Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

W-3190 Meeting

October 30, 2015

Minutes of W3190 Meeting October 30, 2015 Salt Lake City, Utah; submitted by Todd Guilfoos

This is the second annual meeting of W3190

Officers for the past year:  Chair:  Jordan Suter, Colorado; Vice-Chair: Mark Eiswerth, Colorado; Secretary: Todd Guilfoos, Rhode Island.

Morning session

8:30 AM – Meeting begins with initial introduction by Jordan Suter.   Mention of possible collaboration with other group again WERA 1020 since this year meeting went so well.

8:38 AM - Introductions of all participants.

8:44 AM – Comments on Minutes.    Vote for approval of minutes Jordan Suter votes to approve, Karina seconds.  The Minutes from last year are approved. 

8:46 AM – Laura McCann- Discussion about the prior meeting with WERA 1020.  General adulation by all members for the meeting this year.  There is a suggestion to add a bullet as an impact of the meeting in the report.  Talk of making materials of the meeting available, which the presentations will be made available online.  Karina- mentions the special issues journal on water management, and would like the full paper by January 20th.  The process will be a peer review process. 

Laura McCann- case studies are things we don’t get in journal research that are valuable.  Maybe a paper that compares success stories and failures to be included in the special issues is an opportunity.  Jordan Suter- agrees.  Try and include the case studies in future meetings.  Suggestion to include a panel over a single water issue in the future meetings.  Maybe include a farmer or stakeholders in the future panels.

Jeff Peterson- Is the synthesis paper going to be broadly distributed?  Karina- the idea is to write a report that is too long for a paper but includes details on the sessions and panels and speakers contributions.  The introduction to the special issues could include a synthesis.  It would be great to reach across groups to work with WERA 1020.

Nic Brozovic- The format could change to serve this group and further our goals specifically the W3190.  The bigness may take away from the networking opportunities and getting information about what others in the group are doing, including the field trips.  Maybe do a big meeting once a 5 year cycle.  Jordan agrees with the idea of once a cycle.

Jeff Peterson – To help generate policy relevant information, have a meeting in DC to include more policymakers in the cycle.

Glenn Schaible- Force the reporting on research next year in the second year of the cycle.

Garth Taylor- Reminder that in September IWREC has another meeting in DC. 

Laura McCann- have presentations on the science and the practitioner problems to generate research ideas.

Kristi Hansen- the group is supposed to be interdisciplinary so including non-economists is good.

Glenn Schaible- Suggests selecting a person for each objective, and they can report back to the committee to help with the ideas.  Who is working on each objective: to identify speakers at the meeting and research to keep track for the final report on progress.  This may help establish an agenda.

Jordan Suter- state reports due earlier to synthesize the bullet points and help facilitate that.

9:10 AM – Location of next meeting.  Mark Eiswerth- what are we going to do and when and where? 

Kristi Hansen – Fort Collins as a location?

Mark Eiswerth– What would be included?  Denver? 

Grant Cardon - Large scale river modeling at GS, so look at storm events and flood control and physical modeling.

Stephan Kroll – CSU could help organize a meeting in Fort Collins.  Jordan Suter agrees.

Nic Brozovic- Nebraska could host in the future and host good field trips.

Mike Harrington – comes into meeting and would like to share info with both groups.

9:16 AM – Mike Harrington addresses both W3190 and WERA 1020: Congratulate the last two days of meetings and how valuable it is bringing the two groups together. One item brought up, have a follow up survey to identify what was useful and what could be improved.  Overview of where things stand.  Budget deal in the works, 2 year budget deal no sequestration, experiment station benefits. 20 B in discretionary and non-discretionary 15 B next year, spread across 12 different budget bills.  Seeing incremental increases in capacity funding - competitive programs in AFRI- farmer rancher program – energy –organic – specialty crops programs and are likely to see small increases in AFRI and competitive programs.  Extension lost 40% of its buying power due to inflation over time.  Water security initiative: 3,000 projects with water included in write-ups, but few of those projects have to do with water security.  6 million dollars in water challenge area.  Don’t have an organized program that gets at goals and objectives.  It needs to be a larger effort to deal with water issues beyond the water security.  Water should be included in NIFA proposals going forward.  President’s budget may include these water initiatives in his budget.  NIFA needs to work more closely with Ag Experiment groups and would like to see the joint meetings to occur again in the future with some frequency.  It is good to have the groups meet together and extend collaboration across groups.   How long does it take to write an investigator proposal?  Transactional costs, time costs, and evaluation are important aspects of proposal writing.  It takes six weeks of effort on average to write a proposal.  Success rate over a 6 year period  is 270 M  authorized amount 700M, lots of proposals go unfunded that would have been if the budget was larger. 3-4% to 20% success rate, or 16% over the six year period.  We are gathering information on what does it take to get the proposal review done by going out with a survey to evaluate these tasks.  50% of money lost in transactional costs in this process.  Costs are very large to process the proposals, and we are trying to quantify these costs. 

Laura McCann: Richard Just has a paper on the competitive process and deadweight loss from these processes. 

Jonathan Yoder:  what is the policy take away?  Tease out administrative burden vs. discovery.  Find ways to reduce the burden.  Active in interdisciplinary proposals, and has found there is a lot discovered in the proposal process.

Mike Harrington: agrees with the point.  The discovery may occur before the proposal.

Laura McCann: What are the acceptance rates of second submissions?

Mike Harrington: funding trying to become more predictable.   Reducing swings in programs so faculty can predict what the needs will be in future years. 

Garth Taylor:  heads of water centers at their universities.  How could we work with the water centers?

Mike Harrington: Collaborations happen in these meetings.  Joint activities, developing WERA projects, etc..  These meetings are very important to get people to start talking together.  Policymakers don’t want to hear about policy from university people.  Possible partnerships could include water councils with governors, legislators, associations of counties.  Those groups can do things we cannot as individual universities.

Jeff Peterson: prominent issues in MN are more about quality.  Some issues contain both quantity and quality.  Separate moneys for quality vs. quantity, are we going to integrate the funding sources in the future?

Mike Harrington: Insufficient money.  Cap grant for wheat but no money for water.   There will be more focus on getting money for these water initiatives in the future.  Congrats to both groups for this effort.  Share the report with your deans that comes from this group.  Western SARE Program may be a source of money.

10:00 AM – Mike Harrington and WERA 1020 members depart the meeting.

10:00 AM – Jordan Suter – Return to discussion of next year’s meeting: where, when. 

Nic Brozovic – Lincoln could host.  Could think about themes to organize the meeting around: link public private partnerships.  Connect to field trips.  Republican River Basin.  Karina - Possibly the augmentation project. 

Jordan Suter– We could do Colorado next year, and Nebraska the next year since Rhode Island may not be the best location.

Ray Huffaker- Wyoming should be included again, Jackson Hole. 

Karina Schoengold– holding the meeting later in October tends to make it easier on D.C. attendees.

Jordan Suter- check with the Heartland to see when their meeting is. 

Mark Eiswerth– October 20^th or 27^th could be two possible dates.  Jordan Suter – 20-21^st.   October 24-25 to hold it on Monday and Tuesday.   What about Sunday and Monday?  Garth Taylor– agrees with the weekend idea.    Sunday – Monday.

Jordan Suter– The target date is 24-25^th in October in Colorado.  Friday field trip and Saturday business meeting.  Happy to have a vote, Thurs Friday, Friday Saturday, Saturday Sunday.  11 votes for Thursday and Friday.  Consensus to keep it on Thursday and Friday.  Check Mike Harrington’s schedule.

Jordan Suter – Could do 20-21^st in Fort Collins next year.  Lincoln Nebraska for the following year.  Check with Fen Hunt for the schedule. 

Mark Eiswerth – Arizona in the future, someone on the ground to organize would be essential.  Meet with the other group but maybe not the conference.  Ginger Paige - every couple years would work, wait two years from now. 

Glen Schaible– special sessions at one of the regional meetings to host the other group could be a way to keep involvement of both groups. 

Nathan Hendricks– leverage other meetings like the Governors Water conference. 

Brian Hurd- AWRA meetings in November could be an opportunity to meet with the other groups and have papers in a few sessions.  This could be a good product for our group. AGU meetings, pre-AGU event at Davis.  That meeting could be an opportunity.

Jonathan Yoder: Orlando Florida

Jeff Peterson- AGU has made efforts to include economics; special sessions.

Jordan Suter– Fort Collins next year.  Grant: Figure out where other groups are meeting, maybe a sub-committee about options to meet with other groups.  Glenn Schaible, Grant Cardon, and Laura McCann volunteer for the sub-committee.

Karina Schoengold– getting away for a few days isn’t hard, but extended time for teaching may conflict.

Tim- AGU is usually third week in December.

Nic Brozovic- Lincoln possibly for next year as the model for having a president that isn’t on site, as this spreads the burden on organizing and being president. 

Glen Schaible– a sub-committee for the conference would be a good idea.

Karina Schoengold– Oct. 20-21^st is a home game for Nebraska.  Previous or next week 27-28^th October or 13-14^th October.  Check in with Michael and Fen for their schedules to attend.

Brian Hurd: Meet with growers will be difficult because it is harvest time. 

Nic Brozovic- For the field trip we could do the Platte River, ag water irrigation equipment, remote sensing, Irrigation engineer and experiments.  Karina and Nic will propose a few options. Consensus is to hold next year’s meeting in Lincoln on either October 13-14^th or October 27-28^th.

Chloe Garnache– how long is the field trip.  Half day?

Jordan Suter – We need to do Secretary nominations at this meeting. 

10:40 AM - Break:

10:55 AM – Nathan Hendricks volunteers to be nominated as secretary; nomination accepted by the group.

State Reports – each person will have a few minutes to just go over the highlights.

Garth Taylor- not much in Idaho.  A lot of outreach this year and study of conjunctive use in the plains, but no water programs in Idaho at all.

Glenn Schaible- publications and ERS reports on wetlands and geographic work.   Hypoxia project they are working on and nitrogen delivery in the Mississippi basin, and conservation data.  Riparian buffers and wetlands in the area, focused on water quality based and climate change.  ERS website updated with data about irrigation and water use.  Summarized handout given to everyone.  Crop irrigation and trends occurring in water use, challenges and water environments, opportunities for improvement.   Website on the California drought and food impacts addresses implications of drought in California.  Working on an ongoing relationship with Nic and Karina, and USGS- high plains aquifer research project to expand the crop program data.  Information about normalized ag prices, input and output prices, is up on the website, also in the handout given by Glenn.

Brian Hurd- For New Mexico.  Frank Ward sent updates, Ari not able to come either.  Frank awarded a $5 Mil NIFA award recently.  Sustainable water systems, conjunctive use in Lower Rio Grande Basin, issues in water supply and water quality and sustainability issues.  Frank in workshops with stakeholders, Bonnie Colby also involved as well.

Mark Eiswerth – Colorado.  On sabbatical for the Fall.  Hosting Special Session at AWRA Nov. 16^th, this year in Denver and on planning committee. Special Session deals with value of ecosystem services, non-ag benefits of water, economics of water quality and clarity.  Working with Kristi Hansen and Ginger Paige on synthesis of payments for ecosystem services.  Recently published willingness to pay data in Ecological Economics, interested in how demand and supply shifters affect WTP and payments for services.  Co-authored a chapter on cheatgrass and economic modeling in book on cheatgrass. Addresses annual grass invasions and thresholds, which are difficult to model.

Stephan Kroll – Colorado.  Announcement about special issues of Strategic Behavior and the Environment.  March 31^st deadline.  Announcing open position in the CSU department for an energy economist, and also just finished sabbatical.

Ray Huffaker – Florida.  Interested in the agricultural migration out of California.  Climate change and water rights system is receptive to more irrigation.  Wrote a chapter on agricultural power and fish in Columbia River Basin.  Data diagnostics, hydrology data, lots of data and how to analyze these data and push this into economics engineering.  Just off sabbatical.  Book with colleagues in nonlinear time series analysis in R applied to climate water economic applications.  Book is in contract with Oxford, coming out next year.  Storm water treatment areas and assimilation and removal rates track dynamics switch removal tracks inflow- when do dynamics change and wetland policies.  Wind turbines and power patterns, matching to demand and supply.  Flow power in streams to generate energy.  Applying techniques that improve reconstruction of data.  Water trading, working with others in this group. 

Jonathan Yoder-  Washington State.  Working on Columbia water demand forecast, service contracts, and Cost recovery in water service projects.  Understand demand for water service in their programs.   Studying water banking and many other projects with data on the drought in Washington trying to understand how people responded to the drought.  Benefit cost analysis on plan on Columbia River sub basin, Ray H. passed on report that big water storage projects don’t satisfy benefit cost tests. 

Kristi Hansen- Wyoming.  Water related Natural Resources Journal issue coming from this meeting.  Water rights transfers and leases, shape of the water markets.  Salvage rights law and abandonment.  Ariel Dinar in book about water economics and water transfers in West.  Working with stakeholders in Ogallala in Wyoming to address federal money for buyouts of water rights providing economic analysis of this problem for farmers on what to do for water management in this local area.  Ecosystem services project in the system water initiative in Reclamation, Colorado River to fallow acres in the basin to quantify benefits from return flows to the basin and Las Vegas funding this project.  Also interested in non-ag benefits of flood irrigation to late season flows.

Eric Andrews – Utah.  Ogallala paper in JARE on heterogeneity in the water management and groundwater management benefits.  Data sets created in Ogallala in ag census data, parcel land level data and linking to crop scape data.  Water markets, wrote book chapter on water transfers and difficulties.  NIFA grant proposal, water use on Indian Lands in the Great Basin. Hiring natural resource economist at Utah State and there is interest in water candidates.

Nathan Hendricks- Kansas.  Wrote a book chapter on Economics of Water, Water politics, and Policy.  Projects looking at Kansas with water restrictions and how well they are working.  One is on surface stream flows from 1992. Another is in 2012, a LEMA voluntary restricted water usage and looking at behavior from those restrictions.  Graduate student working at payment programs for things farmers were going to do anyway, impact of the diffusion of technology.  Response on non-irrigated land to water deficits, then hopes to extend this to irrigated land to understand climate change connections.

Nic Brozovic- Nebraska.  Have a growing water research team at the university with post docs and students and faculty.  Collaborations.  Project with ERS and USGS to combine hydrologic data and USDA data at a fine scale to look at determinants of conservation practices and the impacts of hydrologic conditions.  Michigan State collaboration, policy side, wet years in Nebraska and natural resource districts.  Nic is the new director in DNR.  Water markets side in research and continuing work on this issue.  Nic has ongoing research in trading groundwater rights and smart market operating. 

Karina Schoengold – Nebraska. Multistate project, evaluate institutions and how hydrological conditions affect water decisions and crop decisions.  Working on creating past student thesis into publications.  Former student paper looks at Mexico data, groundwater use.  Cost sharing rules affect efficiency of irrigation and compare this to subsidies inefficiencies in agricultural economics.  Another looking at strategic behavior of water use. 

Grant Cordon- Utah.  Grant provides a summary presentation on the memorial on John Hanks who was a founding member of this group. Symposium on his work on soil science and water work which everyone should be familiar with.  Grant studying water aspects of project on Navajo reservations.  These projects foster improvements in nutritional conditions and develop more vegetables and fruits on the reservations.  Historical Navajo crops, peach varieties establish demonstration orchards.  Water is an issue and dams related to diversions into reservoirs, open drain channels and difficulty with salinity. 

Todd Guilfoos – Rhode Island.   Published works on behavior economics and cooperation in a more general setting.  Have ongoing projects that look at groundwater management, cooperation, and psychology.  Also, Looking at historical value of water in manufacturing.   Organized a Water Quality Workshop for NAREA over the summer and am co-editing a special issues journal from that workshop with Emi Uchida.  Expanding work in experimental economics and learning in common pool resource settings.  Am involved in a NSF project about Tradeoff from management of Dams, with groups from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.

Jordan Suter– Colorado.  Part of C-BEAR which provides quality experimental research, funded by the USDA; announces RFP and outreach center.  Three projects, Goemans, Dale Manning, and Nevada, impacts population for demand of municipal water. CGE models with Dale Manning, students are working on groundwater use in Kansas impacts of well capacity and extensive and intensive margin.  Dale, Goemans, Republican River Basin looking at economic tradeoffs with policies that they are considering.  Modflow model of impacts over 50 years, providing results of model to producers and gauging preferences for policies.

Cloe Garnache – Michigan.  Publication in JAERE looking at water resources in the flood plains in California for salmon. Stochastic dynamic programming in habitat and crops, parcels tradeoff over time and floodplain and time tradeoffs.  Finds that the way the fishery is managed determines the benefits.  Managing landscape, quota system and changing habitat.  California on conjunctive use in flood plain in California, recharge rates and different management.  Derived demand and markets for urban centers, local policies in Sacramento area.

Jeff Peterson – formerly at Kansas, moved to Minnesota.   Contributed to Book Deneil special issue published earlier this year.  Co-editors on volume, water management in competing sectors and institutions across US and Europe.  Minnesota, issues related to this group.  Understudied linkage between water quality and quantity processes, related to forest and ag in the south with the corn belt.  Interested in climate change issues and the high rate of deforestation.  MN has tile drainage in the south, large intense rain events, increase in runoff and water quality problems, impacts on nitrogen and Gulf hypoxia and rate of flow in the major rivers, sediment issues in rivers.   Transboundary issues with Canada, Red River climate change impacts and nutrient exports.

12:15 – The meeting is closed after brief comments by Jordan Suter.  Please submit state reports.

W3190 Objective 1.  Characterize bio-physical and economic factors (and interactions) that influence water-use decisions and related market or non-market outcomes.

Grismer: We are trying to determine practical salinity parameter (e.g. TDS, Na, Cl concentrations and SAR values) thresholds of persistent use of blended recycled and well waters for high-value crops.

Grismer: We have established working relationships with growers and the Recycled water agency to oversee and maintain soil and water monitoring programs on strawberry and cole crop fields.

Dinar focused on method 1.2: Laboratory economic experiments of groundwater users behaviors) to highlight some important bio-physical and economic factors associated with behavior of groundwater users in the lab.

Dinar investigated institutions promoting cooperation in resource dilemmas in the lab.

Dinar compared in the lab alternative policy interventions for modification of subsidized energy for groundwater pumping for irrigation.

Peck and colleagues are creating an Agricultural Resource Management Plan for the Wind River Reservation, with the Tribal Water Engineer’s Office and a local interdisciplinary working group.

Huffaker’s research investigated the allocation of water among competing uses in the Columbia River Basin, and recommended policies for improving public water allocation decisions. 

Huffaker’s research investigated nonlinear time series analysis as a pre-modeling data diagnostics method for constructing hydro-economic models corresponding to real-world dynamic behavior.

Peterson: An AFRI grant was obtained to evaluate the role of technology and climate change on aquifer depletion in Kansas and Texas.

Hendricks presented a paper analyzing the impact of a water restriction of farmers' irrigation behavior.

Suter, Manning, and Collie at CSU completed empirical research related to the influence of well-capacity constraints on groundwater user behavior using data from Kansas.

Schoengold and coauthors had a paper accepted for publication that measures the impact of alternative groundwater cost sharing rules on irrigation use and production efficiency.

ERS: Publication items 4-6 discuss the biophysical impacts of new wetlands for eight benefit categories: duck hunting, carbon sequestration, flood protection, nitrogen removal, species protection, open space, sediment removal, and groundwater recharge, and the value of these impacts for some categories. County-level estimates of costs of restoring and preserving wetlands are presented.

ERS: Used field/farm-level survey data to evaluate the relative importance of farm, operator, economic, program participant, and environmental factors on producer farm stewardship decisions. And how the importance of these factors vary across farm program participants versus non-participants.

Objective 2: Develop or enhance methods to address emerging water management issues.

Grismer: A PhD student proposal has been prepared that is directed at developing a model for evaluating blended recycled water use for irrigation considering possible effects on soils and groundwater.

Colby: Examining economic tradeoffs in providing increased freshwater flows to Upper Gulf of California's marine ecosystems through fallowing of irrigated cropland. (Foundation funding)

Colby: Developing econometric models to investigate climate influences on the market price of water, and on water trading activity for urban and for habitat purposes. (NOAA funding)

Colby: Developing framework for analyzing economics of advanced remote sensing techniques to measure and monitor water "savings" in irrigation forbearance agreements. (Foundation funding)

Dinar focused on method 2.3: developing improved dynamic models of agricultural groundwater management.

Dinar developed a dynamic model, which compares among several alternative policy interventions for modification of subsidized energy: The Case of Groundwater Pumping for Irrigation.

Kovacs had invited presentation to the Arkansas Water Resources Center.

Kovacs had presentation to a multi-state project SERA35 and to regional (Southern Agricultural Economics Association) and national (American Agricultural Economics Association) conferences.

Garnache worked with UC Davis hydrologists to model local groundwater recharge rates in the Yolo Bypass floodplain in California.

Garnache started collecting data on developing water demand models for agriculture and urban uses in California.

Ziolkowska (U of Oklahoma) are editing a forthcoming book, "Competition for Water Resources – Experiences and Management Approaches in the US and Europe, including W3190 contributors.

Peck and Peterson edited the book, "Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impact and Potential Adaptations", featuring the contributions from several W3190 project members.

Seedang organized a workshop titled "The Potential for Incorporating Economics into Decision Support Tool" and produced a workshop paper. The outcomes of this project will help support the development of decision tools which emphasize the importance of economic information for managing water resources.

Seedang reviewed cases of water scarcity for a better understanding of various factors underlining the problems. Scarcity issues in Arizona and Nebraska are being summarized and compared to draw on their good practices and how they may be applicable for Michigan. In addition, one of IWR's researchers is working on an overseas project involving implementing economic incentive policies for conservation. Large water users and business enterprises can learn from these good practices and innovative policies (e.g. payment for ecosystem services, bio-carbon financial mechanism) and by working with local communities.

Hendricks presented results from an economic model that predicts how agricultural value of production declines as groundwater availability decreases.

Hurd: Progress continued in support of the NSF-support study of acequia systems (small-system community irrigation) including community meetings, development of collaborative proposals.

Hurd: Modeling of climate change impacts on water and agricultural resources extended to the development of system dynamics modeling of climate-human-land use systems.

Hurd: Developing methods to inform debates over sustainable and resilient institutions and measures to adapt to highly fluctuating water supplies.

Goemans and Manning, together with researchers at U of Nevada, estimate the differing impacts of population growth on urban, semi-urban, and rural communities.

Goemans and Costanigro organized and moderated  Water Markets in the Western United States: Supply Challenges and Frictions session at WAEA annual meeting.

Conducted analysis and provided testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources on HB 15-1038, a bill designed to modify water transfer institutions in Co.

Developed the revised ERS Irrigation & Water Use webpage, summarizing how important irrigation is to U.S. agriculture, where crop irrigation occurs, crops produced, critical irrigation trends, challenges facing  agriculture under a changing water environment, onfarm irrigation efficiency and opportunities for improvements, and the levels of investment occurring in irrigation improvements.

ERS developed the webpage California Drought: Farm & Food Impacts. It describes the situation and potential implications of the drought for California farms, crop & livestock production, and for consumer food price impacts. Analysis included information on exposure and vulnerability to drought in CA's agriculture sector as well as variations in drought impacts on crops produced.

Guilfoos developed a model of stochastic water management over large aquifers to evaluate management issues with increasing climate variability. 

Objective 3: Evaluate and compare alternative water policy and management institutions.

With a graduate student, Hansen completed a study of alternative policies to help irrigation districts store water in federal projects on the North Platte River in eastern WY and western NE.

At the request of the Wyoming Governor’s Office, Hansen is serves on a Laramie County groundwater committee tasked with exploring ways to address groundwater overdraft in SE WY.

Hansen has (with support from stakeholders) submitted a grant proposal to perform an economic analysis of alternative groundwater management strategies in SE WY.

Hansen (Wyoming) , Schoengold (Nebraska), and Suter (Colorado) co-organized a conference with WERA1020 attended by academic researchers, water managers, and policymakers.

Colby Evaluated irrigation district and grower costs and benefits associated with fallowing land to produce "saved" water for urban and environmental needs. (Reclamation and foundation funding)

Colby Examining new water banking initiatives and innovations worldwide and summarizing features most applicable for the southwestern U.S. (Reclamation and state agency funding.)

Colby: In collaboration with Reclamation, developing and evaluating pilot water leasing programs to accomplish specific federal objectives.  (Reclamation and state agency funding)

Dinar focused on method 3.1: test alternative institutions ability to provide ecosystem services.

Dinar modeled the role of groundwater-dependent ecosystems in groundwater management.

Dinar developed a model that assesses cooperative water management and ecosystem protection under scarcity and drought in arid and semiarid regions.

Taylor researched irrigation and non-market demand for water, with a goal of providing timely, accurate, and inexpensive estimates of water demand.

Taylor researched spatial partial equilibrium hydro-economic models that integrated hydrology and economics on a watershed or basin scale, with a goal to conduct benefit/cost analysis.

Taylor researched other emerging water management topics with the goal of providing innovative water management practices, and policies for critical water topics.

Hearne reviewed evolving water management. Institutions on the Missouri River Basin.

Hearne assessed community water management strategies for the Bakken Oil Producing Region.

Garnache completed project on managing water resources for habitat provision to native fish species, food provision, and flood control services.

Garnache examined how institutions affect the returns to ecosystem services management, and how institutions coordination can improve the joint provision of multiple ecosystem services.

Yoder: delivery of "Benefit-Cost Analysis of Yakima Basin Integrated Plan Projects" to the Washington State Legislature. December 2014.

Yoder, Jonathan. 2015. Yakima Basin Integrated Plan Benefit-Cost Analysis: An appeal for evidence-based discourse about the State of Washington Water Research Center study.

As a direct result of Eiswerth participation in W3190, I began water research collaboration with member of another multistate project (Western Education/Extension & Research Activity [WERA] 1020).

Eiswerth initiated a new research project (examining alternative water policy and management institutions) that was engendered directly by linkages internal to W3190 project.

As a direct result of new linkages internal to W3190, Eiswerth made new contacts with an external  stakeholder in another western state and incorporated their information in a data collection project.

Peterson and N. Hendricks  co-authored a chapter entitled “The Economics of Water,” to be published in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Water Politics and Policy.

McCann: An extensive literature review of the existing institutions relating to water in four Midwestern states has been conducted. A researcher at the Dept. of Natural Resources is collaborating. 

McCann: A paper on adoption of drought tolerant plants in Missouri has been written and presented at the AAEA meetings.  A poster will be presented at Salt Lake City. 

Edwards: Completed database linking agricultural census data (1900-1978) with physical characteristics of High Plains aquifer (all states).

Edwards: Completed dataset linking parcel level data from 23 counties overlying High Plains Aquifer in western Kansas to land sale price (1985-2009) aquifer properties, and crop choice (2007-2012).

Hendricks published a paper examining how different attributes of government contracts to improve water quality affect the cost of achieving different water quality goals.

Hurd: Collaborative presentation of state-level position summaries on Texas v New Mexico at two conferences.

Hurd: Assembling agricultural, environmental, and urban stakeholders to formulate sustainable management plans to guide future policy in the Rio Grande Basin in the US and Mexico.

In collaboration with researchers at U. Delaware and U. Rhode Island, experiments were conducted to explore performance NPS water pollution policies with real-time sensing.

Developing experiments with collaborators at U. Delaware to explore ambient-based NPS pollution policies that compare subsidy reductions to a tax-based policy.

Submitted manuscript of experimental research that implements common pool resource management policies at both extensive (entry) and intensive (quantity) margins.

Conducted and evaluated experiments to examine the policy effectiveness in a common property resource with threshold uncertainty and heterogeneous users.

Guilfoos developed a research paper that compares simple water management policies in a detail hydrologic and economic model to see where policy may falter or be most beneficial.

Hansen, K., R. Howitt, and J. Williams. 2015. “An Econometric Test of Water Market Institutions.” Natural Resources Journal 55(1): 127-152.

Hansen, K. 2015. “Water Markets from Theory to Practice.” In Handbook of Water Economics, eds. A. Dinar and K. Schwabe. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 355-371.

Hansen, K., C. Nicholson and G. Paige. 2015. “Wyoming’s Water: Resources and Management.” UW Extension Bulletin B-1272. Laramie, WY: University of Wyoming Extension.

Hodges, A., K. Hansen and D. McLeod. 2014. “The Economics of Bulk Water Transport in Southern California.” Resources 3(4):703-720.

Bonnie Colby, George Frisvold and Matthew Mealy, “Reallocating Climate Risks Through Water Trading”, Chapter 16 in Handbook of Water Economics, James Roumasset, editor, Springer-Verlag Co 2014.

Bonnie Colby, “Innovative Water Transactions to Meet Urban and Environmental Demands in the Face of Climate Change” Chapter 10 in Innovations in Water Markets, William Easter, editor, Springer book series on Global Issues in Water Policy, 2014.

Navigating a Pathway Toward Colorado’s Water Future A Review and Recommendations Colorado’s Draft Water Plan, Report of the Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado Water Working Group, April 30, 2015. Principal Author Lawrence J. MacDonnell, University of Colorado [Working Group Members Reed Benson, University of New Mexico Bonnie Colby, University of Arizona Robert Glennon, University of Arizona Brad Udall, Colorado State University Charles Wilkinson, University of Colorado.]

Clarke, Andrew. Come Hell Or High Water Prices: A Household-Level Analysis Of Residential Water Demand In Tucson, Arizona, M.S. thesis, May, 2015, Department Of Agricultural And Resource Economics, Dr. Bonnie Colby, thesis director.

Duval, Dari. M.S. thesis, The Influence of Colorado River Flows on the Upper Gulf of California Fisheries Economy, May, 2015, Department Of Agricultural And Resource Economics, Dr. Bonnie Colby, thesis director.

Kahil, M. T., A Dinar, J. Albiac, Cooperative Water Management and Ecosystem Protection under Scarcity and Drought in Arid and Semiarid Regions. Water Resources & Economics (Accepted for Publication, October 5, 2015).

Esteban, E. and A. Dinar, The Role of Groundwater-dependent Ecosystems in Groundwater Management. Natural Resource Modeling (Accepted for Publication September 23, 2015).

Nigatu, G. and A. Dinar, Economic and Hydrological Impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renais-sance Dam on the Eastern Nile River Basin. Environment and Development Economics (Ac-cepted for Publication September 16, 2015). doi:10.1017/S1355770X15000352, 24 pgs.

Dinar, A. and M. Hogarth, Game Theory and Water Resources: Critical Review of its Contribu-tions, Progress and Remaining Challenges. Foundations & Trends (Accepted for Publication March 7, 2015), 11(1–2):1–139, 2015.

Kahil, M. T., A Dinar, J. Albiac, Modeling Water Scarcity and Droughts for Policy Adaptation to Climate Change in Arid and Semiarid Regions. Journal of Hydrology (Accepted for Publi-cation December 16, 2014), 522:95–109, 2015.

Kovacs, K., M. Mattia, G. West. 2015. “Landscape irrigation management for maintaining an aquifer and economic returns.” Journal of Environmental Management, 160, 271-282.

Kovacs, K., M. Popp, K. Brye, G. West. 2015. “On-Farm Reservoir Adoption in the Presence of Spatially Explicit Groundwater Use and Recharge.” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 40(1), 23-49. 2015

Nalley, M. Anders, K. Kovacs, B. Linquist. 2015. “The Economic Viability of Alternative Wetting and Drying Irrigation in Arkansas Rice Production.” Agronomy Journal, 107(2), 579-587.

Kovacs, K., E. Wailes, G. West, J. Popp, K. Bektemirov. 2014. “Optimal Spatial-Dynamic Management of Groundwater Conservation and Surface Water Quality with On-Farm Reservoirs.” Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 46(4), 409-437.

Schmidt R.D., and Garth Taylor. Evaluating Water Conservation Infrastructure.  Water Economics and Policy Forthcoming. 2015.

Taylor, R. Garth, R. D. Schmidt, B. Contor, and L. Stodick. 2014. Modeling Conjunctive Water Use as a Reciprocal Externality. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 96(3): 753-768.

McKean, J. R. Donn Johnson, R.G. Taylor. 2014. Estimating Tournament Effects on Sportfishing Demand. Tourism Economics. 20(5): 1067-1086.

Quall, Russ, Garth Taylor, Joel Hamilton, and Ayodeji Arogundade. Climate Change Opportunities for Idaho Irrigation Supply and Deliveries. Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. Eds J. Peterson and D. Peck, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. Oxford England 2014.

Huffaker, R. (2015) “Building Economic Models Corresponding to the Real World.” Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, doi:10.1093.

Huffaker, R. (2015).  Tradeoffs: fish, farmers, and energy on the Columbia in Routledge Handbook of Water Economics and Institutions, edited by K. Burnett, R. Howitt, J. Roumasset, and C. Wada, Routledge, N.Y.

Choi, J., R.R. Hearne, K. Lee, and D.C. Roberts. 2015. “The Relation between Water

Pollution and Economic Growth Using the Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Case Study in South Korea.” Water International 40(3):499-512.

Hearne, R. S. Shakya, and Q. Yin. 2015. “The value of fracking wastewater treatment and recycling technologies in North Dakota.” Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination 5(2):211-222.

Hearne, R. and T. Prato. forthcoming. "Institutional Evolution of Missouri River Management"  accepted for publication in Water Policy.

Garnache, C. (2015) “Fish, Farmers, and Floods: Coordinating Institutions to Optimize the Provision of Ecosystem Services.” Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2(3):367--399.

Adam, Jennifer, J. Stephens, S. Chung, M. Brady, R. Evans, C. Kruger; B. Lamb, M. Liu, C. Stöckle, J. Vaughan, K. Rajagopalan, J. Harrison, C. Tague, A. Kalyanaraman, Y. Chen, A. Guenther, F. Leung, L. Leung, A. Perleberg, J. Yoder, E. Allen, S. Anderson, B. Chandrasekharan, K. Malek, T. Mullis, C. Miller, T. Nergui, J. Poinsatte, J. Reyes, J. Zhu, J. Choate, X. Jiang, R. Nelson, J. Yoon, G. Yorgey, K. Johnson, K. Chinnayakanahalli, A. Hamlet, B. Nijssen, & V. Walden. 2014. BioEarth: Envisioning and Developing a New Regional Earth System Model to Inform Natural and Agricultural Resource Management. Climatic Change 129(3-4). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1115-2

Yoder, Jonathan, Jennifer Adam, Michael Brady, Joseph Cook, Stephen Katz, Daniel Brent, Shane Johnston, Keyvan Malek, John McMillan, and Qingqing Yang. 2014. Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan Projects. State of Washington Water Research Center. December. Available at https://swwrc.wsu.edu/2014ybip. 196.pp.

Yoder, Jonathan. 2015. Yakima Basin Integrated Plan Benefit-Cost Analysis: An appeal for evidence-based discourse about the State of Washington Water Research Center study of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan. The Water Report 135(May): 9-17, 20. Response to Malloch and Garrity (Same issue).

Michael Brady, Tongzhe Li, & Jonathan Yoder. 2015. The Columbia River Treaty Renegotiation from the Perspective of Contract Theory. Contemporary Water Research and Education 150:53-62

Yoder, Jonathan, Adrienne Ohler, & Hayley Chouinard. 2014. What floats your boat? Preference revelation from lotteries over complex goods. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 67:412-430. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S0095069614000163. Winner of the Western Agricultural Economics Association Outstanding Published Research Award for 2014.

Ohler, Adrienne, Hayley Chouinard, & Jonathan Yoder. 2014. Interest group incentives for post-lottery trade restrictions. Journal of Regulatory Economics 45(3):281-304. DOI: http: //dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11149-014-9246-y.

Eiswerth, M.E. (with W. Breffle, D. Muralidharan, and J. Thornton). 2015. “Understanding How Income Influences Willingness to Pay for Joint Programs: A More Equitable Value Measure for the Less Wealthy.” Ecological Economics 109: 17-25. 

Schoengold, K., P. Shrestha, and M. Eiswerth. 2014. The joint impact of drought conditions and media coverage on the Colorado rafting industry. In: Dannele E. Peck and Jeffrey M. Peterson (Eds.), Climate Variability and Water Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. Oxford: Routledge Publishing. 132 pp. October 2014.

Peck, D.E. and J.M. Peterson, Editors. Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. London: Taylor and Francis. 2015. ISBN: 978-1-13-880733-4

Quintana Ashwell, N.E. and J.M. Peterson. “The Impact of Irrigation Capital Subsidies on Common-pool Groundwater Use and Depletion: Results for Western Kansas. Water Economics and Policy. 2015: 1550004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S2382624X15500046

Peterson, J.M., C.M. Smith, John C. Leatherman, Nathan P. Hendricks, and John A. Fox. “Transaction Costs in Payment for Environmental Service Contracts.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97(January 2015): 219-238. doi: 10.1093/ajae/aau071

Edwards, Eric C. and Gary D. Libecap. 2015. Water Institutions and the Law of One Price. Halvorsen and D.F. Layton eds. Handbook on the Economics of Natural Resources, Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 442-473.

Wolfson, Lois. 2014. Water-Climate Decision Support System. Bulletin of the Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University. 2pp.

Seedang, Saichon, Jon Bartholic, and Frank Lupi. 2015. The Potential for Incorporating Economics into Decision Support Tool. White Paper. Institute of Water Research. May 2015. 23 pages. Supported by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Seedang, Saichon. 2015. Estimating the Economic Value of Ecosystems Services for Supporting the Implementation of Payment for Environmental Services and Bio-carbon Financial Mechanisms in Thailand Watershed Pilot Sites. Under Project "Integrated Community-based Forest and Catchment Management Through an Ecosystem Service Approach". Technical Report (Inception Report). June 2015. 112 pages. Supported by Global Environmental Facility (GEF), Thailand Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP)

Seedang, Saichon. 2015. Estimating the Economic Value of Ecosystems Services for Supporting the Implementation of Payment for Environmental Services and Bio-carbon Financial Mechanisms in Four Watershed Pilot Sites. Under Project "Integrated Community-based Forest and Catchment Management Through an Ecosystem Service Approach". Technical Report (Progress Report). August 2015. 70 pages. Supported by Global Environmental Facility (GEF), Thailand Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Fernald, A., Guldan, S., Boykin, K., Cibils, A., Gonzales, M., Hurd, B. H., Lopez, S., Ochoa, C. G., Ortiz, M., Rivera, J., Rodriguez, S., and Steele, C. M. (2015). Linked hydrologic and social systems that support resilience of traditional irrigation communities, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 19, 293-307, 2015. doi:10.5194/hess-19-293-2015.

Hurd, Brian. 2015. Concepts and Methods for Assessing Economic Impacts from Climate Change on Water Resources. In The Handbook of Water Economics, Ariel Dinar and Kurt Schwabe (eds.), Edward Elgar Publishers. DOI 10.4337/9781782549666. 515p.

Habteyes, B.C., H.A.E. El-Bardisy, S.A. Amer, V.R. Schneider, and F.A. Ward (2015), Mutually beneficial and sustainable management of Ethiopian and Egyptian dams in the Nile Basin, Journal of Hydrology, 529, 1235-1246.

Ward, F.A. and N. Becker (2015), Economic Cost of Water Deliveries for Peace and the Environment in Israel: An Integrated Water Resources Management Approach, Water Resources Research, 51(7), 5806-5828.

Gohar, A. A., Amer, S. A., & Ward, F. A. (2015). Irrigation infrastructure and water appropriation rules for food security. Journal of Hydrology, 520, 85-100.

Li, J., H.A. Michael, J.M. Duke, K.D. Messer, and J.F. Suter. 2014.  Impact of risk information in a spatially explicit groundwater environment with contamination risk: experimental evidence. Water Resources Research. 50: 6390–6405.

Strong, Aaron and C. Goemans. 2015. “The Impact of Real-time Quantity Information on Residential Water Demand.” Water Resources and Economics, Volume 10, pages 1-13. 

Maas, Alex, Andre Dozier, Dale Manning, and Christopher Goemans. 2015. The Value of Stored Water and Trading in the West: Lessons from the Colorado Big-Thompson. Colorado Water, Volume 32, Issue 1, 2015.

Sun, J. Sesmero, and K. Schoengold, "The Role of Common Pool Problems in Irrigation Inefficiency: A Case Study in Groundwater Pumping in Mexico", accepted for publication in Agricultural Economics. 2015.

Sun, J. Sesmero, and K. Schoengold, "The Roles of Cost Sharing Rules and Well Sharing in Irrigation Inefficiency: A Case Study in Groundwater Pumping in Mexico", Cornhusker Economics, June 2015.

Schaible, Glenn., Ashok Mishra, Dayton Lambert, and George Panterov. 2015. Factors Influencing Environmental Stewardship in U.S. Agriculture: Conservation Program Participants vs. Non-Participants, Land Use Policy, 46 (March): pp. 125-141 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.01.018).

Schaible, G.D. & M. Aillery. 2015. Irrigation and Water Use.  [Revised/extended ERS webpage, 11p. (9/24/15) at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/irrigation-water-use.aspx .

Schaible, Glenn D.  2015.  ERS Agricultural Normalized Price Estimates for 2015.  [ERS Data Product (posted: 9/30/15), a congressionally-mandated ERS obligation. These prices are used by multiple Federal/State agencies to evaluate benefits of resource-related projects (water and/or land) affecting agriculture.]

Hansen, LeRoy. 2015. The Cost Effectiveness of Removing Nitrogen by Restoring and Protecting Wetlands Varies Geographically.  Amber Waves.  U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (October), at: http://ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2015-october/the-cost-effectiveness-of-removing-nitrogen-by-restoring-and-protecting-wetlands-varies-geographically.aspx.

Hansen, LeRoy. 2015. Wetlands benefits and costs vary by location. Amber Waves. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, (May), at: http://cms.usda.net/52752.aspx#.VUJC0pNRSiw .

Hansen, LeRoy, Daniel Hellerstein, Marc Ribaudo, James Williamson, David Nulph, Charles Loesch, and William Crumpton. 2015. Targeting Investments to Cost Effectively Restore and Protect Wetland Ecosystems: Some Economic Insights.  Economic Research Report (ERR 183), U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, (February), 56 p., at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1784721/err183.pdf .

Guilfoos, Todd, and Andreas Duus Pape. "Predicting human cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma using case-based decision theory." Theory and Decision (2015): 1-32.