Improving Water Governance Research Articles

Does water governance matter to water sector performance? Evidence from ten provinces in China

Water scarcity ranks as one of China's most serious problems today and in the foreseeable future. Rapid urbanization and industrialization and the attendant problems of overconsumption, pollution and inefficient water use have driven and will continue to drive China's water crisis. Most scholars assert that improving water governance is the key to water security in developing countries including China. However, there are very few empirical studies to support this claim. We compare water governance in 10 Chinese provinces in terms of 17 indicators of water laws, policies and administration based on a survey of 89 water experts. We then explore the effects of water governance on water sector performance in terms of adequacy of drinking water, availability of water resources and water productivity. Our findings are consistent with the literature and our expectations but more rigorous studies are needed to establish causal links between governance mechanisms and performance.

Achieving ethical responsibilities in water management: A challenge

The problems of water management, including water scarcity, ecosystem degradation, and water related disasters are expected to be exacerbated by global trends such as climate changes, population growth, urban sprawl, and food uncertainty. In particular, population growth and climate change may have a considerable impact on agricultural water management goal of ensuring enough food for world's population. Such a situation calls for a new awareness on the role of international water law and for a full recognition of common ethical principles which must be applied at a world-wide and local levels. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, to review the recent efforts at reinforcing a legislative framework on water cooperation as well as on water rights, and second, to identify a set of ethical principles which can improve water governance and management at different levels. These principles – either drawn from the evolution of key-concepts within the “water box” or derived from general environmental and social ethics – represent the basics for achieving ethical responsibility in integrated, sustainable, and equitable water resource development, particularly for agricultural use.

Simple Myths and Basic Maths About Greening Irrigation

Greening the economy is mostly about improving water governance and not only about putting the existing resource saving technical alternatives into practice. Focusing on the second and forgetting the first risks finishing with a highly efficient use of water services at the level of each individual user but with an unsustainable amount of water use for the entire economy. This might be happening already in many places with the modernization of irrigated agriculture, the world’s largest water user and the one offering the most promising water saving opportunities. In spite of high expectations, modern irrigation techniques seem not to be contributing to reduce water scarcity and increase drought resiliency. In fact, according to the little evidence available, in some areas they are resulting in higher water use. Building on basic economic principles this study aims to show the conditions under which this apparently paradoxical outcome, known as the Jevons’ Paradox, might appear. This basic model is expected to serve as guidance for assessing the actual outcomes of increasing irrigation efficiency and to discuss the changes in water governance that would be required for this to make a real contribution to sustainable water management.

Community-Based Water Governance under Integrated Water Resources Management Reform in Contemporary Rural China

Studying water governance at multiple levels can link national or regional objectives with local development priorities. Improving water governance requires rethinking water issues through multiple perspectives, and strategic uses of cooperative partnerships and deliberative processes. Understanding community-based water governance (CBWG) has a critical role to play in constructing a broad pluralistic approach to successful water governance, which starts from the lowest level of local water users’ groups; and involves networks and linkages across different levels. This paper takes an empirical focus on CBWG processes and outcomes under China’s powerful enforcement of integrated water resources management (IWRM). It shows that CBWG combined with poorly developed policies and lack of multi-level cooperation can reinforce destructive practices in collective forms which are more dangerous, costly and difficult to detect. It concludes that communities have an important role to play in global water governance especially in constructing localized and polycentric frameworks for successful water governance, however community-based water governance per se like market-based or centralized governance as a panacea is insufficient. Approaches are needed that enable in-depth understanding of multi-level institutions in polycentric policy development and implementation, whilst incorporating flexibility to account for physical, socio-economic and political specificities.

Data management for integrated water resources management in Central Asia

Information technologies can act as technical artifacts and can facilitate stakeholder communication, supporting decision making in a complex societal context. The water sector is one such example where limited water resources are threatened by climate change and growing competition for resources between sectors, regions and countries. Attempts to improve water governance and management through information technologies have been made by international, regional and national water agencies for the last 20 years in Central Asia. However, early attempts were focused on collection, systematization and analysis of the generic data related to the water sector in the region. There are still significant gaps (technical, human and financial capacities) for application of such technologies at the lower operational levels of water management, i.e. where the full dimensions of variables, interactions and complexities are observed and, most importantly, everyday politics of water are performed. The aim of this paper is to present practical results on improving water management in Central Asia through the application of better data management tools at the operational level across diverse institutional settings, i.e. transboundary, watershed levels in the region.

Challenges and Opportunities for Collecting and Sharing Data on Water Governance Institutions

AbstractThis article explores the usability and availability of data needed for investigating the interplay between institutional arrangements (i.e. rules, regulations, policy, compacts, laws) and water resource outcomes. It examines a sample of 33 water governance and water research organizations’ websites for publicly available datasets containing linked information on institutions and water resource conditions or outcomes. While scholars and decision‐makers alike have identified institutional arrangements as an important aspect of improving water governance, their calls for enhancing publicly available institutional data remain unanswered. Within our sample of websites, few datasets link institutions and water resource conditions or outcomes and those that do limit the institutional data to jurisdictional boundaries. More in‐depth and diverse institutional data are required to understand which governance tools and structures do and do not work in varying contexts. This will require funding of strategically located, place‐based data collection efforts, more transparent and replicable data collection instruments, and coding and storage of institutional data for enhanced data integration.

Water-conservation policies in perspective: insights from a Q-method study in Salta, Argentina

Narratives and discourses on issues such as water management and other complex social–ecological systems respond partly to people's worldviews or social perspectives. Knowledge of these perspectives might help increase the rate of success of specific initiatives related to water conservation and could be an important tool to improve water governance. A study performed in the city of Salta, Argentina, revealed the existence of four social perspectives on issues related to water management. Perspectives were obtained with Q methodology by interviewing 29 local stakeholders. Participants sorted 68 statements organized around four themes (service provider; water rights; public participation; water availability) according to their degree of agreement or disagreement. The findings support our contention that there are clear links between social perspectives and the rate of success of some water policies implemented by the local water utility in the past 15 years, in particular the promotion and use of household water meters and awareness campaigns launched to reduce water consumption. We show that the limited success of these initiatives was partly due to ignorance or disregard of social perspectives on water management.

Water for Whom? Improving Water Governance in Yunnan China Through Environmental Customary Law

Water for Whom? Improving Water Governance in Yunnan China Through Environmental Customary Law

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources Management Planning in the Incomati River Basin

Stakeholder participation is a key principle of the integrated water resources management. It is a central issue in planning and decision making processes for the development of suitable water resources management strategies at the river basin level. This study tests a methodology for identifying stakeholders’ preferences regarding water resources management objectives, to incorporate them in the design of water resources management plans at the river basin level. The empirical application of this study focused in Mozambique, on the Incomati river basin. This research applies the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to evaluate stakeholders’ involvement and participation in the selection of water resources management plans. This research revealed that there are heterogeneities in stakeholders’ individual groups preferences regarding water resources management objectives and the management options of their satisfaction. Furthermore it revealed the potential utility of the AHP methodological framework in facilitating stakeholders’ participation and involvement in planning and decision-making processes for the development of water resources management plans. The application of this approach may improve water governance at the river basin level through higher commitments of stakeholders to the proposed objectives.

Assessing the impacts of climatic change on mountain water resources

As the evidence for human induced climate change becomes clearer, so too does the realization that its effects will have impacts on numerous environmental and socio-economic systems. Mountains are recognized as very sensitive physical environments with populations whose histories and current social positions often strain their capacity to accommodate intense and rapid changes to their resource base. It is thus essential to assess the impacts of a changing climate, focusing on the quantity of water originating in mountain regions, particularly where snow and ice melt represent a large streamflow component as well as a local resource in terms of freshwater supply, hydropower generation, or irrigation. Increasing evidence of glacier retreat, permafrost degradation and reduced mountain snowpack has been observed in many regions, thereby suggesting that climate change may seriously affect streamflow regimes. These changes could in turn threaten the availability of water resources for many environmental and economic systems, and exacerbate a range of natural hazards that would compound these impacts. As a consequence, socio-economic structures of downstream living populations would be also impacted, calling for better preparedness and strategies to avoid conflicts of interest between water-dependent economic actors. This paper is thus an introduction to the Special Issue of this journal dedicated to the European Union Seventh Framework Program (EU-FP7) project ACQWA (Assessing Climate Impacts on the Quantity and Quality of WAter), a major European network of scientists that was coordinated by the University of Geneva from 2008 to 2014. The goal of ACQWA has been to address a number of these issues and propose a range of solutions for adaptation to change and to help improve water governance in regions where quantity, seasonality, and perhaps quality of water may substantially change in coming decades.

Comparative water law, policies, and administration in Asia: Evidence from 17 countries

[1] Conventional wisdom suggests that improving water governance is the key to solving water insecurity in developing countries but there are also many disagreements on operational and methodological issues. In this paper, we build on the work of Saleth and Dinar and surveyed 100 water experts from 17 countries in Asia to compare 19 indicators of water laws, policies, and administration among and within countries from 2001 to 2010. We present the results of our study in a comparative dashboard and report how water governance indicators vary with a country's level of economic development, which ones do not and how and why some indicators change overtime in some countries. We have two main results. First, our initial findings suggest the possibility of water Kuznet's curve, i.e., certain water governance indicators vary with a country's level of economic development. However, more studies are needed given the caveats and limitations of our study. Second, the results have practical value for policy makers and researchers for benchmarking with other countries and tracking changes within their countries overtime. We conclude with implications for a second-generation research agenda on water governance.

Governing Water in the Andean Community of Cabanaconde, Peru

Improving water governance in the Andes is one of Peru's biggest challenges. This article examines the state's role in the water supply of an Andean community. Thirty years ago the community resisted the state's interference in its water management but now it has adopted a state model. The present article examines this change in the context of 2 occasions: the Peruvian state's investment in a new channel in the area and the community's confrontation with the state to gain access to this infrastructure. In the article, it is suggested that rather than viewing the confrontation as a form of resistance against the state's interference in Andean irrigation, we can see it as a way of opposing the state's water policy that privileges Peru's coastal desert at the cost of the country's highlands. It argues that, paradoxically, the community's success in challenging this policy and gaining rights to new water sources has prompted it to recognize the state as a legitimate water governor. The article concludes that, to overcome Andean communities' distrust of the state, the state must allow communities to play an active role in water management and assure water equity in Peru.

Water Governance 2.0: A Review and Second Generation Research Agenda

Water scholars and practitioners generally agree that improving water governance is the key to addressing water insecurity in developing countries. We review the literature on water governance and argue for a second-generation research agenda, which pays more attention to the study of incentive structures, is multi and inter-disciplinary in orientation and with clear policy implications. We then illustrate how theories drawn from public economics, new institutional economics, political economy and public administration can help diagnose the challenges of integrated water resources management, improving efficiency of water utilities, privatization of utilities and public-private partnerships, water pricing reforms, virtual waters/water trading, among others. We conclude that these tools can help advance the second-generation research agenda on water governance.

Local groundwater governance in Yemen: building on traditions and enabling communities to craft new rules

Local groundwater management in Yemen and the means by which stakeholders can work together to improve water governance are discussed. In the last few decades the discourse on groundwater management in Yemen has increasingly been cast in terms of crisis, triggered by rapidly declining water tables around cities and in the main agricultural areas. However, in some places in Yemen, communities have responded by implementing local rules that have reduced conflict and provided more reliable and equitable access to water. This trend towards development of local groundwater governance is described, and could make a major contribution in realizing the goals of national water-sector policies and strategies. Twenty-four cases have been identified from different parts of the country and five cases are presented in detail. The article discusses how the process of local management could be nurtured and how it could contribute to rebalancing water use in several parts of Yemen.

Improving Water Governance Through Science and Stakeholder Dialogue: Experience from Assam (Northeast India)

In this paper we describe some outcomes and follow-up developments of the European project BRAHMATWINN, and in particular the analyses carried out in order to identify governance gaps with respect to response strategies to deal with the expected impacts of climate change in the field of water resources management. An innovative approach based on the analysis of gaps in the governance status with specific focus on response strategies options, which can be implemented to address flood risk is implemented. A knowledge integration table (KIT) is proposed for the integration of scientific and local knowledge and this lays the foundation for the identification of the gaps between existing legal framework and real life needs. The ultimate goal of the approach is to support a process that develops recommendations for the strengthening of the governance framework in order to deal with the impacts of climate change. In a first step two parallel processes have been designed and implemented: (1) the identification of the potential supply of scientific knowledge through the development of a system of indicators proposed by BRAHMATWINN project partners, and (2) the elicitation of local actors’ issues and proposed response strategies. Indicators and issues/responses are then matched in a framework, the Knowledge Integration Table (KIT), which highlights the needs basis for the research approach and integrates the outcomes of the BRAHMATWINN researchers. A Gap Analysis Matrix (GAM) is then created for the identification of gaps within the governance framework by elaborating further on the contents of the KIT: governance indicators developed within the BRAHMATWINN project are now elaborated further to measure the law and its implementation. The synthesis of this GAM should be a list of recommendations for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) through the identification of potential gaps in government water resource management policy.

Improving water governance in Central Asia through application of data management tools

Contemporary water management decisions use many sources and forms of data. The paper discusses the implementation results of data management activities in the water sector carried out in five countries of the Central Asia region. Geoinformation systems, remote sensing tools and databases have been applied worldwide for improving water resources management with differing levels of success. Water management organisations, equipped with data management tools will have better capacities to adapt their decision-making in the changing availability and scarcity of water resources. Application of data management tools for improving collection, storage and processing of data and information are a first step towards improved water governance.

Performance evaluation of River Basin Organizations to implement integrated water resources management using composite indexes

In the Southern African Development Community region, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles and tools are being implemented through the existing regional framework for water resources development and management. The IWRM approach is applied at river basin level seeking a balance between the economic efficiency, social equity and environmental sustainability in water resources management and development. This paper uses composite indexes to analyze the performance of River Basin Organizations (RBOs) as key implementing agents of the IWRM framework. The assessment focuses on three RBOs that fall under the Regional Water Administration for Southern Mozambique (ARA-Sul) jurisdiction, namely: Umbeluzi, Incomati and Limpopo River Basin Management Units. The analysis focus on the computation of a set of multidimensional key performance indicators developed by Hooper (2010) but adapted to the Mozambican context. This research used 24 out of 115 proposed universal key performance indicators. The indicators for this case study were selected based on their suitability to evaluate performance in line with the legal and institutional framework context that guides the operations of RBOs in Mozambique. Finally these indicators were integrated in a composite index, using an additive and multiplicative aggregation method coupled with the Analytic Hierarchy Process technique employed to differentiate the relative importance of the various indicators considered. The results demonstrate the potential usefulness of the methodology developed to analyze the RBOs performance and proved useful in identifying the main performance areas in need of improvement for better implementation of IWRM at river basin level in Mozambique. This information should support both the IWRM framework adaptation to local context and the implementation at river basin level in order to improve water governance.

Changing Roles in Canadian Water Management: A Case Study of Agriculture and Water in Canada's South Saskatchewan River Basin

This paper explores changing roles in Canadian water management, by focusing on a case study of agriculture and water in Western Canada. Challenges in water management include unequal adaptive capacity, gaps in water and climate data, locally relevant options, short- and long-term planning, among others. This empirical study offers insight for improved water management decision-making for all regions. There is a need for improving and integrating water management with climate scenarios, collecting more and better water/climate data, improving water governance and long-term planning, and developing strong communication channels between governance organizations and local communities. Positive trends towards effective and adaptive water management include the incorporation of watershed groups, basin planning, and the use of multidisciplinary approaches to guide decision-making.

Improving water governance in New Zealand: stakeholder views of catchment management processes and plans

Water governance refers to the institutions, legislation and decision-making processes applied to develop and manage water resources. As pressures on water resources increase there has been a realisation that technocratically-driven water management has not achieved desired sustainability outcomes. Attention must be focused not only on better scientific understanding of water and its values and uses, but also on what constitutes good water governance.

Ways to improve water governance

AbstractGiven the growing destabilizing factors (climate change demographic growth financial instability desertification) the water supply for future development of our planet will become even more an issue. In order to guarantee access to water for different countries regions and individuals it is necessary to elaborate and adopt for governance in general a body of legal financial institutional and economic tools and mechanisms that would become an indisputable set of rules as a kind of Bible for modern humankind and as a way to survive. Water governance should prevent any attempt to use water as a means of political or economic pressure or as a good like oil transformed into the subject of profiteering. Water is a holy thing and we all must take care of and save it so that everyone might have access to water in adequate quantity and quality. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.