Modeling sustainable groundwater management: packaging and sequencing of policy interventions

Abstract

Of the many studies estimating effectiveness of policy reforms most have been considering various types of policy reforms in isolation from each other. Such pattern has also been the case in water resource regulations. In the case of groundwater almost all policy interventions considered in the literature have been implemented individually, without taking into account the possible interactions and impacts among them. In this paper, we focus on two policy instruments: water quota and uniform water tax. The paper demonstrates how packaging and sequencing sets of policy interventions, with possible triggers to initiate their time of implementation, may be more effective in achieving a sustainable groundwater management than single policies when environmental externalities exist. The policy instruments are applied to the Western la Mancha aquifer in Southeast Spain, a major aquifer that is managed by a command and control approach.