Water Policy Reform Research Articles

Role of China's agricultural water policy reforms and production technology heterogeneity on agriculture water usage efficiency and total factor productivity change

Role of China's agricultural water policy reforms and production technology heterogeneity on agriculture water usage efficiency and total factor productivity change

A Polanyian Perspective on the Conflict Between Neoliberal Economics and Countrymindedness in Australian Drought and Water Policy

This article evaluates the successes and failures of Australian drought and water policy reforms. By analysing the influence of the ideas central to neoliberal economics and countrymindedness on the development and implementation of the National Drought Policy and the Murray Darling Basin Plan, we illustrate that drought and water policy reforms in Australia can be explained in the context of Karl Polanyi's double movement theory. We demonstrate that founding Australia's agricultural policy on economic assumptions is unlikely to be well‐received in a nation that exhibits widespread sympathy for the plight of agricultural producers. As such, we postulate that neoliberal agricultural policies that ignore the relevant social and historical context will be unpopular and vulnerable to a countermovement that undermines the intent and hinders the implementation of the policy.

Remunicipalisation of water services in Europe. Comparative study of the Neapolitan and Parisian cases

Abstract After the politicisation of urban water services governance, over a hundred European cities have implemented water services remunicipalisation reforms inspired by the theory of water management as a common. This paper aims to answer questions about the contextual variables that impact the water utility governance processes and the factors that determine the policy-makers' choices. In particular, the work reconstructs the water remunicipalisation reforms of Paris (2009) and Naples (2011) with the Process-Tracing method, compares them, evaluates their outcomes and formulates previsions about their continuance. We base the analysis on qualitative data collected by documentary investigations and 27 in-depth interviews with protagonists of the remunicipalisation processes. Despite implementing the same management model, the water remunicipalisation has produced profoundly different governance processes and outcomes. The Parisian remunicipalisation was quick, efficient, almost conflict-free, and produced a slight implementation gap, whereas the Neapolitan one was long, complex, highly conflictual and generated a substantial implementation gap. Contextual variables and actors’ behaviour are essential in explaining water policy reform outcomes. The protagonists of analysed reforms have taken decisions based on opportunities and limits defined by their local contexts and the relational systems in which they are historically embedded.

Water policy reform in the Nigeria water governance system: assessment of water resources management based on OECD Principles on Water Governance

Abstract Conflicts of interest due to cultural, political, and social oversights have threatened effective and efficient corporate water governance in Nigeria. This has affected the inclusive participation of stakeholders, policy makers and the relevant agencies of the water resources management, thus hampering good water governance. Assessing the water governance impacts based on frameworks proposed for effective, efficient and inclusive governance was aimed. Information contributing to the governance input was highlighted by analyzing hydrological units that characterized Nigerian watersheds. Toxicological index (Ti) values were presented as a practical guideline to assessing water policy outcomes. The (Ti) ≥ 1.0 dominated; signifying the water resources exposed to toxic environments. High pollutant loads associated with public health deterioration across Nigeria are considered as impacts indicating lagged water governance. While the lagged governance output manifested in some diseases relating to deficient access to potable water supply/poor sanitation services like Blue Baby syndrome, Renal/liver/lung diseases and blood cancer, the outcome showed an absence of health and social wellbeing. These indicators demonstrate the need for incorporating Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles on Water Governance in the Nigerian water governance system. Notably, flexibility across all governance levels can enable shared responsibility to balance economic activities and the ecological wellbeing.

We Have Plenty of Water, Don’t We? Social Norms, Practices, and Contentions in a Drought-Ridden Country

Climate and land use change pose global challenges to water policy and management. This article furthers calls for integrated research conceptualizing water management as a holistic, interdependent system that may benefit from sociological research. To better understand how socioenvironmental change affects lifestyle expectations and experiences, interviews with in-migrants (relocated to inland Australia from metropolitan cities), industry and government informants are thematically analyzed. Results show in-migrants engage in adaptive water management and conservation strategies to enhance water security, yet call for council provision of water management education to minimize vulnerability. Industry informants perceive few water supply or pollution issues, favoring technological solutions to support unfettered growth and water amenities, while de-prioritizing environmental sustainability goals. Government priorities reflect drought narratives in Australian water policy reform and show concern about meeting consumer water supply and preserving water quality. With predictions of greater weather severity, including flooding, and in-migrants’ difficulty managing heavy rainfall, national legislation and policy modifications are necessary. Specifically, normalizing climate variability in policy and social identities is desirable. Finally, practices prioritizing water scarcity and trading management over environmental protection indicate a need to surpass environmental commodification by depoliticizing water management.

Rethinking water policy reforms

Irrigation and DrainageVolume 69, Issue 4 p. 967-970 ICID Rethinking water policy reforms Ashwin B. Pandya, Ashwin B. Pandya International Commission on Irrigation and DrainageSearch for more papers by this authorShreshta Sharma, Shreshta Sharma International Commission on Irrigation and DrainageSearch for more papers by this author Ashwin B. Pandya, Ashwin B. Pandya International Commission on Irrigation and DrainageSearch for more papers by this authorShreshta Sharma, Shreshta Sharma International Commission on Irrigation and DrainageSearch for more papers by this author First published: 08 October 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/ird.2531Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume69, Issue4October 2020Pages 967-970 RelatedInformation

Environmental politics and policy adaptation in China: the case of water sector reform

AbstractMuch of the literature on China's successful adaptation to the policy challenges posed by economic development credits two principle approaches, gradualism and local experimentation. However, the extent to which these approaches aid policy adaptation to environmental policy challenges is less well explored. This article examines how these approaches have shaped policy adaptation in water resources management by presenting data on ambitious water policy reforms that are, to our knowledge, new to the English-language scholarly literature. While gradualism and local experimentation have aided in the adoption of economic mechanisms like water pricing reform and water rights trading to regulate water use, institutional reforms have been undermined by an over-reliance on central control and direction. This phenomenon, which we call hierarchy, constrains China's ability to address diffuse, inter-jurisdictional and multi-sectoral water management challenges like nonpoint source pollution, and may inhibit its ability to address similarly complex sustainable development challenges into the future.

Agenda Setting in Water and IWRM: Discourse Analysis of Water Policy Debate in Pakistan

This article explores the water policy narrative in Pakistan, and identifies its historical trajectories and influences, as well as the impact of the global agenda setting of water for 2030. For this purpose, water sector reforms in Pakistan are examined as a case study. The National Water Policy (NWP) 2018 and Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) reforms are critically evaluated and loopholes identified, in terms of both theoretical aspects and constraints in their practical implementation. The overall analysis reveals that the engineering narrative is dominant in policy circles and large-scale infrastructure construction is seen as an exceptional measure to overcome the current loss of storage potential due to sedimentation. On the other hand, the adoption of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) framework reflects the desire of state institutions to imbue water policy reform with international credibility. The IWRM framework has been adopted as isomorphic mimicry to appease international financing institutions and donors. PIM reform is thus far from delivering the desired results due to ideological battles among new (i.e., the Participatory Farmers Institution) and traditional bureaucratic irrigation institutions. As adopted, the global agenda setting of water, in the shape of IWRM, is a repackaging of existing activities, and prevents alternative thinking in the setting of water priorities according to developmental needs.

Australian water policy reform: lessons learned and potential transferability

ABSTRACTThis article sharpens consideration of aspects of policy transfer to address climate change and gives greater attention to the context that might support efficient adaptive resilience. Using the example of Australian reforms to water policy, we evaluate how different elements of policy proved more (less) successful in facilitating efficient adaptation to climate variability and thus expose elements that might be more (less) attractive as candidates for policy transfer. Overall, we find that Australian policy reforms in the water sector provide useful guidance in some instances and not others. Establishing caps on extraction, flexible water markets and individual carry over rights generally facilitated flexible and efficient adaptation, and could be transferred. Related policy concepts, like formulating clear water planning rules and entitlements, are worth considering for implementation elsewhere, even if the groundwork on governance is a prerequisite. We also note the importance of shaping drought responses from government in such a way as not to distort the incentives for individual adaptation, and there is some evidence of this working in the Australian setting. Achieving transferability of these policies, however, may be a challenge. Australian policies around ‘hard infrastructure’ investments have generally proved less desirable and ideally should not be considered as a roadmap. These relate specifically to: (1) extravagant augmentation of urban supply; (2) using infrastructure to supposedly improve irrigation efficiency for environmental water provision; and (3) governments’ infrastructure responses after flooding. None of these approaches is consistent with the aim of fostering adaptation to a more variable climatic future.Key policy insightsAustralian water policies that have focussed on capping water extractions, development of flexible markets and specifying rights to allow greater flexibility have generally worked well against a changing climate, and could be transferred.The development of clear planning rules and entitlements also proved important, although the conditions to favour transfer are difficult to engender.Policies dealing with hard physical infrastructure have proven problematic and their adoption elsewhere is discouraged, even if transfer is more amenable.Encouraging more individual adaptation to flooding is a particularly significant challenge, even in a country renowned for drought.

Adaptive policy implementation: Process and impact of Indonesia’s national irrigation reform 1999–2018

Abstract After two decades of implementation, Indonesia’s program to reform its irrigation sector can be assessed yielding lessons on water policy reform. This reform coincided with state-wide decentralization, and shifted decision-making from a central ministry to a distributed arrangement in which local governments and Water User Associations assume part of irrigation authority and budget. The policy was formulated with different stakeholders in 1999–2004 based on field pilots and was implemented using an adaptive, sequential approach while developing institutional capacity of local governments and farmers. Relatively coherent longitudinal monitoring data sets are available on field-level practices, economic returns on projects (with and without, and before and after reform), and rice production. Institutional development was monitored by performance indicators. The overall reform effectiveness is assessed by analyzing the appropriateness of the new arrangement, and the processes of the policy design and of its implementation. After two decades well over three quarters of the country is applying the policy albeit with varying quality. At field level water supply and allocation turned more reliable, and conflicts better managed. Rice production increased year over year after 2005 correlating with policy roll-out. Irrigation Departments proved less adequate in partnering with farmers, however. Institutional capacity generated one quarter to two thirds of the economic benefit from investments that combined scheme rehabilitation and institutional capacity development. As institutional capacity develops slowly full roll-out may require up to three decades. The analysis shows that in the context of ‘wicked’ policy implementation, not only normative policy design matters, but equally importantly, the sequencing of the process of implementation allowing adaptation to physical, institutional and political realities; still, to be successful a process must build on a credible realistic ‘model’. This is especially true in developing and emerging economies with weaker institutional capacities and more fragmented governance structures.

Making agro-export entrepreneurs out of Campesinos: the role of water policy reform, agricultural development initiatives, and the specter of climate change in reshaping agricultural systems in Piura, Peru

To increase agricultural exports across the Global South, countries are seeking to transform agrarian landscapes and the nature of campesino or smallholder agriculture. These agricultural reforms, however, do not exist in isolation. They work in conjunction with water policy reform to reshape agricultural systems and the people who manage these landscapes. While there has been significant research on agrarian change under neoliberal reform, few scholars have conducted empirical studies that examine how agricultural policy leverages water policy reform to generate changes across agricultural landscapes. Drawing on the case study of the Piura River basin in Northern Peru, this paper first explores how the IWRM inspired 2009 Water Resources Law furthers the state's agricultural development priorities by shifting water toward agro-export production. Secondly, this study demonstrates how climate change is being discursively mobilized as an emerging driver of water scarcity to legitimize these water reallocations. Thirdly, this case highlights how these water reallocations work in concert with the reinstatement of targeted agricultural support programs that seek to transform smallholder farmers into “agro-export entrepreneurs” but with meaningful exclusions. This study contributes to the limited scholarship on the 2009 Water Resources Law in Peru and also raises broader questions regarding how IWRM water management, climate change adaptation discourse, and agricultural development policy collectively promote the globalization of smallholder agriculture.

Book Review: "Towards Tradable Water Rights: Water Law and Policy Reform in China"

Book Review: "Towards Tradable Water Rights: Water Law and Policy Reform in China"

How does the discourse surrounding the Murray Darling Basin manage the concept of entitlement to water?

Globally, the challenges of climate change have resulted in significant water policy reform. Australia’s Murray Darling Basin (MDB) Plan is a complex transboundary water management system that aims to balance the need for environmental protection with the needs of social and economic users of water. In July 2017, media reports argued that some MDB irrigators were misappropriating water destined for the environment and downstream users. This article uses Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore this flashpoint in the long-standing tensions between all stakeholders including the Basin jurisdictions. Diverse understandings of who is entitled to water that are shaped by the historical, political and social context are central to this conflict. Findings suggest that both neoliberal governmentality and the agrarian discourse are threatened by an emerging governmentality that embraces non-farming interests. The broader experience of water scarcity in a rapidly changing climate suggests comparable issues will become evident across the world.

The role of governance modes and meta-governance in the transformation towards sustainable water governance

For several decades, water policy reform and the design of governance systems were dominated by simplistic panaceas. This was accompanied by changing preferences for specific types of policy instruments and modes of steering. Such dominance has given way to a more nuanced understanding of requirements for sustainable and integrated water governance capable of addressing the challenges of global and climate change. This paper focusses on the role of governance modes and on meta-governance. Governance mode refers to a certain logic and form through which governance can be realized. The paper uses the distinction between bureaucratic hierarchies, networks and markets to denote different modes of governance. It argues that hybrid governance systems with synergistic interplay between these different governance modes are essential for dealing with complex water management challenges. Furthermore, it argues that the development of such governance systems requires a combination of purposeful design and self-organization. An exploratory comparative analysis of water governance in Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, China and South Africa illustrates the validity and relevance of the conceptual considerations. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for meta-governance as a reflexive process of societal learning to develop, evaluate and adapt governance approaches with the purpose of addressing complex societal challenge.

Designing effective water policy: capacity and effectiveness of reforms in developing countries

ABSTRACTDesigning effective water policy in developing countries is challenging for many reasons, including limited capacity to formulate and implement policy. This paper examines major water policy reforms in two exemplary cases, Malaysia and the Metro Manila region of the Philippines, considering the quality of regulatory design and how this relates to policy capacity. The paper identifies ways in which policy design can anticipate challenges associated with capacity limitations.

Interest group perceptions on water policy reforms: insight from a water-stressed basin

Abstract Water policies have been implemented worldwide to face water stress. However, the existence of water users' groups with opposite interests and different political power results in the plain failure or low effectiveness of water policy reforms. A better understanding of users' perceptions regarding policy outcomes is important to avoid the failure of water policies and the intensification of water conflicts. This paper empirically examines the divergent perception of interest groups on the implementation of different policies dealing with water scarcity and their proactive involvement with water agencies. We have conducted a survey in the Jucar River Basin (a water-stressed basin in southeastern Spain) to analyze interest group opinions regarding water policy effectiveness and water institutions' performance in water management. Questionnaires were sent to the main irrigation districts and urban water utilities within the basin. The collected information gives a general picture of the behavior of opposite water interest groups in this basin. The analysis of the perceptions on water policy reform between the groups highlights the existence of significant differences between preferred measures to address water scarcity and lobbying capacity. These differences depend on the size of the group, the specific basin location, and other group characteristics.

Urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa: historical and emerging policies and institutional arrangements

This article synthesizes the literature on historical and emerging institutional arrangements for urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa to highlight successes, drawbacks, and opportunities for improving future water access. It traces the influence of decades-long global water initiatives on urban water-policy reforms in the region and reviews evidence on emerging community self-help and partnership models. Finally, it discusses the merits, targets and potential of Sustainable Development Goal 6 to improve urban water access in the region. The findings suggest that improving urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa requires innovative governance and institutional arrangements that blend the strengths of public, private and community-based water supply models.

Managing land-use effects on Northland dune lakes: lessons from the past

ABSTRACTThe Northland region of New Zealand includes numerous high-value, macrophyte-dominated dune lakes. Recent water policy reforms offer limited guidance on managing for aquatic macrophytes. In addition, dune lake histories are poorly known as regular monitoring dates to 2005 AD. Here, ca. 4000 years of lake functional behaviour is reconstructed from sedimentary archives in two Northland dune lakes (Humuhumu and Rotokawau). Results demonstrated that macrophyte dominance is sensitive to catchment erosion and hydrological drawdown. Degradation of macrophyte communities occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, earlier at Lake Humuhumu than Lake Rotokawau (post-1880 AD and post-1930 AD, respectively). In both lakes, increased erosional influx reduced macrophyte productivity, before later increases to wider trophic state (post-1970 AD). Lake-level decline is linked to increased nutrient loading at Lake Rotokawau but less so, Lake Humuhumu which is more strongly groundwater-fed. In Northland dune lakes, water-level reduction and erosional influx from land use have driven macrophyte degradation.

Evolving Governance and Contested Water Reforms in Australia’s Murray Darling Basin

This paper explores the ways water governance adapts to changing social values and political imperatives by examining the case of water policy reforms in Australia’s Murray Darling Basin. Over more than two decades, Australia’s water reforms have explicitly aimed to promote ecological sustainability and economic efficiency, attempting to balance pro-market, micro-economic reforms with broader social and sustainability goals. Despite the formality of Australia’s intergovernmental agreements, water reforms have been expensive and heavily contested, experiencing many implementation challenges. However, water market reforms have generally been regarded as successful, enabling the reallocation of water for environmental and extractive uses, contributing to flexibility and adaptive capacity. Recognising that discursive contestation is central to policy development, the paper documents the way the reform processes have attempted to broker compromises between three competing policy paradigms—national development, economic rationalism and environmentalism. These inherent tensions resulted in prolonged contests for influence over policy directions long after formal statements of policy intent by Governments. Given that climate change is driving the need for water governance reforms, the paper looks to what lessons can be learnt about the redesigns of meta-governance arrangements, including through structured commitments to independent audits and evaluations that can provide the feedback needed for adaptive governance and policy learning.

Agricultural water policy reforms in China: a representative look at Zhangye City, Gansu Province, China

Water resources are essential for agricultural production in the grain-producing region of China, and water shortage could significantly affect the production and international trade of agricultural products. China is placing effort in new policies to effectively respond to changes in water resources due to changes in land use/land cover as well as climatic variations. This research investigates the changes in land, water, and the awareness of farmer vis-à-vis the implementation of water-saving policies in Zhangye City, an experimental site for pilot programs of water resources management in China. This research indicates that the water saved through water-saving programs and changes in cropping structure (2.2 × 108 m3 a−1) is perhaps lower than the newly increased water withdrawal through corporate-led land reclamation (3.7 × 108 m3 a−1). Most critically, the groundwater withdrawal has increased. In addition, our survey suggests that local government is facing a dilemma of water conservation and agricultural development. Therefore, the enforcement of the ban on farmland reclamation and irrigation water quotas in our study area is revealed to be relatively loose. In this vein, the engagement of local stakeholders in water governance is essential for the future sustainable management of water resources.