Journal of Business Research 68 (2015) 1641–1644
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Journal of Business Research
Decision-making and stakeholders' constructive participation in environmental projects☆ Carlos Llopis-Albert a,⁎, Daniel Palacios-Marques b, Pedro Soto-Acosta c a b c
Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME), C/ Cirilo Amorós, 42-Entreplanta, 46004 Valencia, Spain Department of Business Administration, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camí de Vera s/n, 46022, Spain Department of Management and Finance, University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received June 2014 Received in revised form November 2014 Accepted January 2015 Available online 7 February 2015 Keywords: Stakeholders Decision-making Environmental project Water management
a b s t r a c t Integrated water resources management means making decisions and taking actions while focusing on how managing water. This study identifies the stakeholders participating in decision-making process of Jumilla-Villena aquifer (SE Spain), their objectives, and alternative actions that stakeholders should consider in the public participation project. If the system achieves the good quantitative groundwater status in the context of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), future scenarios regarding pumping strategies may arise. These future scenarios will lead to different environmental impacts and socio-economic development of the region, and hence, to a different acceptance degree between stakeholders. This study establishes the foundations to perform a public participation project and contributes to define the best management policies for the groundwater system. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Integrated water resources management involves technical, scientific, political, legislative, and organizational aspects of water system. Water resources management suffers from continual and growing pressures (Perez-Pineda & Quintanilla-Armijo, 2013). These pressures on water resources derive from reasons such as human activity, population growth, living standards increase, land-use and climate changes, growing competition for water, and pollution from industrial, municipal, and agricultural sources. The WCED (1987) define sustainability according to these reasons. Aquifer over-exploitation may lead to water level drawdown (i.e., abstraction cost increase), progressive water quality deterioration (e.g., soil salinization), ecological damage (e.g., rivers and springs flow decrease), and subsidence and landslide processes (Bacchus, 2000). The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires member states to “protect, enhance and restore all bodies of groundwater” to reach a good (quantitative and chemical) groundwater status by 2015 (EC, 2000). The Groundwater Directive (GWD) encourages the identification and disposal of any significant pollutant concentration (EC, 2006). The WFD also recognizes economics' role in reaching the environmental and ecological objectives. Won-Suk, Dong-Eun, and Jae-ho
☆ Authors gratefully acknowledge the support from scientific project DER2012-39223C02-02 of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses:
[email protected] (C. Llopis-Albert),
[email protected] (D. Palacios-Marques),
[email protected] (P. Soto-Acosta).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.010 0148-2963/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
(2014) indicate the necessary balance between environmental damage costs (which are not readily assessable) and water benefits of the water for region's sustainable socio-economic development. Different policy instruments for groundwater management can cope with present and future situations (water pricing, quotas, water abstraction taxes, pollution taxes, subsidies, tradable permits, or groundwater banking). The final goal is to combine existing regulations, institutional capability, social acceptability, stakeholder involvement, and political will. However, because of the complexity of interactions between economic, agronomic and hydrologic systems, the stochastic nature of some factors (e.g. climate, soil, topographic conditions, etc.), and to the lack of knowledge, the consequences of management practices recommended by the authorities are difficult to predict accurately. Despite these facts, numerical simulation models—which may explicitly take into account the biophysics of the aquifer, and integrate its socio-economic characterization—can help in both the decisionmaking process and the uncertainty assessment. The Jumilla-Villena aquifer (SE Spain), officially over-exploited, provides the scenario for this study. A calibrated groundwater flow model (which considers physical processes in the aquifer) generates different scenarios regarding future pumping strategies. These scenarios will show different environmental impacts and region's socio-economic development, and hence, a different degree of acceptance by stakeholders. This study identifies the stakeholders, the objectives according to the WFD, and the alternative actions to take into consideration in a public participation project. This study establishes the foundations to perform a public participation project and contributes to define the best management policies for the groundwater system. Furthermore, a
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Table 1 Historical data of water demand, uses for the groundwater abstractions, and annual water balance of the aquifer. Agricultural water demand (Mm3/year)
Abstractions for irrigation (Mm3/year)
Abstractions for domestic water (Mm3/year)
Other uses (Mm3/year)
Total uses (Mm3/year)
Segura Basin
Júcar Basin
Total
Segura Basin
Júcar Basin
Total
Segura Basin
Júcar Basin
Total
Total
Segura Basin
Júcar Basin
Total
28
17
45
21
17 −
38
1
6
7
0.7
22
24
46
Recharge (Mm3/year)
Actual pumping (Mm3/year)
Storage variation (Mm3/year)
Total drawdown since natural regime (m)
Water table depletion rate during the last 10 years (m/year)
7.5
42.7
−35
115
3.5
comparison may arise between economical and environmental groundwater costs and other water sources such as desalinization plants, conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, or water transfer between river basins. 2. Modeling framework This study uses MODFLOW to simulate groundwater flow in the aquifer (McDonald & Harbaugh, 1988). This method solves the flow equation in three dimensions using an approximation by finite differences and a constant density. Nonlinear parameter estimation can calibrate the hydrogeological parameters of the equation (Llopis-Albert & Capilla, 2010a, 2010b; Llopis-Albert, Palacios-Marqués, & Merigó, 2014). This study uses an automatic calibration through PEST parameter estimation model (Doherty, 2004). This automatic calibration adjusts model input data and runs the model again until achieving a specific number of optimization iterations or a convergence criterion. High computational efficiency is necessary for the calibration process due to the implementation of the parameter estimation algorithm (Gauss– Marquardt–Levenberg algorithm). This algorithm has its basis on an iterative process implying a linearization of the relationship between model parameters and model-generated observations through a Taylor expansion of the best parameter set. This algorithm obtains all observations derivatives regarding all parameters. After solving the problem, a better parameter set appears. Therefore, the problem is to minimize the following objective function (ϕ): t
ϕ ¼ ðc−co − Jðb−bo ÞÞ Q ðc−co −Jðb−bo ÞÞ
ð1Þ
where: c: Experimental observation vector; c o: Model-calculated observation vector; J: Jacobian matrix. Jij is the derivative of the piezometric function of the i'th observation with respect to the j'th parameter; Q: Observation weights matrix (square and diagonal) whose i'th diagonal element qii is the square of the weight wi attached to the i'th observation; b: New parameter vector; bo: Current parameter vector; u = (b − bo): Parameter upgrade vector. Applying Taylor's theorem, c ¼ co þ Jðb−bo Þ
ð2Þ
and the upgrade vector u becomes, −1 t t J Q ðc−co Þ u¼ J QJ
ð3Þ
Finally, the parameter covariance matrix is: C ðbÞ ¼ σ
2
t
J QJ
−1
where σ2 represents the variance of each of the elements of c.
ð4Þ
3. Methodology Aquifer over-exploitation is an important part of the agricultural and economic development in Spain. Moreover, summers' higher population due to tourism increases water demand, which aquifers extractions satisfy. This intensive exploitation of aquifers causes severe political conflicts between local towns, districts, regional governments, and with national government. Furthermore, this intensive exploitation strongly affects ecology: From springs and wetlands drying out, water intrusion in coastal aquifers (Llopis-Albert & Pulido-Velazquez, 2013), and disappearance and regime alteration of related rivers, to water pollution (Hamm, Cheong, & Kim, 2005). The Jumilla-Villena aquifer belongs to the regional governments of Albacete, Alicante, and Murcia due to its extension (Fig. 1). Southeast Spain has a mild Mediterranean climate. The Cretaceous carbonates aquifer has a surface of over 338 km2, of which 108 km2 are outcrops. The average aquifer thickness is 500 m and presents a syncline structural geology. The economically exploitable reserves range from an elevation of 450 to 100 m.a.s.l. (i.e., using pumping wells between 100 and 400 m depth). These water reserves are between 1200 and 2000 hm3, with an average of 1600 hm3. The aquifer is at extreme risk of not fulfilling the quantitative and qualitative environmental conditions of the EU WFD (See Table 1). Conflicting stakeholder interests are another problem because they impede the realization and success of any regulations. This situation gets worse when managing water resources are scarce. Regarding institutional considerations, the aquifer has user's communities, but the short means available to them constrains their actions. As a last resort, the aquifer water management depends on the river basin agencies. The Segura and Júcar river basins control the aquifer, leading to water transfers between them. The criteria to select the relevant stakeholder groups include all the groups who will partially suffer measures implementation. Then, this study includes those groups whose interests, resources, and power/ authority position may affect substantially measures implementation. This may include groups who have interests, claims or rights (ethical or legal) to the benefits of the measures undertaken, are likely to bear its costs or adverse effects whatever its overall worth. Eventually, the stakeholders participating in the Jumilla-Villena aquifer are: Segura and Júcar river basins, national administration, municipalities, environmental organizations or NGOs, recreational organizations, regional administration, agricultural representatives, industry, regional development organizations, and tourism organizations. This study simulates four future scenarios (S) regarding pumping strategies with different exploitation levels. S1 entails a cessation of abstractions in the year 2004 and a recovery of the aquifer until the year 2025. S2 uses the abstractions of the year 2004 until 2007. Then, there is a cessation of abstractions and the recovery of the aquifer takes place until 2025. S3 uses abstractions of the year 2004 until 2007. Then S3 uses the abstractions of the Register of Water (RW) of the Segura river basin until 2015. The RW entails 65.35 hm3/year. Subsequently, S3 simulates a half of the RW abstractions up to the year 2025. S4 uses abstractions of 2004 until 2007, a half of the RW until 2015 and a quarter of RW up to the year 2025.
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SPAIN Júcar River Basin Jumilla-Villena aquifer Segura River Basin Mediterranean Sea
420
Head (m)
400 380 360 340
Calculated (S1) Calculated (S2) Calculated (S3) Calculated (S4) Observed
End of calibraon period
320
Fig. 1. Delimitations for Spanish water management bodies (above), and head time series for the different scenarios at a specific location (well: 273320001) (below).
The model allows obtaining aquifer's groundwater level and drawdown, thus providing a tool to analyze if the system will achieve the good quantitative and chemical groundwater status that the WFD states. 4. Discussion and conclusions Head-time curves between observations and simulated values for all scenarios and wells do agree, although not all of them appear for conciseness matters (Fig. 1). Scenarios S1 and S2 entail a slight recovery of water levels. However, scenarios S3 and S4, with more intensive exploitations, show water levels continuous decrease (with a mean drawdown for all wells of more than a hundred meters from the natural aquifer regime). The calibrated model also analyzes water balance evolution between the Segura and Júcar river basins. The net transfer water between watersheds shows a mean value of 7.5 hm3/year for the calibration period. This result has highly sensitive implications regarding water management between the different stakeholders. This study establishes the foundations for a public participation project and for stakeholders' engagement in the water resources management of the Jumilla-Villena aquifer. This study outlines the region's current environmental and socio-economic situation and the aquifer management during the last decades. The decisions from those decades force authorities to consider the aquifer as officially over-exploited. This problem entails negative consequences for the quantity and quality of available resources according to the WFD. This study uses a calibrated groundwater flow model to simulate future pumping well strategies, considering the physical behavior of the groundwater system. These pumping scenarios lead to different environmental impacts and levels of socio-economic development of the region, and hence, to a different degree of acceptance between stakeholders. Finally, this study identifies the stakeholders taking part in the decision-making process or suffering groundwater system measures.
This study also raises the objectives regarding public participation and stakeholders' involvement. These objectives comprise reaching a good quantitative and chemical status at the aquifer, springs and wetlands recuperation, high irrigated area and crop profitability, short realization time between planning time and realization time, low implementation costs of measures to increase regional productivity, sustainable tourism development, and creation of employment. Among these objectives, this study focuses on the achievement of aquifer's good quantitative status through the definition of future pumping well strategies. This study demonstrates that the recovery of the aquifer to levels before any major abstractions is impossible in the short run, either with existing water abstractions or with those for all simulated future scenarios. Additionally, the good quantitative status would also avoid other potential environmental damages such as quality pollution or land subsidence. Stakeholders should consider alternative actions such as control/restriction of groundwater use, rational and efficient conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, and water demand and fertilizer reduction through economic instruments. All this information facilitates a successful implementation of a public participation project and stakeholders' engagement in the water resources management of the Jumilla-Villena aquifer. This research may act as a decision support system to define the best management policies for the groundwater system, contributing to the ongoing policy process in the European Union (Water Framework and Groundwater Directives), which requires public participation to enhance the water resources management at water bodies.
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