Solar Irrigation Farming and the Jevons Paradox in Pakistan
The rapid decline in solar PV pricing over the recent decade has shifted both access and opportunity for solar power generation and use.  Solar irrigation pumping (SIP) systems are one such emerging opportunity, whose use is rapidly expanding across South Asia in particular.  SIP systems improve water access and supply reliability for farmers, at the possible risk of groundwater overconsumption.  As SIP use expands, there is considerable interest in the possibility of using feed-in tariffs (FITs) for solar-generated electricity as a tool to manage groundwater consumption.  While a FIT may reduce the intensity of groundwater consumption by SIP owners, they may also increase the attractiveness of SIP systems overall, leading to expansion of SIP use and increased consumption – a possible Jevons’ Paradox.  We developed a multi-part behavioral experiment to assess this possibility and piloted it in Punjab, Pakistan in 2022.  I present results from this pilot work, showing a plausible case for a Jevons’ paradox, and discuss within an ‘Environment through development’ framework.

Biography 
Andrew Reid Bell is the inaugural Schleifer Family Professor of Sustainability in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University.   Bell’s lab at Cornell focuses on rural livelihoods decision-making, and the pro-poor development challenge of broadening opportunities and enabling families to take advantage of them. Key methods for the group are coupled natural-human systems modeling (especially agent-based modeling), and behavioral experiments to inform them.  Work by current lab members spans migration, irrigation, human-wildlife conflict, and agricultural technology adoption. Bell earned a PhD in Natural Resource Management from the University of Michigan in 2010, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and positions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), NYU, and Boston University.