Water
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (EST)
- Chair: Sheila Olmstead, Cornell University
Decomposing Use and Non-Use Values of Water Quality at the National Scale: Evidence from Cellphone Mobility and Stated Preference Data
Abstract
Accurately valuing environmental improvements --- especially distinguishing between use and non-use benefits --- is critical for effective water quality policy and benefit-cost analysis. However, existing regulatory models, such as the EPA's BenSPLASH, rely on fixed spatial assumptions and lack empirical evidence on how willingness to pay (WTP) varies with distance. This paper addresses that gap by developing a national-scale framework to decompose household WTP for water quality improvements, using cellphone-based mobility data and microdata from a stated preference (SP) survey conducted by the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE). We estimate a nationwide recreation demand model using anonymized mobility data from Advan, which tracks trips from over 200,000 Census block groups to nearly 70,000 water-based recreation sites. To quantify non-use values, we apply the structural approach of Kim and Lupi (2023) and Day et al. (2019), linking revealed and stated preference data to separate total WTP into its use and non-use components. For each survey respondent, we calculate expected use value based on recreation behavior and infer non-use value as the residual. This joint modeling framework allows us to estimate how both components of WTP vary with distance --- information that has been largely absent from regulatory benefit assessments. Preliminary results using regional SP data (Johnston et al., 2023; Vossler et al., 2023) show steep distance decay in use WTP but minimal decay in non-use WTP. Within 100 miles, over 90% of use value is captured, but only around 30\% of non-use value --- suggesting that current models may understate total benefits by more than 40%. Full national-level estimation using the NCEE data is underway and will be presented. This work offers critical improvements to integrated assessment models like BenSPLASH by providing empirically grounded spatial aggregation rules.Gendered and Distributional Impacts of Scaling Water Access: Evidence from Tap Water Policy in India
Abstract
Improving water access can reduce the burden of time spent on water collection and enhance child health. However, most evidence comes from interventions with limited scope, and it remains unclear how benefits are distributed between advantaged and disadvantaged groups when programs are scaled to fill regional or national coverage gaps. We examine whether scaled tap water access under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), launched in August 2019, offers greater benefits to women and historically marginalized caste groups, including Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) populations, in terms of short-term savings of time and health improvement. For these analyses, we combine data from the 2019 Time Use Survey and the 2019-2021 National Family Health Survey with administrative JJM data. Exploiting temperature shocks that affect water demand, we find that the policy reduces water collection time, particularly for women and marginalized caste groups. At the same time, however, by examining district-level variation in tap water expansion and a DiD design, we identify an increase in child mortality, particularly among these marginalized groups. Our results suggest a quantity-quality tradeoff in scaling infrastructure and a need for more careful mitigation of potentially adverse behavioral responses. Thus, our findings suggest that scaling water programs can help reduce inequalities in water access but also introduce adverse health outcomes for those targeted, potentially due to poor infrastructure quality, or inattention to potentially quality-compromising behavioral responses. Scaling up water programs, therefore, requires a careful balance between the quantity and the quality of infrastructure and service delivery.Dam Thy Neighbor: Private and International Consequences of River Impoundment
Abstract
Globally, tens of thousands of dams generate spatially uneven distributions of costs and benefits. Especially controversial are dams on rivers traversing multiple countries, which make up 60% of Earth’s freshwater. This paper studies the effects of dams, through their hydrological impacts, on downstream economic growth in both the dam country and foreign downstream countries. It is the first to quantify the role played by international relations in mitigating transboundary environmental externalities. To identify the effects of dams on far downstream areas, I leverage the spatial tributary structure of rivers in a novel identification strategy: as a dammed river converges with the flow of undammed tributaries, the potential impact of the dam is diluted, providing a continuous measure of dam exposure among localities along the same river. I present three sets of findings. First, overall, dams negatively impact economic growth in downstream river-adjacent areas, as measured by nightlights. Precisely estimated negative effects are found from hydroelectric dams, which form the bulk of dams built in recent years, and on irrigated cropland. Second, although some dams have significant negative domestic effects through their changes to the river flow, the downstream foreign externalities are insignificant on average. However, third, that result masks heterogeneity based on international relations between the upstream dam-building country and the downstream country. By most measures of bilateral relations based on trade, alignment on global issues, joint membership in intergovernmental organizations, or regime type similarity, downstream countries that have little economic leverage on or high coordination costs with the upstream country face significant negative externalities from dams. The externalities are mitigated when bilateral relations swing more in the downstream country's favor. Beyond dams, this paper contributes to the nascent literatures on the consequences of and adaptation to surface water changes, and on the economic consequences of geopolitics.Discussant(s)
Robyn Meeks
,
Duke University
Catherine Kling
,
Cornell University
Raymond Guiteras
,
North Carolina State University
Sheila Olmstead
,
Cornell University
JEL Classifications
- Q5 - Environmental Economics
- Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation