Idhirij et al. (2025) Water management innovations for adapting to climate water stress: new evidence from the American Southwest

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-09-11
• Authors: Saleh Idhirij, Frank A. Ward
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134220

Research Groups

• Water Science and Management Program, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, United States
• Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business, New Mexico State University, United States

Short Summary

This study developed and applied a basin-scale hydroeconomic optimization model to evaluate the economic outcomes of different water shortage sharing institutions in a drought-prone watershed of the American Southwest. The findings indicate that market-based water trading institutions significantly outperform proportional allocation in minimizing income losses and reallocating water to higher-value uses during periods of water scarcity.

Objective

• To evaluate how alternative water shortage sharing institutions (interdistrict trading, intradistrict trading, and proportional shortage sharing) affect economic outcomes in a drought-prone watershed of the American Southwest under a 25% water supply reduction.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Basin-scale, focusing on two major irrigation districts within a drought-prone watershed in New Mexico, American Southwest.
• Temporal Scale: Multiple years, simulating adaptation strategies during periods of water shortfall.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Original basin-scale hydroeconomic optimization model.
• Data sources: Local hydrological, agricultural, and economic data calibrated for two major irrigation districts in New Mexico.

Main Results

• Market-based trading institutions (interdistrict and intradistrict trading) significantly outperform proportional allocation in minimizing income losses, reallocating water to higher-value uses, and generating convergence in shadow prices under a 25% water supply reduction.
• Interdistrict trading resulted in the lowest cost of shortage adaptation, followed closely by intradistrict trading.
• Proportional shortage sharing imposed the largest economic costs among the evaluated scenarios.
• The study quantified the benefits of institutional flexibility using rigorously measured shadow prices from the optimization model.

Contributions

• Develops a novel framework that integrates inter- and intra-district water trading institutions with crop, technology, and hydrologic heterogeneity across multiple years, unlike prior studies focused narrowly on irrigation technology or crop-level efficiency.
• Provides a transferable modeling approach for evaluating adaptation strategies to water scarcity by quantifying the benefits of institutional flexibility using rigorously measured shadow prices.
• Offers actionable insights for policymakers to balance agricultural resilience and water governance under increasing climate stress.

Funding

• Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Idhirij2025Water,
  author = {Idhirij, Saleh and Ward, Frank A.},
  title = {Water management innovations for adapting to climate water stress: new evidence from the American Southwest},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134220},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134220}
}