Legal Hydrology: Incorporating water institutions and legal infrastructure into an Integrated Energy-Water-Land Modeling Framework

A part of the Water Insights Seminar series. Karen Fisher-Vanden, Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education, Penn State An important potential factor influencing the availability of water is the existence of water institutions. In the U.S. West, water is allocated based on a system of water rights that were granted on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis. In this work, we assess the importance of incorporating water rights in our simulations of the Western U.S. We find that compared to a case where water rights are not enforced, water use is approximately 19% lower when existing water rights are enforced. This is most prevalent in irrigation and industrial water use which suggests that it is important to incorporate water rights into our spatial water availability projections. Food and beverages will be served.