Interbasin Transfers of Water: Economic Issues and Impacts

xiv, 196; ill. (maps, charts); 24 cm. Includes References (pp. 177-187), and Index (pp. 189-196). Green cloth hardcover exhibits some wear, including rubbing to lettering of spine, and minor stains to spine/fore-edges, but internally Near Fine. Official engineering stamp on the inner cover. Includes flaps clipped from dust jacket. From the dj flaps: The northeastern drought of 1963 through 1966 and fears of spreading water crises in the southeastern United States have focused attention on the very uneven distribution of our water resources, both geographically and through time. Physical transfers of water between river basins have long been put forward as solutions to such water distribution problems, both for the chronic shortages in the West and for problems of water quality and periodic severe drought in the East. What distinguishes current proposals from their predecessors is their size. They call for moving much more water over much greater distances, and they thus imply broader economic and political impacts. The public advocacy of these transfers by various groups and the rebuttal provided by others have frequently clouded basic questions which need to be asked and answered if water transfers are to receive the unbiased and informed evaluation required for wise policy formulation. In Interbasin Transfers of Water Howe and Easter provide a set-ting for consideration of large-scale transfers in terms of regional demands for water and alternative means avail-able to meet those demands. They analyze existing evidence on the key economic issues relating to such transfers and suggest additional research that will be necessary for informed decision making about large-scale transfers. The authors concentrate on the western United States, which is the locale of most of the large-scale transfer proposals, and on agriculture, which would be the principal user of the water. What is the economic demand for water in the West? Are interbasin transfers the least-cost means of providing additional water? What are likely to be the short-term and long-term impacts of large-scale transfers on the importing region and on other regions? In answering these questions the authors survey current knowledge of direct and in-direct benefits attributable to water and the potential costs of interbasin transfers. They also examine alternatives to interbasin transfers to determine how much water might be made available, and at what cost, by reduced conveyance losses, additional surface development, wastewater reclamation, desalination, vegetative management and phreatophyte control, evaporation retardation, or transfers from agriculture to higher valued uses. Although addressed primarily to administrators, legislators, and scholars in the field of water management, the analysis and methodology used in this study should also interest students of economics and public administration.…