The Inclusion Trade‐Off: Comparing the Design and Functionality of Collaborative Governance Forums

For a long period of time, in Tanzania, the management of water resources was through informal traditional system. However, the complexities of the current nature of water resource use tend to overshadow the capacity performance of local informal institutions in managing water resources. There is an inevitable call for redesigning operational structures of the local informal arrangements to achieve good models of management and organizational standards in traditional water uses, enhance rational and efficient water uses, and hence reduce water conflicts. Using a case study of water user associations in Kimani sub-catchment, this paper reveals that water user associations (WUAs) were created so as to modify the traditional systems, in a sense that they are legally recognized, and as such, they have legal supports that ensure their enforceability. In the Kimani sub-catchment, WUAs are the major institutions owning water rights, and therefore responsible for water distribution to their members. They are instrumental in negotiations and dispute resolution between different water users. Despite the good work done by WUAs, this paper reveals that the absence of water rights and good grazing areas for pastoralists, simple penalties to some of the wrongdoers, poor leadership and general management skills of WUAs, as well as lack of conflict management skills of the committees involved in resolving water conflicts, are some of the challenges facing WUAs operations. This paper further proposes some workable recommendations to improve the performance of WUAs in the study area.

Water user association(WUA) was considered as an effective means of solving water shortage problem. Famers’ enthusiasms of participation in WUA were not high in inland arid regions of northwest China. The research sought factors influencing farmers’ behavioural attitudes to WUA. We took the middle basin of Heihe River as study area, by an empirical investigating method with questionnaire, used the analysis of logistic regression model, to explore factors affecting farmers’ behaviours toward WUA. The emperical results showed that following factors were most important for farmers to join a WUA: (1) The farmers personal characteristics such as education, being a village cadre, and health status; (2) The family factor was the decision making of planting structure; (3) The natural endowment factors were area of water right and land patch. Finally, recommendations were put forward to provide possible references for water authorities.

"The aim of this thesis is to analyze how farmer-managed systems adapt to the changes related to the integration of new water resources and drip irrigation technologies. Chapters two and three study the operating principles for water management. These principles, when applied by farmers as collective rules, result in interactions that create equity on water rights and transparency. The study area includes the irrigation system of the Huerta of Valencia (Spain). This system, well known internationally, has traditionally used surface water from the Turia River. Though recently, the use of groundwater and treated wastewater have been integrated with surface water. In this context, the analysis evolves around the subject of how the rules, developed for the sharing of surface water, have been adapted for conjunctive use of these new water resources. In addition, attention is also placed on how this process was crucial for the management of the 2005 - 2008 drought period. Results show that the operating principles, based in the proportionality and uniformity on irrigation frequency between users, underlie a system of distribution that is equitable, transparent and robust. In addition, the use of drought emergency wells and the reuse of treated wastewater have not resulted in any important conflict. These resources are used together with surface water during drought periods, increasing the guarantee of supply. However, treated wastewater use affects the uniformity on irrigation frequency among Water User Associations. Besides, Groundwater User Associations overlap in irrigated surface, farmers and infrastructure with Water User Associations using surface water. This situation results in informal conjunctive, a strategy that seems effective to deal with drought. Chapter four analyses the conversion to drip irrigation, an important technological transformation. In order to do that, institutional and management changes are examined. The cases studied are the Acequia Real del Júcar, the Júcar-Turia Channel and the General Community of Irrigators of Vall d'Uixó. At Water User Association level a centralization of managment has been observed (in the irrigation network, water resources managment and the merging of preexisting associations). In addition, the reasons to convert, the advantages, disadvantages and the satisfaction of users are also assessed. Besides, the work examines some aspects of how users adapt the use of irrigation and fertigation technology to their needs, diverging in some cases from the initial criteria of design. Chapter five discusses and compares the implications of the previous chapters. Some aspects of irrigation management and governance are assessed in a more detailed manner for the case of gravity irrigation Water Users Associations. In addition, the changes related to the introduction of drip irrigation technologies and new water resources are further compared In conclusion, the thesis reflects on current water policy dilemmas, focusing in currently prevailing water policy measures in the Valencia region, but also at world level: drip irrigation implementation, reuse of treated water and conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water. This allows identifying and comparing local aspects that influence the adoption and adaptation of new technologies and the integration of new water sources. Considering these features in irrigation policy would increase the efficacy of traditional solutions. Including these perspectives would also help to adapt new solutions to collective water and irrigation management settings characterized by significant complexity."

This paper analyzes the irrigation management transfer (IMT) experience in four middle-income developing countries and explores the links for private sector participation in providing water service and irrigation management. The four countries considered in the analysis are Mexico, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia. The IMT program was successful where farmers had their water rights established, farms are medium and large scale with good access to markets and the government had a strong political willingness to empower users. The IMT programs that focused mainly on farmers' participation and empowerment through Water User Associations (WUA) have not been very successful. Private sector management has proved a feasible alternative in a number of countries. Experiences from Australia, China, France and Mali show that the private sector can efficiently manage irrigation systems and collect water charges, even in the absence of formal WUAs. Two additional alternatives could be of interest for irrigation schemes; these are management contracts and lease contracts. Another alternative would be to reform public entities and create new models that can ensure efficiency and transparency. The establishment of water rights is key in many cases since it guarantees access to water. The water rights are most effective in improving water use when allocated to farmers rather than to the private/public operator. After the establishment of water rights, farmers will have an incentive to organize in order to obtain better service. The paper also provides an overview of different types of water markets where private operators may play the intermediate role between willing buyers and sellers of water based on information obtained through the management of the network.

Unchartered innovation? Local reforms of national formal water management in the Mkoji sub-catchment, Tanzania

Chile is illustrative of a transition from command and control to market based water management policy, where economic policy incentives (EPI) play a significant role in water rights allocations. The enabling factor that allowed for the implementation of water rights markets in Chile was Chile’s tradition and culture, dating back to colonial times, of managing water resources with water rights. The Chilean Water Code of 1981 established that water rights are transferable in order to facilitate markets as an allocation mechanism. The framers of the 1981 Water Code sought to achieve efficient water allocations with this EPI. The existence of water markets has been documented. A key conclusion of these studies is that water markets are more prevalent in areas of water scarcity. They are driven by demand from relatively high-valued water uses and facilitated by low transactions costs in those valleys where Water User Associations and infrastructure present assist the transfer of water. In the absence of these conditions trading has been rare and water markets have not become institutionalized. A major challenge of water rights markets in Chile is how to ensure optimal water use without compromising the sustainability of rivers and aquifers. The implementation of this EPI did not establish new institutions; however, it significantly modified their existing powers. Nevertheless, in order for it to deliver its full potential as an efficient allocation mechanism, Chile requires an institutional reform in order to respond to the country’s actual water challenges.

Information transfer and knowledge sharing are the foundations of the operation and management of water user associations (WUAs). WUAs play a significant role in irrigation management reform in China. WUA information transfer and knowledge sharing are reflected in five categories: water use management, water tariff management, infrastructure management, institutional management, and water rights trade; and they are different during the set-up period and the operation period of a WUA. The Shiyang river basin in Gansu Province is used as the case study to analyze the practices of WUA information transfer and knowledge sharing in the country. Finally, suggestions to improve the activities of WUAs are developed.

Water markets between Mexican water user associations

Local water rights and local water user entities: the unsung heroines of water resource management in Tanzania

Policy designers have various water demand management (WDM) strategies to achieve efficient water use and allocation at their disposal, such as setting the price of water, decentralizing irrigation water management or improving the quality of water rights.Interestingly, most of these strategies have been applied individually without focusing on the relations between them.This paper uses a discrete choice model to analyse the scope for and the farmer's acceptance of combinations of irrigation WDM tools.In terms of local irrigation water governance the presence or absence of collective irrigation water management among farmers in the form of water user association (WUA) is considered.Water rights are specified by the duration of the title, by their transferability and by the quality of title.Finally, four types of water pricing methods (area, crop, quota and volumetric pricing) are selected for the experimental design.Using the choice experiment we can elicit the most preferred water pricing method under different water rights, water prices and local irrigation water governance contexts.Our results indicated that under conditions of improved water rights, preference for volumetric pricing increases, while the presence of a WUA decreases this preference.We also showed that making the right combination of WDM tools considerably increases the willingness to pay for a change in scenario.

This chapter outlines the general conclusions of the research and the book based on the analysis of the four case study areas in Egypt. It also provides the basis for thoughts about a more realistic and critical consideration of social capital theories into the mainstream of community-based natural resource management in general, and irrigation management transfer in particular. The research undertaken for this book show that it was worthwhile to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for the analysis of social capital to use in place of Putnam's theory and approach, which romanticize traditional village organizations and cannot satisfactorily explain the complexity observed in the case study areas. The findings also provided key lessons to keep in mind when establishing and supporting water users' associations (WUA) at the level of tertiary and branch canals. Among these are the impact of improvements to irrigation infrastructure on farmers' behavior and the functioning of WUAs on the tertiary canal, namely that reducing face-to-face interactions reduces the creation of social capital, social control, and collective action; and that cooperation is not only dependent on the availability of water but is also affected by the autonomy of the irrigation water management field and the assignment of water rights.

This article investigates the possible benefits of complex system governance (CSG) as a foundation for enhancing cybersecurity in critical cyber-physical systems (CPS). CPS are intrinsically linked to cyberspace and vulnerable to a wide range of risks stemming from physical and cyber threats. There remains a lack of robust frameworks for addressing the issue of cybersecurity for CPS at the metasystem level. In response, the authors suggest CSG as an organizing construct capable of providing a greater degree of cohesion and as a means to provide for design, execution, and evolution of ‘metasystemic' functions necessary to provide for communication, control, and coordination, and integration is critical to the cybersecurity of CPS. In this article, CSG is introduced as a potential construct for enhancing cybersecurity in CPS. A hypothetical case study application is then provided to illustrate the potential for this research. Finally, the authors offer conclusions and suggest future research. Keywords Case Study, Complex System Governance, Cyber-Physical Systems, Management Cybernetics, Metasystem Function, Power Grid, Systems Thinking

This study reviews 40 years of irrigation development in China including the transformation of the institutional and incentive structures in irrigation management. After rural reforms in the 1970s, irrigation investments slowed until the late 1990s. In North China, farmers became major investors in groundwater irrigation, leading to property rights’ transfer of tube wells from collective to private ownership. Despite positive effects in cropping patterns, farmer income and development of groundwater markets, privatisation has accelerated groundwater table deterioration. Since the middle of 1990s, Water User Associations have replaced village collective management of surface irrigation. This approach was adopted by most provinces by early 2001 with mixed results; only institutions with water‐saving incentives realised efficient irrigation. The Government is reforming water price policies to provide water‐saving incentives to farmers while not hurting their income. While China has focused on water rights and markets, and despite regulations and pilot projects, full implementation of water rights has been slow. Research reveals greater policy scope for expanding irrigation technologies that generate real water saving to rural areas. Given pressure associated with water scarcity and concern for food security, further effective reforms in irrigation and policy incentives are expected. The Government has also initiated some pilot projects to resolve increasing water scarcity problems through adjusting agricultural production activities.

In order to improve the efficiency of government spending, it is necessary for the decentralized irrigation management to gain support from local institutions. Efficient institutions take on several distinct configurations in different irrigation districts. In this research, we upgrade Tang’s (1992) framework focusing on incentives, to a framework that includes institutional incentives and coordination. Within the framework, we then classify 5 institutional variables: water pricing reform (P), government funding (F), coordination by administration (C), having formal monitors (M) and self-organized management (S). This article processes the data obtained through a field survey (2009–2011) in 20 of China’s southern counties, where they implement the “Small-scale Irrigation and Water Conservancy Key Counties Construction (Key Counties Construction)”, a national project supported by the central government. Next, it applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the efficiency of government spending and uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to extract efficient institutional configurations. It concludes that there are generally three types of institutional configurations able to improve the efficiency of government spending, which are respectively: “government funding combined with coordination by administration”, “water pricing reform combined with self-organized management and coordination by administration or water pricing reform combined with self-organized management and government funding and formal monitors” and “self-organized management”. Among these, the second configuration is a mixed governance structure with multiple institutions coexisting, and this configuration occurs in the most efficient key counties. For that reason, it is viewed as the mainstream irrigation management approach, and we expect it to be the development trend in the future. Although Chinese irrigation policies are formalizing effective local institutions, they are still not sufficient. Future policies are needed to 1) promote institutions of government support for water laws in order to build stable expectations for both water user associations (WUAs) and farmers, 2) guide water pricing reform by ensuring farmers’ water rights and regulating water markets, and 3) provide opportunities for hiring professional monitors and crafting formal rules.

ABSTRACT: Because of its importance and the perceived inability of private sector sources to meet water demands, many countries have depended on the public sector to provide water services for their populations. Yet this has resulted in many inefficient public water projects and in inadequate supplies of good quality and reliable water. Decentralization of water management, including the use of water markets, cannot solve all of these water problems, but it can improve the efficiency of water allocation. When given adequate responsibility and authority, water user associations have effectively taken over water management activities at a savings to tax payers. Moreover, water markets add the potential benefit of improving water efficiency within a sector as well as providing a mechanism for reallocating water among sectors. The key question involves developing innovative mechanisms for reducing the transaction costs of organizing water users and of making water trades. Water rights need to be established which are recorded, tradable, enforceable, and separate from land if markets are to operate effectively. Also, institutions are needed that effectively resolve conflicts over water rights, including third party impacts and water quality concerns.