A Socio-Ecological System Analysis of Multilevel Water Governance in Nicaragua

Luis Montenegro,Jochen Hack

doi:10.3390/w12061676

Abstract

Nicaragua enacted its Water Law in 2007, with the Dublin Principles for sustainable water management and integrated water resources management as its guiding framework. Implementation of the law remains a challenge, but significant efforts have been made to roll out this new water resources framework, to improve water management by enhancing a multilevel water governance system. To analyze multilevel water governance in Nicaragua and diagnose stakeholders’ roles and compliance with the law, we applied a socio-ecological system framework and several methods of analysis to process data collected from 52 in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with key stakeholders in the water sector. We found that the major variables affecting multilevel water governance were social interests, administrative capacity, and political, economic, and legal arrangements. The results suggest that there is centralization at the national level, a tendency toward noncollective choice rules, little investment in water resources, and a lack of knowledge concerning conflict resolution mechanisms. For multilevel water governance, a lack of funds is the main social, economic, and political constraint, affecting interactions and outcomes. Nevertheless, there is great potential to improve water resource management in Nicaragua by enacting the self-funding schemes established in the law. Moreover, government institutions, users, and various networks are willing to participate and take action to implement the law.

Highlights

Nicaragua is a Central American country with a surface area of 130,682.4 km2 [1] and a population of 6.1 million inhabitants [2]
In Nicaragua, there have been significant efforts to enact and implement new policies and laws focused on improved water governance, “which refers to the range of political, organizational and administrative processes through which communities articulate their interests, their input is absorbed, decisions are made and implemented, and decision makers are held accountable in the development and management of water resources and delivery of water services” [6]
In correspondence with the procedure defined by McGinnis and Ostrom [10], we provided a brief contextualization of actors, policy implementation and legal arrangements in water management to focus our description in the second-tier variables empirically defined and complemented by literature review

Summary

Introduction

Nicaragua is a Central American country with a surface area of 130,682.4 km2 [1] and a population of 6.1 million inhabitants [2]. With large quantities of ground and surface waters, characterized by small rivers flowing into the Pacific. Ocean, constituting the surface drainage of eight river basins, and large rivers with greater drainage areas flowing into the Caribbean Sea, distributed across 13 river basins. The Nicaraguan Depression, the Central Province, and the Atlantic Deposits [5]. In Nicaragua, there have been significant efforts to enact and implement new policies and laws focused on improved water governance, “which refers to the range of political, organizational and administrative processes through which communities articulate their interests, their input is absorbed, decisions are made and implemented, and decision makers are held accountable in the development and management of water resources and delivery of water services” [6].

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Conclusion