Policy designs to address water allocations during societal transitions: The Southern Nevada Water Authority's Groundwater Development project.

摘要

The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) has had plans since the late 1980s to build a pipeline to transfer groundwater from five rural basins in northeastern Nevada 300 miles south to the Las Vegas metropolitan area in Southern Nevada. SNWA has asked the Nevada State Engineer to approve its water right applications to develop and use groundwater from these rural basins. One of the basins, Snake Valley, straddles the border between Nevada and Utah. An interstate agreement allocating the groundwater between the two states is required before the Nevada State Engineer will approve water rights that would divert water from Snake Valley's transboundary groundwater basin for use in Nevada.;Water allocation is one of the most significant and contentious issues facing the western United States. As cities and population continue to grow in water-scarce environments, people are forced to confront tradeoffs in trying to balance efficiency, equity, and effectiveness of water allocation practices. This dissertation investigates how water policy designs handle the challenges of meeting urban and rural as well as human and ecological water needs when allocating scarce water supplies.;This research uses a case study approach to conduct policy analysis, relying on a variety of data-gathering strategies, primarily key-informant interviews and document analysis. We found that policy debates and people's rationales for how water should be allocated revolved around disagreements over beneficial use. This research also shows that water agreements need to be designed not only to apportion water fairly, but the risks from hydrologic uncertainties and impacts from other users need to be apportioned clearly and fairly as well. Policy designs are purposefully crafted and have enormous impact, yet analysis of the actual contents of policies and their societal impacts has not received adequate attention within the policy sciences. The significance of this research is that it focuses on the foundational principles and rules for the allocation of scarce water resources that must necessarily balance urban and rural interests as well as human and environmental needs.