AWWA ACE68960

This powerpoint presentation begins by providing a brief overview of the California Urban Water Conservation Council (CUWCC) and the project background. Methodology includes: the environmental benefits valuation requires an estimate of both ecological impacts and related dollar values; ecological impacts are conceptually well-defined but extremely difficult to measure (e.g. fish populations); determine people's preference for environmental services relative to other goods and services; represented by Willingness to Pay (WTP) for an enhancement, or Willingness to Accept (WTA) for a degradation of service; Implicit Methods - look at data on actual expenditures for travel, value of time spent, etc.; Explicit Methods - construct surveys to elicit WTP or WTA under specific scenarios; goal is to count externalized environmental costs that no-one is paying for - these may be small but they are not zero; baseline is current conditions; use CALFED Record of Decision to define environmental "list" of services (impacts) associated with the water column; and, exception for pumping related air quality. Major findings include the following: Important Tool for Evaluating Economic Benefits; Not Perfect (no model is) - Difficult to quantify EB; sets only the LOWEST levels of avoided Environmental Costs; Transparent, Scalable, Modifiable; Model introduces necessary simplifications on complex physical relationships; likely undervalues the environment - a little water can have a lot of value; more benefits needs to be identified; many data sources are older; add environmental water transactions and riparian/wetland habitat restoration; relationships are too linear; and, at its core, the model provides a useful accounting framework for relating water conservation to changes in area of origin water supply, changes in area of origin water supply to changes in environmental services, and changes in environmental services to social economic value. Includes figures.