Browsing by Author "Halich, Gregory Stewart"

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    The Effectiveness of Drought Management Programs in Reducing Residential Water-Use in Virginia
    Halich, Gregory Stewart; Stephenson, Stephen Kurt (Virginia Water Resources Research Center, 2006-04-21)
    ... Virginia’s draft water supply planning regulation sets guidelines for when voluntary and mandatory water-use restrictions should be triggered (9 VAC 25-780-120), and includes estimates for their expected effectiveness in reducing water demand. The Virginia regulations state that 5-10% reductions in water-use can be expected for voluntary restrictions programs and 10-15% reductions for mandatory restrictions. These estimates are within the range of the reductions estimated in this study, but were only achieved with significant efforts on the part of local water suppliers to disseminate information and enforce program provisions...
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    Equity Issues in Farmland Preservation
    Halich, Gregory Stewart (Virginia Tech, 1999-04-20)
    The literature dealing with farmland preservation has concentrated on program effectiveness and legal aspects. Equity issues, and to a lesser extent political issues have been neglected in these discussions. This major paper discusses equity issues involved with this topic: Basically who benefits and who is adversely effected by implementing farmland preservation measures. It relates these equity issues to both the legal and political issues of farmland preservation. It is argued in this major paper that to understand any one of these issues, all three must be fully addressed. The paper starts out by describing the following farmland preservation techniques: Exclusive agricultural zoning, large-lot zoning, fixed-area based zoning, slide-scale zoning, cluster zoning, Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), Purchase of Development Rights (PDRs), Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs), conservation easements, Smart Growth programs, use-value taxation, and agricultural districting. It also describes their relative effectiveness. The next section describes the equity, legal, and political issues and relates these issues to the preservation techniques previously described. This section is followed by a conclusion that brings the previous two sections together and comes up with a final effectiveness rating for each farmland preservation technique.
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    Estimating Changes in Residential Water Demand for Voluntary and Mandatory Water-Use Restrictions Implemented during the 2002 Virginia Drought
    Halich, Gregory Stewart (Virginia Tech, 2005-06-27)
    Municipal water suppliers are increasingly faced with implementing programs to address temporary water shortages in the United States. Having reliable estimates for the effectiveness of these programs will help in water supply planning. This dissertation estimates the reductions in residential water-use for voluntary and mandatory water-use restrictions used in Virginia during the 2002 drought. These restrictions were evaluated using both a conventional approach (single-dummy variable for each) and non-conventional approach where program intensity was accounted for. Program intensity was measured by information dissemination for voluntary restrictions, and by information dissemination and enforcement efforts for mandatory restrictions. An unbalanced panel with data from 21 municipal water suppliers was used in the analysis. Under the conventional approach, voluntary restrictions had no significant effect on water-use and mandatory restrictions showed a small to moderate effect. However, program intensity was found to have a significant influence on the magnitude of the water-use reductions in the non-conventional approach. These reductions ranged from 0-7% for voluntary restrictions, and from 0-22% for mandatory restrictions. Moreover, these reductions followed a pattern of increasing program effectiveness with higher levels of information and enforcement. This result indicates that water supply planners need to give considerable attention to the manner in which drought management programs are implemented. Price was also found to have an important effect on residential water-use. A moderate price increase of $3 per 1000 gallons would be expected to reduce water-use by almost 15%. Thus combining mandatory restrictions (implemented at high intensity) with a moderate to high price increase could result in water-use savings approaching 40% based on estimates from this analysis. Other important findings included: a) consumers were responding to a mix of pure marginal price and fixed fees/previous block rates, b) apartment accounts were found to be included in most of the localities residential data and had a significant impact on water-use, and c) the income parameter was measuring more than a pure income effect.