H11L:
Assessing Water Footprint and the Impact of Water Quality on Water Availability I


Session ID#: 10614

Session Description:
Water scientists and managers often consider water quality and water availability as separate issues, when in fact they are inextricably linked. Even when water is plentiful, it might not be available for use if water quality is impaired by natural and/or anthropogenic contaminants. As competition for both groundwater and surface water increases and constrains available supplies, water-quality issues are exacerbated by land use, water-management practices, climate change, and natural landscape and geologic features. Options to remove or reduce harmful constituents, or to develop alternative water supplies, come with costs. These costs, as well as the intrinsic benefits of varying levels of water quality for different uses, can be evaluated at different scales, ranging from local to national. We invite contributions that address links between water quality and water availability, explore the economics and valuation of water quality, and promote exchange between hydrologists, resource economists, and water-resource managers.
Primary Convener:  MaryLynn Musgrove, USGS, Austin, TX, United States; USGS Texas Water Science Center, Austin, TX, United States
Conveners:  Arjen Ysbert Hoekstra, University of Twente, Twente, Netherlands, Eric George Reichard, USGS California Water Science Center San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States and Megan Konar, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Urbana, IL, United States
Chairs:  MaryLynn Musgrove, USGS Texas Water Science Center, Austin, TX, United States and Bridget R Scanlon, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
OSPA Liaison:  Saket Pande, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Cross-Listed:
  • PA - Public Affairs
  • SI - Societal Impacts and Policy Sciences
Index Terms:

1831 Groundwater quality [HYDROLOGY]
1871 Surface water quality [HYDROLOGY]
1880 Water management [HYDROLOGY]
1884 Water supply [HYDROLOGY]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Evaluating water quality -- is it important, how can it be determined and how can it be used? (Invited) (70089)
P Patrick Leahy, American Geosciences Institute, Alexandria, VA, United States
Trends in California’s Water Footprint, 1992-2012 (Invited) (73718)
Julian Fulton, University of California Davis, Environmental Science, Davis, CA, United States and Heather Cooley, Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA, United States
Quantifying Groundwater Quality at a Regional Scale: Establishing a Foundation for Economic and Health Assessments (84042)
Kenneth Belitz, USGS Headquarters, NAWQA, Reston, VA, United States
Integrated Economic Modeling of Water Supply-Quality Tradeoffs: An Application to the Central Valley, California (Invited) (83022)
Lucas Bair, USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, Flagstaff, AZ, United States and Duncan MacEwan, ERA Economics, Davis, CA, United States
The economics of water reuse and implications for joint water quality-quantity management (Invited) (58839)
Yusuke Kuwayama, Resources for the Future, Washington, United States
Virtual groundwater transfers from overexploited aquifers in the United States (64613)
Landon Marston, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Blacksburg, United States, Megan Konar, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Urbana, IL, United States, Ximing Cai, University of Illinois, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Urbana, United States and Tara Troy, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, United States
Spatially detailed water footprint assessment using the U.S. National Water-Economy Database (Invited) (74848)
Benjamin L Ruddell, Arizona State University, Fulton Schools of Engineering, Tempe, AZ, United States
A global sensitivity analysis of crop virtual water content (Invited) (75571)
Stefania Tamea1, Marta Tuninetti2, Paolo D'Odorico3, Francesco Laio2 and Luca Ridolfi2, (1)Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, (2)Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, (3)University of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville, VA, United States

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