Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2007MI102B

Regulation of Large Quantity Water Withdrawal in Michigan: Assessing Alternative Mitigation Options, Economic trade-off, and Impacts of Policy Implementation

Institute: Michigan
Year Established: 2007 Start Date: 2007-03-01 End Date: 2008-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $12,987 Total Non-Federal Funds: $33,431

Principal Investigators: Saichon Seedang, Zhengfei Guan

Project Summary: Increasing concerns about the impact of groundwater withdrawal in the Great Lakes region, particularly on the health of water dependent natural resources, prompted the development of regional coalitions and agreements to oversee great lakes waters. In addition, the Great Lakes states have further developed their own water use policies and management. When developing sustainable water resource policies and regulations, a resource manager/policy decision maker need to balance the competing demands of water uses with the need for economic growth and societal and conservation concerns. Several issues/criteria need to be addressed when considering withdrawal activities using sound scientific information. The objectives of this research is to evaluate policy options and the economic tradeoffs that should be considered between different levels of criteria used for establishing acceptable groundwater withdrawal thresholds aimed at protecting natural resources. In addition, we will examine the costs of mitigation options that can be implemented to meet the needs of the above thresholds. Finally, we need to look at farmer response to changes in water use policy and mitigation options as it affects their decisions related to irrigation, fertilization and nutrient use. Providing this data can greatly contribute toward the development of more informed resource managers.
To achieve the project objectives, the proposed project will utilize results of integrated hydrologic and ecological models in a case study watershed. We will incorporate economic information of costs and benefits (e.g., temperature reduction, habitat improvement, fish return), and investigate the economic tradeoff of policy options. Since the implementation of policy may induce the adoption of more efficient irrigation systems and increased water conservation for credit offset, we will examine these impacts on farmer activities using economic production model framework.