Local Water Rights Research Articles

Ecosystems, watersheds and water rights in Cajamarca, Peru

In contested environments, the importance of water transcends its status as a mere resource to comprise the ecosystem and the watershed. Farmers and ronderos in Santa Cruz, Cajamarca, who face the brunt of deleterious environmental impacts from mining in their territories emphasize the relevance of ecosystems and watersheds for water provision. The interdependency of water and ecosystems is demonstrated through their local water rights. As water sources are threatened, the scope of local water rights is reconceptualized to guarantee water as both resource and nature. In analysing the transformation of water rights in the midst of socioenvironmental conflicts, the article shows how the residents of Santa Cruz take an unconventional approach assembling local understandings of water and global environmental discourses to protect the entirety of the environment where water flows.

“Riverhood” and the Politics of (Mis)Recognizing Local Water Cultures and Water Rights Systems

An appreciation of the diversity of world water cultures – past and present – is essential to recognizing the conflicts and solutions that exist within water management. This article analyzes the intricacies of water governance and politics. It argues for new ways to recognize and negotiate the value of local water cultures, and proposes the term “Riverhood” as a way to understand the political, technological and cultural arenas in which water rights and governance frameworks are being shaped in grassroots movements’ everyday practice, in interaction with rivers’ adjacent social and ecological communities (www.movingrivers.org).

Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability: Cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas

Climate change is posing emerging threats to people and the environment, particularly in arid regions. However, some groups are more vulnerable than others, depending on their levels of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which are determined by climatic and non-climatic factors. In water-scarce environments, water policies become key non-climatic factors that affect vulnerability yet enable modifications if their impacts unintentionally exacerbate vulnerability. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the impacts of water policies on vulnerability, particularly for disadvantaged groups. In this paper, we analyze four cases in the arid Americas that illustrate an array of challenges at different scales and across the rural-urban continuum: (1) irrigated oases in Mendoza, Argentina, where groundwater and surface water management are disconnected; (2) rural communities in central Sonora, Mexico, where local water rights have been transferred to large scale mining; (3) peri-urban marginalized neighborhoods in Hermosillo, Mexico, where competition for water is driving changes in land use; and (4) underserved communities in Tucson, Arizona, USA who are left behind in a rainwater harvesting movement. Our analysis shows that water policies in arid regions interact with land and neoliberal policies between sectors across different scales, exacerbating vulnerabilities disproportionately in less privileged groups and enhancing disparities. Here, we offer recommendations for more inclusive policymaking processes that can build capacity, protect the livelihoods of disadvantaged groups, and reduce their vulnerability to climate change.

Forced Engagements: Water Security and Local Rights Formalization in Yanque, Colca Valley, Peru

For vulnerable groups in society, water insecurity and deficient water availability for food production commonly reflect unequal distribution of water volumes, quality, and services within unequal power structures. Water security is necessarily a political dilemma. Policy debates, however, tend to naturalize and de-politicize this concept. Instead of recognizing that water security and distribution belong to the realm of human interests, choices, negotiation, and power plays, they are often represented as following universal economic, legal, and natural-scientific rules. In this context, there is a widespread policy assumption that formally recognizing local, customary water rights is one important element to grant water security for marginalized user groups. This paper challenges this assumption and examines the illustrative case of a Peruvian Andes community, Yanque. We scrutinize formalization policies that claim to enhance water security for marginalized communities regarding (1) material water allocation and (re)distribution and (2) water rulemaking, legitimate authority, and cultural-political organization—both elements that stand central in formalization processes. We discuss the complex relationship between formal and alternative “water securities” and the cultural politics of rights recognition and show that uncritical formalization of local water rights often leads to weakening rather than strengthening local water security.

Flood pulse trophic dynamics of larval fishes in a restored arid-land, river-floodplain, Middle Rio Grande, Los Lunas, New Mexico

Rio Grande water is intensively managed and regulated by international and interstate compacts, Native American treaties, local water rights, and federal, state, and local agencies. Legislation and engineering projects in the early twentieth century brought about water impoundment projects and channelization of the Rio Grande which led to the eventual loss of floodplain habitats. In particular, current water management practices in the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) have altered the natural flood regime altering the riparian community and floodplain dynamics which may be causing the demise of many fish species by altering food web processes. The Rio Grande silvery minnow (Hybognathus amarus), a federally endangered species, has been classified as an herbivore, detritivore, or carnivore. During low flow conditions H. amarus is primarily an algivore; however, during flood conditions, hydrodynamic scouring reduces or eliminates benthic algal food sources. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize food resources and trophic interactions for H. amarus on a restored floodplain during an extended flood-pulse release from reservoirs using stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ15N) and paleolimnology techniques. Results from stable isotope ratios indicate that H. amarus obtained carbon primarily from chironomids while aquatic invertebrates (including chironomids) obtained their carbon from macrophytes. Results from the GLIMMIX procedure indicate that the range of isotopic signatures for prey items was much broader at parallel habitats (i.e. floodplain flow parallel to main stem flow) than perpendicular (i.e. floodplain flow perpendicular to main stem flow) or leeward habitats (i.e. leeward sides of island where flow was near zero) indicating a wider selection of food resources. This study suggests that increased duration of floodplain inundation in the MRG provides vital habitats for spawning, nursery, and recruitment of threatened and endangered fish species. A combination of allochthonous and autochthonous resources best describes the nutrient and energy transfers for the Los Lunas, NM restored floodplain.

The Politics of Disciplining Water Rights

ABSTRACTThis article examines how the legal systems of Andean countries have dealt with the region's huge plurality of local water rights, and how official policies to ‘recognize’ local rights and identities harbour increasingly subtle politics of codification, confinement and disciplining. The autonomy and diversity of local water rights are a major hindrance for water companies, elites and formal rule‐enforcers, since State and market institutions require a predictable, uniform playing field. Complex local rights orders are seen as irrational, ill‐defined and disordered. Officialdom cannot simply ignore or oppress the ‘unruliness and disobedience’ of local rights systems: rather it ‘incorporates’ local normative orders that have the capacity to adequately respond to context‐based needs. This article examines a number of evolving, overlapping legal domination strategies, such as the ‘marrying’ of local and official legal systems in ways that do not challenge the legal and power hierarchy; and reviews the ways in which official regulation and legal strategies deny or take into consideration local water rights repertoires, and the politics of recognition that these entail. Post‐colonial recognition policies are not simply responses to demands by subjugated groups for greater autonomy. Rather, they facilitate the water bureaucracy's political control and help neoliberal sectors to incorporate local water users’ rights and organizations into the market system — even though many communities refuse to accept these policies of recognition and politics of containment.

FROM WATER CRISIS TO WATER CULTURE

Fresh water has gone through some significant changes over the past twenty years. What once had been sold by the gallon as an emergency storm supply in grocery stores in the U.S. is now marketed by the pint by global corporations. Public water supplies are increasingly pressured to privatize their services as local fresh water sources are bought by these same companies, and global trade agreements and international development organizations increasingly promote the privatization of fresh water supplies. Dr. Vandana Shiva has been a leading voice in the efforts to defend local water rights and promote new forms of “public-public” partnerships to protect fresh water supplies. For this issue of Cultural Studies, Dr. Andy Opel interviewed Dr. Shiva about the connections between culture and water, how our cultural attitudes shape our water use and how we might change those cultural habits to ensure clean water for the future.

Prices and Politics in Andean Water Reforms

AbstractWater rights are best understood as politically contested and culturally embedded relationships among different social actors. In the Andean region, existing rights of irrigators’ collectives often embody historical struggles over resources, rules, authorities and identities. This article argues, first, that the neo‐liberal language that is increasingly used in water policies is ill‐suited for recognizing and dealing with these social, cultural and political dimensions of water distribution. Local water rules and rights, their dynamics, and the way they are linked to power relations, local identities and contextualized constructions of legitimacy, remain invisible in neo‐liberal policy discourse. Second, this same discourse actively destroys these local rights systems and presents itself as the only viable cure to the problems it generates. The ways in which local irrigators’ collectives attempt to protect their water security raise questions about the fundaments and effects of neo‐liberal water reforms, but these questions are neglected or poorly understood. This article proposes a more situated, layered and contextualized approach to Andean water questions, not just to improve representational accuracy but also to increase political visibility and legitimacy of peasant and indigenous water claims. What is needed is not just a new ‘typology’ or ‘taxonomy’ of water rights, but an alternative ‘water rights ontology’ that understands locally existing norms and water control practices, and the power relations that inform and surround them, as deeply constitutive of water rights.

Institutional reform in the Andean irrigation sector: Enabling policies for strengthening local rights and water management

For centuries, local and indigenous water rights and rules in the Andean region have been largely neglected and discriminated against. The process of undermining local communities’ water access and control rights continues up to today and not only is it headed by powerful local, national and international water-use actors encroaching local rights — it is also a direct consequence of vertical State law and intervention practices, and the latest privatization policies. Recognition of and security for the diverse and dynamic local rights and management frameworks is crucial for improving rural livelihoods and even national food security in Andean countries. At the request of the Government of Ecuador — in which at that time the indigenous movement had its political participation — a research mission was organized to formulate a proposal for institutional reform, aiming at the strengthening of the national irrigation sector. In this article, some basic mission results are outlined and analyzed within the scope of four concepts (institutional viability, political democracy, equity, and water rights security), and practical elements for institutional reform are suggested, not only for the Ecuadorian irrigation sector but also other settings. The complementary roles of central Government, local governments and water user organizations in water resources management are emphasized as is the need to strengthen enabling legal and policy frameworks. The importance of translating constitutional recognition of local and indigenous rights and common property systems into practical procedures and institutional structures is also stressed.

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

When considering water management, formal institutions tend to overshadow the local informal ones although the latter guide day-to-day interactions on water use. Conversely, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has demonstrated a bias toward the formal state-based institutions for water management. A study was carried out to examine how local water rights and local informal institutional arrangements influence water management in the Great Ruaha River catchment in the Rufiji basin in Tanzania. Participatory appraisals were carried out, supplemented by focus group discussions, interviews, and a stakeholders’ workshop. It was found that local water rights, local water rotations and local water user groups are widely in use and are more influential than the formal water rights, water fees and water user associations (WUAs). Water allocation at the driest period depends on local informal relations among irrigators. More than 70% of water users surveyed choose to settle disputes over water via informal channels and the latter are more effective in resolving water conflicts and reconciling the antagonists compared to the formal routes. It was also found that although much emphasis and many resources have been expended in transforming local water rights and water related organisations to formal registered ones, the former have remained popular and water users feel more affiliated to local arrangements. The paper concludes that local informal water management can offer the best lessons for the formal management arrangements and should not be simply overlooked. Finally, the paper recommends that the formal and informal institutions should be amalgamated to bring forth a real Integrated Water Resource Management framework.

Shale Oil and the Politics of Ambiguity and Complexity

The problem of shale oil is of specific concern to the residents of Colorado and a few policymakers in Washington, but in a larger sense it is important and instructive to every citizen. Shale has unique potential and problems, but it is far from unique in that there are many potential sources of energy, each facing an array of serious difficulties. The specific problem of underground water in the Piceance Basin belongs only to shale, but the resultant problem of ambiguity is universal. Whether they deal with shale, coal, solar, or nuclear energy, or any other possible energy source, policymakers are faced with the demand for action, yet apparently eternally lack critical information. Viewed not as individuals, but as a nation, the United States in the fall of 1983 was coping with ambiguity in shale as it was in most other energy problems-it was advancing incrementally. The Union Oil project was creeping toward operability. Occidental, manager of the Cathedral Bluffs Project, was gearing up to de-mothball its production facilities. Exxon had not abandoned the hope of someday making money at Colony, and was maintaining a skeleton crew at the site, and acquiring local water rights, pending a rise in crudemore » oil prices (73). The US Air Force had announced that it planned to convert two bases to shale-derived fuel in 1984 (68). The Synthetic Fuels Corporation was attempting to organize itself. About all that can be predicted, given the domination of the shale scene by unknowns, is that the progress of the nation in developing the resource will be slow.« less