Testing EKC for Urban Water Use: Empirical Evidence at River Basin Scale from the Guadalquivir River, Spain

Abstract

Water scarcity in arid and semiarid regions of the world is increasing rapidly due to multiple factors, exacerbating competition over alternative water uses. This is especially relevant in the case of so-called closed water bodies, such as the Guadalquivir River Basin in southern Spain. This study tests the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for urban water uses (i.e., residential and services) based on a wide data set of 336 municipalities in the Guadalquivir Basin, for the period 2005–2014. The analysis includes other water use determinants, such as population density, age, educational level, employment, electricity consumption, and urbanization, which might impact urban water use. The results indicate that income is a main factor and has a positive effect on water use, since a growing water elasticity, with respect to income, is observed. Therefore, no EKC pattern is detected in our case study. This has enormous policy implications for the management of the river basin, as the river basin is hydrologically closed, with all available water resources allocated, and competition over alternative uses is expected to increase.