representatives (Council Board) Objectives: ● Rehabilitate the river in order to upgrade its ecological status Yarqon Master Plan ● Providing solutions to drainage problems to (1996) prevent flooding ● Promote the social use of the river

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP) Yarqon Master Plan Land Use Plan Water Plan ● Habitat restoration ● Allocating more spring water from the River’s source. ● Creation of a Mega-park ● Improving and expanding the ● District Outline Plans (statutory treatment processes (constructed land use planning) wetlands) and effluent quality coming from the WWTPs. IWRM: Promotes the co-ordinated ● Water reuse project. Membrane development and management of plant aimed at irrigation of parks water, land and related resources, in and agriculture. order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare (GWP, 2000).

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP) - Habitat restoration Yarqon Master Plan - Creation of a Mega-park

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management The Yarqon River Rehabilitation Project (YRRP) Land Use Plan (District Yarqon Master Plan Outline Plans) 40 hectares

Water Plan Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management Upgrading WWTPs: Kfar Sava-Hod Hasharon plant, Ramat Hasharon plant (310 m 3 /h). Water allocation : 600 m 3 /h (June 2011). 850 m 3 /h (July 2012) Constructed wetlands : enabled upgrading and levelling out fluctuations in the quality of the effluents. 1000 m 3 /h

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management Post - 2000 Housing front

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management 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 Decision-making involved trade-off Cost-benefit Values: analysis - Environmental - Social - Economical - WWTPs’ upgrading - Water reuse project Costs Market - Constructed wetland - Urban parks construction value - Maintenance operations - Water loss in the channel - Etc… Market value is NOT available Benefits - Ecological services: Aesthetic and recreational services.

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management How do we estimate the willingness to pay of the society for these services with no market? 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. 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 House features Environmental dis-amenity Market price of a Neighbourhood house attributes Environmental amenity

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management Model Summary Adjusted Std. Error of Functional form. Double-log: The Model R R Square R Square the Estimate price and all quantitative variables ,871 a 1 ,758 ,754 ,29204 are presented in natural logarithmic a. Predictors: (Constant), lnap_size, lndistyarqon, Cond form Norm, Pent_Atic, lndistsea, parking, Detached Coefficients a Unstandardized Standardized Coefficients Coefficients Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. 1 (Constant) 12,495 ,240 52,141 ,000 Pent_Atic ,138 ,047 ,078 2,932 ,004 Detached ,248 ,058 ,134 4,274 ,000 Cond_Norm -,090 ,033 -,068 -2,716 ,007 parking ,109 ,034 ,093 3,228 ,001 lndistyarqon -,111 ,022 -,126 -5,081 ,000 lndistsea -,264 ,014 -,526 -19,322 ,000 lnap_size ,802 ,042 ,670 18,913 ,000 a. Dependent Variable: lnprice House features Environmental dis-amenity Market price of a Neighbourhood house attributes Environmental amenity

Sustainable and Integrated Urban Water System Management 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.