An empirical assessment of the institutional performance of community-based water management in a large-scale irrigation system in southern Mexico

Abstract

Understanding irrigation performance by focusing on its institutional dimension can help improve water use and smallholder farmers' livelihoods. While many studies have evaluated the institutional performance of small-scale, farmer-managed irrigation systems, virtually no empirical studies have evaluated the performance of community-based water management institutions in large-scale irrigation systems with non-governmental bureaucratic administration. This study aims to fill this gap using a mixed-methods research design combining ethnographic work and a quantitative survey of 81 smallholder farmers' from four community institutions (ejidos) in an irrigation district in Chiapas, southern Mexico. While the management model implemented in the transfer of Mexican irrigation districts to users consisted of a bureaucratic administration entirely in the hands of contract agents, this study reveals the essential role of community institutions in local water management. However, although all four communities use water from the same irrigation district, the results revealed significant differences in the institutional performance of irrigation management. Using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework developed by Elinor Ostrom, We showed that these differences could be explained by the biophysical attributes involved in irrigation (irrigation technique, access to groundwater resources, location of the water intake) and community characteristics (social capital and group size). The study recommends that water managers involve communities in the creation of farmers' associations, which could increase their social capital and thus the performance of local irrigation. Furthermore, the results suggest that farmers' views on the institutional performance of irrigation management should receive more attention in the large-scale irrigation system with bureaucratic administration. This knowledge can be particularly useful to improve the different levels of organization and thus water governance of irrigation districts in Mexico.