CRWR Online Report 11-02
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CRWR Online Report 11-02 Water Planning and Management for Large Scale River Basins: Case of Study of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Transboundary Basin by Samuel Sandoval-Solis, Ph.D. Daene C. McKinney, PhD., PE May 2011 CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN WATER RESOURCES Bureau of Engineering Research • The University of Texas at Austin J.J. Pickle Research Campus • Austin, TX 78712-4497 This document is available online via World Wide Web at http://www.crwr.utexas.edu/online.shtml Copyright by Samuel Sandoval Solis 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Samuel Sandoval Solis Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Water Planning and Management for Large Scale River Basins Case of Study: the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Transboundary Basin Committee: Daene C. McKinney, Supervisor Randall J. Charbeneau David R. Maidment David J. Eaton Bryan R. Roberts Water Planning and Management for Large Scale River Basins Case of Study: the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Transboundary Basin by Samuel Sandoval Solis, B.S.; M.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2011 Dedication Dedico esta tesis doctoral a Sil, mi amor, mi esposa, mi alma gemela, mi completo, mi fuerza, mi aliento, mi pasión; este esfuerzo te lo dedico a ti, agradezco infinitamente tu amor, paciencia y apoyo durante esta aventura llamada doctorado, ¡lo logramos! A mis padres Jesús y Alicia, los dos son un ejemplo de vida para mi, los amo con toda mi alma Acknowledgements I would like to express my endless gratitude to my advisor, mentor and friend Dr. Daene McKinney for his wisdom, guidance, and support throughout my time at The University of Texas. Dr. McKinney provided me with the opportunity to venture into the fascinating field of water planning and management, transboundary basins and of course the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, the basin that made us do research together, try to understand the incomprehensible (or at least look for some sense), do some traveling and have some successes and failures during the process; thank you for never made things easy, thank you for the discussions and insightful talks. I would like to thank Dr. David Maidment, Dr. Randall Charbeneau, Dr. David Eaton and Dr. Bryan Roberts for being members of my dissertation committee and for their word of encouragement along the way. Special thanks to Carlos Patiño Gomez who shared his knowledge regarding the Rio Grande/Bravo and who helped me and my wife to establish in Austin, I will never forget his hospitality when we arrived, I appreciate his friendship. Also special thanks to Becky (Dr. Rebecca Lynn Teasley), she encouraged me to learn about the basin and modeling, we worked together in the same projects and become excellent friends, I am thankful for her support, expertise and friendship. In the last few years I have developed a nice friendship with Eusebio Ingol Blanco, he had become a person to talk and discuss not only things related with the Rio Grande/Bravo and climate change, but also other topics such as life, family, Latin America, among other stuff, I appreciate his friendship. Special thanks are also given to my primary sponsorship CONACyT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia); this Mexican institution provided me all the financial v resources during my PhD process, my endless gratitude with CONACYT. Also, partial funding was provided by U.S. Department of Agriculture, Instituto Mexicano de Tecnología del Agua (IMTA) and the World Wildlife Fund Chihuahuan Desert Program. Special thanks to Gregory Thomas from the Natural Heritage Institute who become an extraordinary friend of adventures as well as my external adviser in hydro-politics and decision making. Thanks to Hector Arias, he was also part of the outreach of results. Also special thanks to Jack Sieber and David Yates for their support using WEAP. In this process I meet a lot of people from both countries, this is a list of people related to the Rio Grande/Bravo that helped me during my research and later some of them become friends; excuses in advance if I forget any person; from IMTA: Dr. Polioptro Martinez, Hector San Vicente, Alberto Guitron; from CONAGUA: Alfredo Galindo, Vicente Quezada, Doroteo Treviño, Amalio Cardona, Melchor Lopez, Mario Lopez, Rafael Rosales; from JCAS Chihuahua: Humberto Silva, from CILA: Dr. Roberto Salmon, Ramiro Lujan, Aldo Garcia, Gilberto Elizalde; from IBWC: Gilbert Anaya, Elizabeth Verdecchia; from TCEQ: Carlos Rubinstein, Stephen Niemeyer, Kelly Keel; and from TWDB: Mark Wenzel. Very special thanks to the “Scientific International Committee for Environmental flows in the Big Bend”, this is a high qualified scientific group that has become a nice circle where I have explored environmental policies and learned how to see things from different perspectives. I would like to give the thanks from USU: Jack Schmidt, David Dean; from WWF: Mark Briggs, Jurgen Hoth, Mauricio de la Maza, Alfredo Rodriguez, Amanda Cleghorn, Ivonne Muñoz, Norma Mendiola; from NPS: Jeffery Bennett, Raymond Skiles, Joe Sirotnak, from Env. Defense: Karen Chapman, from US FWS: Aimee Roberson, from CONANP: Carlos Sifuentes, and the rest of this amazing group. vi Also I created an amazing group of friends that made my life at UT quite enjoyable, thanks to Bradley Eck, Eric Hersh, Stephanie Johnson and Angela Ronay, Paula Kulis, Ernest To, Shipeng Fu, Marcelo Somos, Fernando Salas, Dr. Pepe Salas, Laura Read, Fernando Almada, Natalia Ibañez, Hector Garcia, Sedat Yalcinkaya, Georges Comair, Gonzalo Espinoza, Benjamin Reith, Sardorbek Musayev among others. I am grateful for my friends Ryan Schmidt, Denise Landeros, Maria Elena Sanchez, Juan Carlos Novela, Mayra Meléndez, Giovanni Sosa, Carolina Lopez Espinosa and Javier Dorantes Perdomo. Agradezco el apoyo, comprensión y amor de Sil, ella ha sido el pilar mas importante en este proceso de doctorado, gracias por escuchar mis inquietudes, éxitos y tropiezos, nada de esto hubiera sido posible sin ti. Te admiro mucho, gracias por estar a mi lado, gracias por ayudarme durante los momentos difíciles, gracias por soñar juntos. Agradezco especialmente a mis padres, Jesús y Alicia, por sus palabras de aliento, oraciones y apoyo, gracias por acompañarme durante mis múltiples visitas a México, siempre estuvieron en mis pensamientos a lo largo de este proceso, los dos son mis héroes, los quiero mucho. Gracias a mi Padrinovich y Madrinovich, Gonzalo Sandoval y María Antonia Muñoz respectivamente, gracias por escucharme, brindarme ánimos y consejos a lo largo de mi doctorado, gracias por formar parte de nuestra familia. Agradezco a Elvia Zamora por su apoyo, sus palabras de aliento, su compañía y consejos, gracias por sus visitas frecuentes a Austin, cada visita nos trajo vitalidad a nuestras vidas. Este trabajo es también en memoria de Miguel Almaraz Ovando y Álvaro Isidro Sandoval Sánchez, dos entrañables personas que extraño mucho. vii Water Planning and Management for Large Scale River Basins Case of Study: the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Transboundary Basin Publication No._____________ Samuel Sandoval Solis, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisor: Daene C. McKinney Because water is not equitably distributed in time and place, in the right quantity with the adequate quality, water planning and management is used to redistribute the resource in such a way that tries to satisfy the necessities of water users, including the environment. Policies are proposed to improve the water management, however, selecting the best alternative can be difficult when tradeoffs among alternatives improve certain aspects of the planning and management and worsen others. This research establishes a methodology to evaluate water management policies in order to clearly and systematically identify policies that improve the water management. First, each water user, system or environmental requirement are evaluated using performance criteria. Second, performance criteria are summarized using the Sustainability Index. Finally, individual Sustainability Indices are grouped using the Sustainability by Group Index. The Sustainability by Group Index makes it possible to compare groups of water users and regions at a glance. This methodology has been successfully applied in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin, a transboundary basin between the United States and Mexico. A viii set of scenarios was defined by water users, authorities and environmental organizations of the basin from both countries. A water resources planning model was constructed to represent the water management of the basin. The model was used to evaluate several scenarios and the benefits or damages that each policy provides. Two winning scenarios (called Meta-scenarios) that improve the management for water users, the environment and international treaty obligations were identified. Meta-scenario A is an immediate action scenario that includes: buyback of water rights, improvement in irrigation infrastructure, water demand reduction for irrigation districts in Mexico and the US, groundwater banking and the inclusion of environmental flows. Meta-scenario B is a short term scenario that includes the policies of Meta-scenario A plus expanded buyback of water rights, additional improvements in infrastructure and sharing of water savings between farmers in the US and Mexico. Results have been presented to decision makers and water users in both countries who will ultimately