Developing a Hydro-economic Model for the Saskatchewan River Basin, Canada
Date:
Abstract: Efficiently allocating limited water resources among competing users is anticipated to become more crucial due to climate change and population growth, particularly in large and multi-jurisdictional river basins like the Saskatchewan River Basin (SaskRB). In such circumstances, proper integrated modelling methods such as hydro-economic approach will be required to help allocate water resources among competing users more efficiently. Existing hydro-economic studies in the SaskRB have primarily focused on one part of the river basin or adhered to administrative boundaries instead of hydrological boundaries. Thus, they failed to evaluate the impacts of climate change or alternative water allocation strategies on other parts of the river basin in an integrated approach. To address the need for a basin-wide hydro-economic model in the SaskRB, this research as one of the very first attempts aims to develop an inter-regional hydro-economic model that can assess the direct and indirect economic impacts of various water allocation strategies under climate and policy change not only on each of the provinces that share the SaskRB but also on the basin as an integrated system. We applied this modelling framework to the SaskRB to investigate the economic impacts of two water supply restriction scenarios due to climate and policy change. Findings of this study revealed that in the face of climate-induced water shortage, the economic losses could be reduced by almost 50% by adopting appropriate management practices such as prioritizing water allocation, using substitutional water resources and water re-use technologies.