Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management

Includes bibliographical references.

Battle of the water networks district metered areas -- Optimal hedging for hydropower operation and end-of-year carryover storage values -- Building infrastructure resilience in coastal flood risk management -- Testing EKC for urban water use: empirical evidence at river basin scale from the guadalquivir river, spain -- Multicriteria decision analysis of drinking water source selection in southwestern bangladesh -- Efficient implementation of sampling stochastic dynamic programming algorithm for multireservoir management in the hydropower sector -- Hidden water affordability problems revealed in developing countrie -- Empirical evidence for efficiency in provision of drinking water.

[Article Title: Battle of the Water Networks District Metered Areas / Juan Saldarriaga, Jessica Bohorquez, David Celeita, Laura Vega, Diego Paez, Dragan Savic, Graeme Dandy, Yves Filion, Walter Grayman, and Zoran Kapelan, p. 1-12] Abstract: The Battle of Water Networks District Metered Areas (BWNDMA) was the latest of the Battle of Water Networks competition series held at the 18th Water Distribution Systems Analysis Conference (WDSA 2016) as part of ASCE's Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) stand-alone conferences in Cartagena, Colombia in July 2016. In these competitions, the main objective was to address a specific problem related to water distribution systems (WDS) regarding how to optimize the design and operation of the system's main components.;[Article Title: Optimal Hedging for Hydropower Operation and End-of-Year Carryover Storage Values / Jian Wang, Chuntian Cheng, Xinyu Wu, Jianjian Shen, and Rui Cao, p. 1-10] Abstract: Hedging rules for hydropower operation provide optimal decisions to hedge against extreme system loss from an energy shortfall in the future at the price of a small current loss. Aiming at determining optimal end-of-year carryover storage decisions, this paper develops a hedging model for hydropower operation and proposes a corresponding numerical solving procedure to derive optimal hedging rules. The overall solving procedure involves generating possible future inflow sequences, optimizing the hedging model with nonlinear programming (NLP) technique, and plotting the hedging rule with the optimal results in condition-decision forms.;[Article Title: Building Infrastructure Resilience in Coastal Flood Risk Management / M. Karamouz, M. Taheri, P. Khalili, and X. Chen, p.1-18] Abstract: The alteration of a watershed's hydrologic response due to urban development, population growth, global warming, and sea level rise have increased the frequency and intensity of floods. In order to cope with the new challenges in coastal flood management, many efforts were made after Superstorm Sandy. These efforts call for better understanding of flood hazard, better understanding of the operation of infrastructures in a resilience context, ways to mitigate hazard impacts, rebuilding efforts by adaptive design, and developing a unified scale of resilience for measuring performance.;[Article Title: Testing EKC for Urban Water Use: Empirical Evidence at River Basin Scale from the Guadalquivir River, Spain / Alfonso Expósito, María Pablo-Romero, and Antonio Sánchez-Braza, p. 1-9] Abstract: Water scarcity in arid and semiarid regions of the world is increasing rapidly due to multiple factors, exacerbating competition over alternative water uses. This is especially relevant in the case of so-called closed water bodies, such as the Guadalquivir River Basin in southern Spain. This study tests the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for urban water uses (i.e., residential and services) based on a wide data set of 336 municipalities in the Guadalquivir Basin, for the period 2005-2014. The analysis includes other water use determinants, such as population density, age, educational level, employment, electricity consumption, and urbanization, which might impact urban water use.;[Article Title: Multicriteria Decision Analysis of Drinking Water Source Selection in Southwestern Bangladesh / Chelsea N. Peters, Hiba Baroud, and George M. Hornberger, p. 1-14] Abstract: Decision analysis methods provide opportunities to explore alternatives for drinking water resources in impoverished, rural regions of developing countries. With varying success, southwestern Bangladesh communities currently use multiple drinking water sources, including rainwater harvesting, ponds, pond sand filters, managed aquifer recharge (MAR), and tubewells. This study uses a variety of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods to assess the probable success of these drinking water sources based on various technical, economic, social, and environmental factors. ;[Article Title: Efficient Implementation of Sampling Stochastic Dynamic Programming Algorithm for Multireservoir Management in the Hydropower Sector / Pascal Côté and Richard Arsenault, p. 1-8] Abstract: Despite decades of operational use, stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) is still a popular method for solving hydropower management optimization problems. From an operational perspective, there are many advantages to using this type of method: it provides a feedback operating policy that can be used for simulation purposes, marginal values of water stored in reservoirs are easy to compute, and it is relatively simple and easy to understand. ;[Article Title: Hidden Water Affordability Problems Revealed in Developing Countries / Ahmad Komarulzaman, Eelke de Jong, and Jeroen Smits, p. 1-8] Abstract: Commonly used approaches for studying water affordability in developing countries tend to focus on households that pay for their water supply (revealed affordability). A major problem of this approach is that it neglects the significant portion of households in these countries that use free water sources. Given that these free sources often are of questionable quality, we provide an alternative approach, whereby hidden affordability for households that use free water sources is revealed by using the average price of purchased water as a proxy for what these households would have to pay for good quality water at the local market. Our calculation shows that the hidden affordability problem is far more important than the revealed affordability problem and that water affordability problems in developing countries have been significantly masked by studies that focus on households paying for water.;[Article Title: Empirical Evidence for Efficiency in Provision of Drinking Water / Bernardino Benito, Úrsula Faura, María-Dolores Guillamón, and Ana-María Ríos, p. 1-10] Abstract: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it assesses the efficiency of the drinking water supply in the Spanish municipalities of over 5,000 inhabitants. Second, it examines the hypothesis that this efficiency is conditioned by a group of environmental variables. Unlike monitoring reports based on descriptive methods, this paper uses the double data envelopment analysis bootstrap procedure to ascertain efficiency determinants. The results show that municipalities could improve their efficiency by modifying the scale at which they are operating. Regarding the determinants of efficiency, population density has been found to have a positive effect on the level of efficiency in the public service covered by this study. Moreover, it is shown that most tourist municipalities are more efficient at managing water supply service. These findings also suggest that there is greater efficiency when the provision of drinking water is managed directly by the local government. Finally, no significant impact of citizens' level of income, political ideology, and strength on drinking water supply efficiency is found.