Abstract
Water resources allocation decisions have always been subject to uncertainty, but it has rarely been explicitly included. Greater competition for scarce resources and future uncertainties in supply suggest that risk estimates are required for different management decisions. Models are often used to generate information that can be used in decision making and a water allocation model is presented that is linked to an existing hydrological model that generates uncertainty ensembles and a model that generates environmental water requirements. The allocations are based on socio-economic values that quantify the impact of deficits in normal supply during dry periods when available water is reduced. It is designed to be flexible in terms of how allocations are made during deficit periods and provides outputs that account for the uncertainties in the input hydrological data. Two examples are provided to illustrate the application of the model and it is concluded that the outputs should be useful when combined with emerging approaches to uncertain decision-making and the identification of risk. The model is part of a broader project that aims to improve the way that uncertainty is dealt with in water resources decision-making.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Basson MS, Allen RB, Pegram GGS, van Rooyen JA (1994) Probabilistic management of water resource and hydropower systems. Water Resources Publ, Colorado, 424pp
Beven KJ (2009) Environmental modelling: an uncertain future?: an introduction to techniques for uncertainty estimation in environmental prediction. Routledge, London
Beven K (2011) I believe in climate change but how precautionary do we have to be in planning for the future. Hydrol Process 25(9):1517–1520
Beven KJ, Alcock RE (2012) Modelling everything everywhere: a new approach to decision-making for water management under uncertainty. Freshw Biol 57:124–132
Beven K, Westerberg I (2011) On red herrings and real herrings: disinformation and information in hydrological inference. Hydrol Process 25(10):1676–1680
Cook BR, Spray CJ (2012) Ecosystem services and integrated water resource management: different paths to the same end? J Environ Manag 109:93–100
Durbach IN, Stewart TJ (2012) Modeling uncertainty in multi-criteria decision analysis. Eur J Oper Res 223(1):1–14
Falkenmark M (2004) Towards integrated catchment management: opening the paradigm locks between hydrology, ecology and policy‐making. Int J Water Resour Dev 20:275–281
Fischhoff B, Davis AL (2014) Communicating scientific uncertainty. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:13664–13671
Hughes DA (2013) A review of 40 years of hydrological science and practice in southern Africa using the Pitman rainfall-runoff model. J Hydrol 501:111–124
Hughes DA, Mallory SJL (2009) The importance of operating rules and assessments of beneficial use in water resource allocation policy and management. Water Policy 11:731–741
Hughes DA, Hannart P, Watkins D (2003) Continuous baseflow separation from time series of daily and monthly streamflow data. Water SA 29(1):43–48
Hughes DA, Desai AY, Birkhead AL, Louw D (2014) A new approach to rapid, desktop-level, environmental flow assessments for rivers in South Africa. Hydrol Sci J 59:673–687
Kapangaziwiri E, Hughes DA, Wagener T (2012) Incorporating uncertainty in hydrological predictions for ungauged basins in southern Africa. Hydrol Sci J 57(5):1000–1019
Korteling B, Dessai S, Kapelan Z (2012) Using information-gap decision theory for water resources planning under severe uncertainty. Water Resour Manag 27(4):1149–1172
Lerat J, Tomkins K, Shao Q, Peeters L, Yang A, Rassam D (2011) How to quantify uncertainty in water allocation models? An exploratory analysis based on hypothetical case studies. IAHS Publ 347:146–152
Letcher RA, Croke BF, Jakeman AJ (2007) Integrated assessment modelling for water resource allocation and management: a generalised conceptual framework. Environ Model Softw 22(5):733–742
Lévite H, Sally H, Cour J (2003) Testing water demand management scenarios in a water-stressed basin in South Africa: application of the WEAP model. Phys Chem Earth A/B/C 28:779–786
Loucks D (2011) Risk and uncertainty in water resources planning and management: a basic introduction. In: Grafton RQ, Hussey K (eds) Water resources planning and management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , pp 230–250
Matrosov ES, Woods AM, Harou JJ (2013) Robust decision making and info-gap decision theory for water resource system planning. J Hydrol 494:43–58
Mayer A, Muñoz‐Hernandez A (2009) Integrated water resources optimization models: an assessment of a multidisciplinary tool for sustainable water resources management strategies. Geography Compass 3(3):1176–1195
Midgley DC, Pitman WV, Middleton BJ (1994) Surface water resources of South Africa 1990. WRC Report No’s 298/6.1/94 and 298/6.2/94. Water Research Commission, Pretoria, South Africa
Montanari A et al (2013) “Panta Rhei—everything flows”: change in hydrology and society—the IAHS scientific decade 2013–2022. Hydrol Sci J 58:1256–1275
Overton IC, Smith DM, Dalton J, Barchiesi S, Acreman MC, Stromberg JC, Kirby JM (2014) Implementing environmental flows in integrated water resources management and the ecosystem approach. Hydrol Sci J 59:860–877
Pahl-Wostl C (2006) Transitions towards adaptive management of water facing climate and global change. Water Resour Manag 21:49–62
Pappenberger F, Beven KJ (2006) Ignorance is bliss: or seven reasons not to use uncertainty analysis. Water Resour Res 42, W05302. doi:10.1029/2005WR004820
Pollard S, Du Toit D (2008) Integrated water resource management in complex systems: how the catchment management strategies seek to achieve sustainability and equity in water resources in South Africa. Water SA 34:671–679
Schoeman J, Allan C, Finlayson CM (2014) A new paradigm for water? A comparative review of integrated, adaptive and ecosystem-based water management in the Anthropocene. Int J Water Resour Dev 30:377–390
Schulze RE (2011) Approaches towards practical adaptive management options for selected water-related sectors in South Africa in a context of climate change. Water SA 37:621–646
Acknowledgments
The assistance of Mr David Forsyth (IT support staff member of the Institute for Water Research) for programming support, and specifically for developing the 3D-plot facility, is acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pienaar, G.W., Hughes, D.A. Linking Hydrological Uncertainty with Equitable Allocation for Water Resources Decision-Making. Water Resour Manage 31, 269–282 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1523-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1523-3