Annette Huber-Lee
Tufts University, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department Member
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Research Interests: Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Economics, Water, Climate variability, and 13 moreWater Management, Decision support system, Water Supply, Water Demand, Watershed Management, Water Allocation, Ecosystem service, Water Resource, Preference, Holistic Approach, Rule Based, LINEAR PROGRAM, and Integrated Water Resource Management
Introduction The Millennium Development Goals laid out an ambitious agenda to improve living standards in poor countries. Now, with the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders are aiming to set a broader agenda for 2015 and beyond: a... more
Introduction The Millennium Development Goals laid out an ambitious agenda to improve living standards in poor countries. Now, with the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders are aiming to set a broader agenda for 2015 and beyond: a set of universal goals that engages countries at all income levels to ensure the long-term well-being of humankind. Put another way, while the MDGs aimed to lift people out of poverty, the SDGs aim to also keep them out of poverty by ensuring that development is both socially and environmentally sustainable.
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Household interviews were conducted in the Palestinian West Bank to examine the relationship between price elasticity, water insecurity and domestic water demand. Water insecurity weights were defined and quantified for each household for... more
Household interviews were conducted in the Palestinian West Bank to examine the relationship between price elasticity, water insecurity and domestic water demand. Water insecurity weights were defined and quantified for each household for use in a multivariate regression model. The model demonstrated that (1) a water insecurity variable improves the ability to estimate price elasticity and that (2) increased water insecurity leads to higher levels of household water demand. The findings suggest that policy-makers can influence domestic water demand by addressing the supply constraints that underlie domestic water insecurity.
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Agriculture—since its beginnings approximately 10,000 years ago—has significantly modified natural ecosystems in order to yield adequate and permanent staple food supplies for human populations. In creating artificial ecosystems,... more
Agriculture—since its beginnings approximately 10,000 years ago—has significantly modified natural ecosystems in order to yield adequate and permanent staple food supplies for human populations. In creating artificial ecosystems, agriculture inherently interacts closely with pre-existing environmental conditions. Hydrology, soils, climate, topography and biology all have a major influence over the productivity and profitability of agriculture. Traditional agriculture has worked with these inter-relationships with the environment by adapting in ways that coordinate with local ecology. As early as 200 BC, Roman farmers were aware of methods to manage soil fertility. For example, Cato the Censor advised that land should be allowed to lie fallow for a year, as well as planting various legumes “not so much for the immediate return as with a view to the year later”. The Romans were not alone in the observation of lost soil fertility. In the same period, Chinese were using “green manure,” a legume crop plowed into the ground before the next planting.
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Fighting poverty through sustainable water use: proceedings of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, 2nd International Forum on Water and Food, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 10-14 November 2008. Vol.3. Water benefits sharing for poverty alleviation and conflict management; Drivers and processes...more
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Agricultural water productivity (WPAg) is considered by many as a valuable concept that links agricultural water use to the benefits it generates in terms of food (kg m−3, kcal m−3) or income (US$ m−3). By extension, it can be... more
Agricultural water productivity (WPAg) is considered by many as a valuable concept that links agricultural water use to the benefits it generates in terms of food (kg m−3, kcal m−3) or income (US$ m−3). By extension, it can be hypothesized that WPAg is linked to rural poverty, and that its improvement would enable more people to benefit from a finite shared water resource.By reviewing case studies and analyses from four river basins and elsewhere, we find that WPAg and poverty are related, but that the strength of the relationship and its nature vary with scale. At a global scale, the link seems causal; improved water productivity will enable an expanding global population to feed itself from a finite water resource. At the local scale, improved water productivity is more often a consequence of other changes, such as crop productivity or value. At the intermediate scale of a basin or sub‐basin, WPAg represents the state of ecosystem services1 “The benefits people obtain from ecosyst...
Research Interests: Civil Engineering, Geography, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Poverty, and 15 moreWater resources, Consumption, Case Studies, Productivity, Agriculture, Natural Resource Economics, Livelihood, Ecosystems, Agricultural Productivity, Virtual Water, Income, Rural Areas, Valuation, Water Use, and River basins
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Research Interests: Business, Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Geography, and 15 moreEconomics, Climate Change, Dispute Resolution, Modeling, Palestine, Conflict Resolution, Israel, Optimization, Desalination, Ground Water, Human Right to Water, Euromed, Aquifers, IT Value, and Assertion
Liquid Assets shows that the common view of water as an inevitable cause of future wars is neither rational nor necessary. Typically, two or more parties with claim to the same water sources are thought to play a zero-sum game with each... more
Liquid Assets shows that the common view of water as an inevitable cause of future wars is neither rational nor necessary. Typically, two or more parties with claim to the same water sources are thought to play a zero-sum game with each side placing a high emotional and political value over the ownership of the water. However, Franklin Fisher and his coauthors demonstrate that when disputes in ownership are expressed as disputes about money values, in most cases, the benefits of ownership will be surprisingly small. By assigning an economic value to water and treating water as a tradable resource, parties see that the gains from cooperation exceed the costs resulting from the change in ownership. A zero-sum game becomes a win-win situation. To support this new approach, Liquid Assets presents an innovative water allocation model that can be used to assist water management, the cost-benefit analysis of water infrastructure, and the resolution of disputes. The model takes system-wide effects into account and is the first to overcome the failure of actual water markets to cope with the divergence between social and private benefits (as implied by agricultural subsidies), permitting the model-user to impose his or her own values or policies. Liquid Assets applies its methodology to Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, a region where water is scarce and water conflicts are often thought to be explosive. Indeed, this book is the result of a joint effort of Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, American, and Dutch experts. But the book s message and methods are not restricted to the Middle East. They are applicable to water management and water disputes around the globe.
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Rwanda’s economy is inextricably linked to its water supply, with agriculture employing nearly 70% of its population and making up half of the country’s export revenue. It aspire to become an upper-middle-income country by 2035, and a... more
Rwanda’s economy is inextricably linked to its water supply, with agriculture employing nearly 70% of its population and making up half of the country’s export revenue. It aspire to become an upper-middle-income country by 2035, and a high-income country by 2050. But rising temperatures and more prolonged dry spells threaten crop production and strain water supply. Rwanda’s Vision 2050 policy details the country’s long-term goals and provides the planning blueprint to guide Rwanda’s development. But such growth, coupled with climate change, will profoundly affect its water supply and demands. Gaining a clearer understanding of the changing water supply and demand, as well as the nexus between water, energy, and food production, is critical to Rwanda’s success. The Water Resources Group (2030 WRG) is a public-private-civil society partnership hosted by the World Bank to help governments balance water security with longterm development and economic growth. The recently established Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB), the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, and Ministry of Environment tasked the 2030 WRG in 2020 with performing a Hydro-Economic and Climate Change Analysis (HECCA), with the following directives: 1. Conduct a strategic assessment of the water sector that demonstrates how water and the economy are inter-linked; 2. Recommend concrete actions toward sustainable water resources management; and 3. Support a dialogue to identify and align joint initiatives among sectors, both public and private, towards sustainable water resources management, and enable long-term economic growth through 2050.
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Assessing the sustainability of human activities depends, in part, on the availability of water supplies to meet the demands of those activities. Thermoelectric cooling, agriculture, and municipal uses all compete for water supplies, but... more
Assessing the sustainability of human activities depends, in part, on the availability of water supplies to meet the demands of those activities. Thermoelectric cooling, agriculture, and municipal uses all compete for water supplies, but each sector differs in its characteristic ratio of water consumption versus withdrawals. This creates different implications for contributing to water supply stress and, conversely, vulnerabilities within each sector to changing water supplies. In this study, we use two measures of water stress, relating to water withdrawals and to water consumption, and calculate the role of each of these three sectors in contributing to the two different measures. We estimate water stress with an enhanced version of the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI), calculating the ratio of water demand to water supply at the 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) scale (Sun et al. 2008, 2011; Caldwell et al. 2011). Current water supplies are based on an integrated water balance and flow routing model of the conterminous United States, which accounts for surface water supply, groundwater supply, and major return flows. Future supplies are based on simulated regional changes in streamflow in 2050 from an ensemble of 12 climate models (Milly et al. 2005). We estimate water demands separately for agriculture, municipal uses, and thermoelectric cooling, with the first two based on Kenny et al. (2005) and the last on the approach of Averyt et al. (2011). We find substantial regional variation not only in the overall WaSSI for withdrawals and consumption but also in contribution of the three water use sectors to that total. Results suggest that the relative vulnerabilities of different sectors of human activity to water supply stress vary spatially and that policies for alleviating that stress must consider the specific, regional context of the tradeoffs between competing water demands.
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The objective of this project is to develop a tool, called MYWAS (Multi-Year Water Allocation System), as an analytical instrument for assessing the economic efficiency of the Israeli water sector, to quantify the effects of various... more
The objective of this project is to develop a tool, called MYWAS (Multi-Year Water Allocation System), as an analytical instrument for assessing the economic efficiency of the Israeli water sector, to quantify the effects of various policies and changes in external factors, and to formulate recommendations with respect to future water management and policy. MYWAS incorporates detailed supply and demand information for the various users and regions of Israel, a constrained optimization model and an interface module that facilities simulations (using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software). The natural water sources within each region in Israel are specified along with the cost of extraction and the sustainable yield. The model incorporates regional demand functions of different types of water use, including households, agriculture, and industry, as well as information on water infrastructure and its operational and capital costs (wastewater treatment plants, desalination plants, storage facilities, and conveyance infrastructure). MYWAS enables the user to impose constraints that reflect her views of social values for water, including the specification of amounts of water to be set-aside for environmental purposes. Water management policies, such as the prices at which water is to be sold to farmers, can also be set if desired; MYWAS takes these inputs and calculates the water flows that maximize the system-wide net benefits received from the available water. These consist of the gross benefits (measured by the areas under the different demand curves) less the costs. We present two applications of the model: (1) a short-run static analysis of water pricing schemes, which was conducted in response to a request by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (IMARD); (2) long-run dynamic runs, conducted to compare an optimal water management path to the results of keeping the current (2014) water prices. Under both scenarios MYWAS suggests a much slower desalination-capacity development than the schedule proposed in the Master Plan of the Israeli Water Authority (IWA, 2011). We also report dissemination activities and discuss the potential of the model to become an analytical tool in decision making processes in the Israeli water and agricultural economies.
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An important step in meeting this challenge is to understand how the water, energy, and agriculture sectors depend on each other and how resource use in each sector affects the others. The new SEI Initiative on the Water, Energy and Food... more
An important step in meeting this challenge is to understand how the water, energy, and agriculture sectors depend on each other and how resource use in each sector affects the others. The new SEI Initiative on the Water, Energy and Food Nexus investigates cross sector links between water, energy, and food to support those who govern and manage these systems to work together to meet human aspirations sustainably.
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ABSTRACT The power sector withdraws substantial cooling water for electric generation in the United States and is thus heavily dependent on available water resources. Changes in water supplies and water quality may impact the reliability... more
ABSTRACT The power sector withdraws substantial cooling water for electric generation in the United States and is thus heavily dependent on available water resources. Changes in water supplies and water quality may impact the reliability of power generation. This research intends to guide energy policy and decision making, leading to reduced greenhouse gas emission and avoiding unintended consequences related to water management in the context of future decisions around type and location of energy generation. It is recognized that different energy management strategies will have different water management implications that extend from the local, to the regional, and ultimately to the national scale. Further, the importance of these impacts will be defined by the characteristics of individual water systems within which energy management strategies are implemented. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system was employed to represent the water resource systems of the American Southwest, where various energy management strategies could be represented within a broad water management context, but with regional specificity. A point of convergence for the American Southwest is Southern California, which relies on water transfers from both the Sacramento/San Joaquin system and the Colorado River systems. The reality is that the water systems of the Los Angeles/San Diego system are connected to those of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central Valley of California, Central Arizona, Metropolitan Las Vegas, the Salt Lake Valley, the Rio Grande Valley, the Front Range of the Rockies, and in fact, to the borders of Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Mexico through Interstate and International Compacts. The Southwest WEAP application was developed to represent the water management implications of different energy and water management strategies and development pathways under current and future conditions. The energy assumptions are derived from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) analysis that is being conducted independently, and for the entire United States. In addition to different energy development strategies, other development pathways can and will be explored, such as changes in municipal water demand use and patterns, and/or changes in irrigation demand.
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... SOURCE: FM Fisher, A. Huber-Lee, I. Amir, S. Arlosoroff, Z. Eckstein, MJ Haddadin, SG Hamati, AM Jarrar, AF Jayyousi, U. Shamir, and H. Wesseling ... The three regional ministers involved (omitting Egypt) were Yossi Beilin of Israel,... more
... SOURCE: FM Fisher, A. Huber-Lee, I. Amir, S. Arlosoroff, Z. Eckstein, MJ Haddadin, SG Hamati, AM Jarrar, AF Jayyousi, U. Shamir, and H. Wesseling ... The three regional ministers involved (omitting Egypt) were Yossi Beilin of Israel, Rima Khalaf of Jordan, and Nabil Sha'ath. ...
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Wastewater treatment and reuse are important means of addressing water scarcity and protecting the aquatic environment in urban areas. However, it comes at the cost of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the issues... more
Wastewater treatment and reuse are important means of addressing water scarcity and protecting the aquatic environment in urban areas. However, it comes at the cost of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the issues of governance and provincial-scale research have largely been ignored in current urban wastewater treatment and reuse studies. This paper summarizes the current status of 175 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Beijing, explores energy-intensive processes, energy consumption ratios, and the overall energy intensity of WWTPs, and maps the structure of urban wastewater treatment and reuse governance. The results indicate that most WWTPs in Beijing are medium or small in scale, treating wastewater at less than 200 thousand tons/day. Then, five energy-intensive subprocesses are identified, and their energy consumption ratios vary with treatment technologies and management factors, which calls for individual WWTP analysis and plant-specific strategies....
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This reports summarizes and synthesizes activities and achievements of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) through the end of 2007. The CPWF is an intiative of the CGIAR designed to take on the global challenge of water... more
This reports summarizes and synthesizes activities and achievements of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) through the end of 2007. The CPWF is an intiative of the CGIAR designed to take on the global challenge of water scarcity and food security. It is an international, multi-institutional researchfor- development initiative that brings together scientists, development specialists and river basin communities, and seeks to create and disseminate international public goods (IPGs) helpful in achieving food security, reducing poverty, improving livelihoods, reducing agriculture–related pollution, and enhancing environmental security. The CPWF conducts its research on water and food in nine ‘benchmark’ river basins, organized around five different themes. This work is being implemented through competitive-call projects, Basin Focal Projects (BFPs), small grant projects and synthesis research. This report is one example of the latter. Projects and outputs Part of the CPWF’s work has focused on increasing water productivity in rainfed environments. Achievements include the further development of conservation agriculture for no-till sowing into crop residues; “slash and mulch” to replace “slash and burn” practices in hillside agriculture; water harvesting systems for dryland locations; understanding livelihood vulnerability and farmers’ coping strategies; and developing and encouraging the distribution—through community ‘participatory’ varietal selection and seed schemes—of drought-tolerant sorghum, wheat, and other crops. Progress has also been made in increasing water productivity in irrigated and salt-affected environments, especially where water is scarce and there are opportunities to increase its productivity. Examples include the development and testing of salt-tolerant germplasm for rice and other crops to make more effective use of salt-affected areas; understanding how to use wastewater in irrigated peri-urban agriculture to produce safe and nutritious vegetables; and developing aerobic rice germplasm and management practices to produce more rice with less water
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Introduction The Millennium Development Goals laid out an ambitious agenda to improve living standards in poor countries. Now, with the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders are aiming to set a broader agenda for 2015 and beyond: a... more
Introduction The Millennium Development Goals laid out an ambitious agenda to improve living standards in poor countries. Now, with the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders are aiming to set a broader agenda for 2015 and beyond: a set of universal goals that engages countries at all income levels to ensure the long-term well-being of humankind. Put another way, while the MDGs aimed to lift people out of poverty, the SDGs aim to also keep them out of poverty by ensuring that development is both socially and environmentally sustainable.
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After a strong reduction in investments in water infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa, we now see a revival and increased interest to start water-related projects. The global political willingness to work towards the UN millennium goals... more
After a strong reduction in investments in water infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa, we now see a revival and increased interest to start water-related projects. The global political willingness to work towards the UN millennium goals are an important driver behind this recent development. Large scale irrigation projects, such as were constructed at tremendous costs in the 1970's and early 1980's,