Hydrology and Earth System Sciences www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net 1027-5606 1607-7938 13 7 2009 10.5194/hess-13-1091-2009 http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/1091/2009/ http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/1091/2009/hess-13-1091-2009.html http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/1091/2009/hess-13-1091-2009.pdf 1091 1101 2009-07-09 Agricultural-to-hydropower water transfers: sharing water and benefits in hydropower-irrigation systems A. Tilmant a.tilmant@unesco-ihe.org Q. Goor D. Pinte UNESCO-IHE, Department of Management and Institution, Delft, The Netherlands Université catholique de Louvain, Department of Environmental Sciences, Belgium This paper presents a methodology to assess agricultural-to-hydropower water transfers in water resources systems where irrigation crop production and hydropower generation are the main economic activities. In many countries, water for crop irrigation is often considered as a static asset: irrigation water is usually allocated by a system of limited annual rights to use a prescribed volume of water, which remains to a large extent independent of the availability of water in the basin. The opportunity cost (forgone benefits) of this static management approach may be important in river basins where large irrigation areas are present in the upstream reaches. Continuously adjusting allocation decisions based on the hydrologic status of the system will lead to the temporary reallocation of some (or all) of the irrigation water downstream to consumptive and/or non-consumptive users. Such a dynamic allocation process will increase the social benefits if the sum of the downstream productivities exceeds those of the upstream farmers whose entitlements are curtailed. 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