Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
agents who intervene, their geographical location and the initial
institutional and hydrologic framework.
2.1 The agents
As we can see from Figure 11.1, we consider two reservoirs upon which
four types of agent, namely cities, minimum instream flow for
environmental reasons, farmers and hydropower depend. The water rights
of each of these agents are restricted by the maximum volume that can be
used, at any moment in time and by a strict order of priority in the
following terms. First, the city users are supplied with a maximum security
level. This supposes that there is a prior level of reserves in the reservoirs
that cannot be used unless and until the city uses have been satisfied.
Once the drinking water needs have been covered in the above
terms, it is necessary to guarantee the minimum flow, which consists of a
minimum continuous flow in the natural channel. The next use under this
order of priority is that of agriculture. In contrast to the two earlier uses,
this requires water for only half the water year, that is to say, during the
irrigation period. It is this aspect that gives relevance to the time
distribution of the rights and to the possibilities for the transfer of resources
from one time period to another through storage in reservoirs. For the sake
of simplicity, we consider only two sub-periods in the water year, namely,
the irrigation and the non-irrigation periods.
The last agent to appear under this order of priorities is
hydropower, in the form of the hydroelectric plants located at the foot of
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