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Water Restrictions (water + restriction)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	66%

Selected Abstracts

Identification and significance of sources of spatial variation in grapevine water status

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF GRAPE AND WINE RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010
J.A. TAYLOR
Abstract Background and Aims:, Water stress in grapevines is directly linked to grape quality. Differential vine water management should therefore be strongly linked to the water stress in the vine. To do this, an understanding of the dominant drivers and indicators of vine water status are needed from a sub-block to whole vineyard level. This understanding will help generate effective vine water status models for variable rate irrigation systems. Methods and Results:, A vineyard in the south of France was sampled for pre-dawn leaf water potential (,PD) at several dates during the growing season for two consecutive years. Sampling was stratified by soil types and relative within-block vegetative expression. A recursive partitioning analysis identified that cultivar had a dominant effect at low water stress, while vegetative expression and then soil unit effects became dominant as water restriction increased. Variance in ,PD was calculated at difference scales (plant, site, block and vineyard) and Smith's heterogeneity law was used to evaluate the scalar nature of ,PD variance. Spatial heterogeneity increased as the season and water restriction increased. Conclusion:, Variance in ,PD changed temporally through a season and the dominant drivers/indicators also changed. The opportunity to spatially manage water stress (irrigation) increased as water restriction increased. Significance of the Study:, Managing vine water stress helps optimise production and a ,PD model would be a useful addition to a viticulture decision support system. This study identified how the variance in ,PD evolved during a season and the best ancillary indicators of ,PD for spatial and temporal modelling. [source]

AN EMPIRICAL SURVEY OF RESIDENTIAL WATER DEMAND MODELLING

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 5 2008
Andrew C. Worthington
Abstract The increased reliance on demand-side management policies as an urban water consumption management tool has stimulated considerable debate among economists, water utility managers, regulators, consumer interest groups and policymakers. In turn, this has fostered an increasing volume of literature aimed at providing best-practice estimates of price and income elasticities, quantifying the impact of non-price water restrictions and gauging the impact of non-discretionary environmental factors affecting residential water demand. This paper provides a synoptic survey of empirical residential water demand analyses conducted in the last 25 years. Both model specification and estimation and the outcomes of the analyses are discussed. [source]

Water supply and sanitation in remote Indigenous communities-priorities for health development

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 5 2004
Ross S. Bailie
Objective:To review available national and State/Territory survey data on water supply and sanitation in remote Indigenous Australian communities and to discuss the findings in terms of priorities for health and infrastructure development. Methods:Descriptive analysis of data on relevant variables from available data sources. Results:All relevant published reports arose from only two data sources: the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Surveys, and from a Northern Territory-wide survey of community-owned dwellings. The data show that many communities do not have a reliable water supply and experience frequent and prolonged breakdown in sewerage systems. For example, 12% of communities of 50 people or more experienced five or more periods of water restrictions in a one-year period, and 10% of communities experienced sewage overflow or leakage 20 or more times in a one-year period. Items of basic household infrastructure regarded as essential for household hygiene are missing or not functional in many community-owned dwellings. For example, in about one-third of houses bathroom taps and toilet drainage required major repairs. Conclusion and Implications:Given the widely accepted importance of water and sanitation to health, the data support the contention that poor environmental conditions are a major cause of poor health in remote communities and provide some measure at a national level of the magnitude of the problem. Action to ensure easy access to adequate quantities of water and secure sanitation should receive greater priority. There is need for better quality information systems to monitor progress, equity and accountability in the delivery of water and sanitation services. [source]

Urban water management: optimal price and investment policy under climate variability,

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2009
Neal Hughes
Australian urban water utilities face a significant challenge in designing appropriate demand management and supply augmentation policies in the presence of significant water scarcity and climate variability. This article considers the design of optimal demand management and supply augmentation policies for urban water. In particular, scarcity pricing is considered as a potential alternative to the predominant demand management policy of water restrictions. A stochastic dynamic programming model of an urban water market is developed based on data from the ACT region. Given a specification of the demand and supply for urban water state dependent optimal price and investment policies are estimated. The results illustrate how the optimal urban water price varies inversely with the prevailing storage level and how the optimal timing of investment differs significantly between rain dependent and rain independent augmentation options. [source]

The welfare costs of urban outdoor water restrictions

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2007
Donna Brennan
Outdoor water restrictions are usually implemented as bans on a particular type of watering technology (sprinklers), which allow households to substitute for labour-intensive (hand-held) watering. This paper presents a household production model approach to analysing the impact of sprinkler restrictions on consumer welfare and their efficacy as a demand management tool. Central to our empirical analysis is an experimentally derived production function which describes the relationship between irrigation and lawn quality. We demonstrate that for a typical consumer complete sprinkler bans may be little more effective than milder restrictions policies, but are substantially more costly to the household. [source]