VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI NHAT ANH WATER CONFLICTS RELATED TO MANAGEMENT OF MULTI-PURPOSE RESERVOIRS IN VU GIA - THU BON RIVER BASIN MASTER'S THESIS Hanoi, June 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI NHAT ANH WATER CONFLICTS RELATED TO MANAGEMENT OF MULTI-PURPOSE RESERVOIRS IN VU GIA - THU BON RIVER BASIN RESEARCH SUPERVISOR: Prof. SHIGETO NAKA Assoc. MASAKAZU FUKUZUMI Dr. NGUYEN NGOC HUY Hanoi, June 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS Acknowledgments .iv List of Abbreviation.
v List of Tables.vi List of Figures. General topic and research background. Research gap and research contribution. Research methods and framework.
Conceptual framework and Literature review. Conceptual framework of Water conflict and Reservoir. Water conflict resolution. Research on Water conflicts.
Research on Water conflicts in Vietnamese river basin. Research on water allocation (to find payoff function). Research on Vu Gia – Thu Bon River Basin. Research on VGTB RB related to social or environmental aspects.
Research on VGTB RB about main water users in VGTB RB. Game theoretical approach can solve conflict. Game theory model. Current situation of water conflict.
Context of Vu Gia – Thu Bon River Basin. 25 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Social-economic conditions. Urban water supply.
Water resource management in VGTB RB. Water resource management at basin level in Vietnam. Water resource management in VGTB RB. Management of reservoir system in VGTB RB.
Procedure for operation of inter-reservoir system in VGTB RB. Water conflict related to multi-purpose reservoir system. Discussion and Policy Recommendation. Game theoretical analysis.
Analysis of practical model. Analysis of modified model. Limitation and Future research. Irrigated water level for paddy.
Planted area and yield of paddy. Scenarios on sharing water from H (based on Procedure 1537). Specific examples for Practical model. 87 ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Conducting the research is a journey to discover yourself and to develop critical thinking.
On that journey, supervisors and companions are indispensable. Firstly, I am particularly grateful for the assistance given by my supervisors for his valuable and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this research work. Assistance provided by Naka Shigeto Sensei, which gave me great inspiration and led me to the academic world, was greatly appreciated. The knowledge I learned from Fukuzumi Masakazu Sensei in game theory gave me a great and attractive economic tool to build my original model.
Lastly, with his rich practical experience, Nguyen Ngoc Huy Sensei helped me understand a great deal more about the reality of the water sector in Vietnam. In this journey, I was also fortunate to be instructed by lecturers at Vietnam Japan University and to be able to discuss with other researchers from VACI 2019. I would like to offer my special thanks to Mr. Yoshifumi Hino in the MBA program, Mr.
Koshi Yoshida and Mr. Makoto Tamura in the MCCD program helped me gain a lot of knowledge about water, hydropower and game theory. In addition, I am grateful for the assistance given by Mr. Dao Trong Tu for helping me to understand the water resource management.
Moreover, I would like to thank the MPP program and VJU for creating what I think is the most favorable academic environment. Here, I had opportunities to discuss with my colleagues, who were always willing to listen to even the vaguest ideas of mine. Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my lovely family and my enthusiastic friends, without whose endless motivations and support this work would have been impossible. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Water conflict is becoming an urgent problem over the world because of rapid economic development leading to the rapid increase of water demand, and global climate change to the decrease of water availability in season dry.
This study is about water conflict occurring in Vu Gia - Thu Bon river basin among three main water users: hydropower reservoirs in upstream as well as an irrigation system and urban water supply in downstream. In order to understand deeply their interactions, this study builds a game theoretical model to describe the current conflict and their benefits in exploiting water. From the general model, the practical model is calculated by secondary data and then is modified with water right weight and average values. The initial results are that although the profitability for the whole agricultural sector is the largest, the average value is negligible.
In contrast, the profitability of hydropower and water supply companies is lower but more concentrated. In the perspectives of policymakers, it is essential to analyse the movement of each player, consider the total payoff values and use control variables as “refund” and “punishment” to adjust some water user’s behaviors. iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATION Abbreviation Meaning HPP Hydropower Plant WTP Water Plant VGTB Vu Gia – Thu Bon RB River basin RBO River basin organization DAWACO Da Nang Water Supply Company NE Nash equilibrium SPNE Subgame perfect Nash equilibrium MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development MOIT Ministry of Industry and Trade v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Similarities of water conflict and game theory .1: Water flow of dry season and flood season in VGTB RB .2: Irrigation system of VGTB RB .3: Capacity of main water plants of DAWACO .4: Water supply-demand gap index of VGTB RB .5: Water exploitation index of VGTB RB .6: River basin organisations in VGTB RB .7: Main documents for procedure for operation of inter-reservoir system in VGTB .8: Changes in water resources of Vu Gia River .1: Matrix of Sub-game 1 in general model .2: Matrix of Sub-game 2 in general model .3: Outcomes of VGTB game’s example model .4: The basis to calculate M-value of H (hydropower plants) .5: Profit of hydropower plants in VGTB game’s practical model .6: The basis to calculate M-value of I (irrigation system) .7: Profit of Irrigation in VGTB game’s practical model .8: M-value of H, I and C .9: Guaranteed value for water demand of downstream .10: Total sharing water from three hydropower reservoirs in three scenarios .11: Outcomes of VGTB game’s practical model .12: Outcomes of VGTB game’s practical model (example). 58 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.13: M-value of three players with water right weight (γ) based on average profit .14: Outcomes of VGTB game’s modified model .15: Outcomes of VGTB game’s modified model (example) .16: Social payoff in general model, practical model and modified model (𝓥𝑺𝑾).
65 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Research framework based on the demand side and supply side .1: Four dimensions of resources scarcity .1: Game tree with three players .1: Irrigation planning map of Quang Nam province .2: Game tree with dominant strategies and value of payoffs of general model .3: Game tree with dominant strategies and value of payoffs of practical model .4: Payoffs of C - Urban water supply in VGTB game’s practical model.5: Payoffs of I - Irrigation in VGTB game’s practical model .6: Payoffs of H - Hydropower in VGTB game’s practical model .7: Game tree with dominant strategies and value of payoffs of modified model .8: Total payoffs of three players in VGTB game’s practical model .9: Total payoffs of three players in VGTB game’s modified model. 66 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. General topic and research background Water resources in Vietnam are relatively abundant with an annual water withdrawal per capita around 9,560 m3/person, but water resources are unevenly distributed across space and time. Vietnam has a strong and growing economy - the GDP growth rate in 2018 is 7.08%, which is the country’s highest level of growth since 2008 and a large population scale with about 97 billion people as of 2019, ranking 14th in the world in terms of population.
As a result, the demand for food, energy, and water has been on the increase. Moreover, various international reports have stated that Vietnam belongs to a group of countries most affected by climate change and sea level rise. According to The Global Climate Risk Index1 for 2016, Vietnam is the 5th most affected country by climate change. Thus, the water availability is reduced, leading to the situation of exacerbating the food- energy-water nexus.
In this context, water resources are decreased in both quantity and quality, leading to a wide range of potential problems and becoming the source of water conflicts. Vu Gia – Thu Bon River Basin is one of Vietnam's biggest basins, which was not an exception from this trend of water conflict. Water resources of Vu Gia - Thu Bon River Basin is quite abundant with the amount of inflow in the dry season reaching 4,280 m3/person/year, ranking 3rd in Vietnam (only lower than the Mekong and Sesan RB). This basin also has dramatic increases in economic growth and urbanization.
Most noticeably in this area is the coastal plain area of Da Nang City and Hoi An City, which have high population density and dynamic economic activities. Therefore, water demand for development purposes is increasing especially rapidly in these downstream areas. It 1 The Global Climate Risk Index (CRI), developed by Germanwatch, analyses the quantifiable impacts of extreme weather events. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com should be noted that this river basin also belongs to the Central of Vietnam, one of the areas in the country that are most vulnerable to impacts of climate change every year.
Therefore, it is understandable when conflict arises here. In comparison with other basins, VGTB RB has a great potential for hydropower exploitation, ranking 4th in Vietnam for total capacity can be exploited (2030 Water Resources Group, 2017). The rapid development of hydropower since the 2000s in the upstream areas has affected water resources throughout the basin, especially by changing the natural flow of rivers. Therefore, conflicts over water related to hydropower reservoirs are noticeable in many basins, including VGTB RB.
Currently, VGTB RB has about 60 hydropower plants in the plan with a total design capacity of 1,502 MW (L. Most large hydropower plants belong to the cascade hydropower systems which are constructed on Dak Mi River, Bung River, A Vuong River, Con River, and Tranh River. There have been so many studies from the social or environmental perspectives about the negative impacts of these reservoirs on the VGTB RB. This study aims to achieve a similar purpose as that of these studies but is based on the economic viewpoint, with a focus on analysing the link between upstream and downstream’ use of limited water resources.
More particularly, this study aims to examine the strategic interactions among upstream water users (hydropower) and downstream water users (irrigation and urban water supply), thereby suggesting policy recommendations. Therefore, the topic of this study is “Water conflicts related to management of multi- purpose reservoirs in Vu Gia - Thu Bon River Basin”. Research objectives Water conflicts have been occurring on most river basins. However, each region has been facing and solving the conflict in different ways with typical characteristics.
Therefore, the first goal of this study is to clarify the current situation of water conflicts. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com After understanding the current state of conflict, based on an analysis of the scenarios, the next goal of the study is to suggest solutions to solve these water conflicts. To achieve the above objectives, this research will answer the following research questions: ✓ Which kind of water conflict is occurring in VGTB RB?