Economic implications of climate change for infrastructure planning in transboundary water systems: An example from the Blue Nile
This research develops a hydroeconomic modeling framework for integrating climate change impacts into the problem of planning water resources infrastructure development. It then illustrates use of that framework in evaluation of two alternative sizes of a potential hydropower project along the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Storing water in a Blue Nile reservoir provides an interesting case for testing this integrated approach because such a project would induce a number of physical and economic changes, both transboundary and climate-dependent. The proposed framework makes two contributions to the existing literature on water resources project appraisal. First, it demonstrates how routinely used hydrological modeling techniques can be supplemented with Monte Carlo simulation to include economic uncertainties inherent in the planning problem, in addition to its more commonly considered physical dimensions. Second, it demonstrates how analysts can include a number of linkages between climate change, hydrology, and economic production in conventional planning models to develop better understanding of the complexities and important uncertainties associated with future conditions. While the framework described here has not been used in a full analysis of alternative development projects in the Blue Nile, the general approach could be combined with a variety of decision-analytic tools to evaluate design and management alternatives in water resources systems. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.
Duke Scholars
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- Environmental Engineering
- 4011 Environmental engineering
- 4005 Civil engineering
- 3707 Hydrology
- 0907 Environmental Engineering
- 0905 Civil Engineering
- 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Related Subject Headings
- Environmental Engineering
- 4011 Environmental engineering
- 4005 Civil engineering
- 3707 Hydrology
- 0907 Environmental Engineering
- 0905 Civil Engineering
- 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience