Economic Compensation Systems of Emergent Water Dispatch in the Yellow River
黄河应急调水经济补偿制度初探

Emergent water dispatch has become an ordinary way to reduce the crisis in arid areas due to increasing shortage of water resources. The purpose of this study is to promote optimal allocation of water resources in the Yellow River by means of institutional innovation and to provide reference for water dispatches in other basins or between different basins in China. The study found that as emergent water dispatches generate positive benefit, they also bring negative effects on the water providers in upper stream. In addition, such water dispatches change the normal order of water resources allocation and thus water right systems of the Yellow River remains unstable, which will affect the equity and efficiency of water resources allocation. It is found that under current conditions, the emergent water dispatch is still necessary although its main negative effects including reduction of hydropower generation and irrigation, and destruction of environment still exist and need to be eliminated. Therefore, apart from sophisticated technology for a rational dispatch of the emergent water, a set of rational compensation systems dealing with the conflicts of different sides and eliminating the negative effects is highly needed. In this paper, a framework of economic compensation systems, which consists of the rules of estimation, the system of implementation and system of guarantee, is set up and the procedure of compensation is defined. As the key problem of the compensation is how to estimate the amount of compensation, the paper established a mathematic model for the calculation of the losses of the power generation of the hydropower stations and amount of irrigation. An example is given to illustrate these models.