Water Policy Reform Research Articles

Effective water and sanitation policy reform implementation: need for systemic approach and stakeholder participation

This paper analyzes development trends in water and sanitation policies and strategies of donor organizations and developing countries. The review covers Finnish development assistance and recent water and sanitation sector policies of Kenya, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Donor agencies have earlier concentrated on fashionable issues that have once been considered crucial, but a holistic and systemic approach has been lacking. Integration of water and sanitation policies with other sector policies is important. Implementation of reform processes in the field has often failed, because involvement and commitment of stakeholders at all levels has been inadequate. It is essential to build the capacity of sector professionals, civil society and communities to understand, commit to and promote the new policies. Successful policy and reform implementation requires political will and facilitation, but technical, economic, environmental and social considerations are also important. The impediments to implementation are complex, and effective solutions are demanding and highly interrelated. Futuristic systems thinking and visionary approach are useful tools in dealing with the complex institutional environment and assessment of future reform impacts.

Impact on food security and rural development of transferring water out of agriculture

The competition for limited water resources between agriculture and more highly valued domestic and industrial water uses is rapidly increasing and will likely require the transfer of water out of agriculture. This paper reviews and synthesizes the available evidence of the effects of water transfers from agricultural to urban and industrial areas on local and regional rural economies; and analyzes the possible impacts of a large reallocation on global food supply and demand. It concludes with a discussion of the potential for water policy reform and demand management to minimize adverse impacts when water is reallocated from agriculture. It is argued that comprehensive reforms are required to mitigate the potentially adverse impacts of water transfers for local communities and to sustain crop yield and output growth to meet rising food demands at the global level. Key policy reforms include the establishment of secure water rights to users; the decentralization and privatization of water management functions to appropriate levels; the use of incentives including pricing reform, especially in urban contexts, and markets in tradable property rights; and the introduction of appropriate water-saving technologies.

Water policy reforms: information needs and implementation obstacles

Water policy reforms: information needs and implementation obstacles

Establishing tradable water rights: implementation of the Mexican water law

Mexico passed a new water law in 1992 that shifted from state-managed water policy to a regulated market-oriented policy with tradable water rights. Water trading will initially be closely supervised by government agencies, but the law includes a number of provisions that will allow liberalization of water markets as water users become more involved in operation and management of water and gain experience in water trading. Incentives for the Mexican water policy reforms include the growing economic value of increasingly scarce water; the rising budgetary costs from highly subsidized capital development and operations and maintenance for irrigation and water supply systems; and general liberalization of the Mexican economy, which has raised the cost of maintaining relatively inflexible water allocation systems that cannot respond to changing incentives.

National water policy: The need for institutional reform

The water policy of the United States of America has evolved over many years from an uncoordinated and often narrowly focused collection of legislative and administrative actions. Unfortunately, these elements are frequently in conflict, with the result that efforts to assure adequate water supplies for the future are ineffective. Water policy reform is urgently needed to preclude a major scale water crisis.

THEORY AND REALITY IN ALLOCATING FEDERAL RESOURCES TO WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT1

ABSTRACT: Federal spending on water resource development projects exceeds $10 billion annually. This paper examines the economic theory and practice on which the Federal water resource development plans are based. Existing theoretical and applied problems result in overinvestment. These include 1) no standard of value for the tradeoff of environmental objectives with economic objectives; 2) benefits based on “willingness to pay,” but beneficiaries pay only a fraction of a project's costs; 3) beneficiaries “shop around” among program purposes in order to reduce their commitments; and 4) benefit/cost (B/C) analyses are based on a discount rate, which is consistently below the Federal borrowing rate. Furthermore, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) frequently finds that the agency regulations are inadequate and result in inconsistent and questionable benefit computations. The President has proposed a series of water policy reforms, to reduce some of the apparent overinvestment in water resource development, but fundmental corrective action rests with the members of Congress.

The Impact of Federal Water Policy on State Planning: A Cautionary Example

Long‐term water policy reform would be more successful if the federal government accepted state water system laws and cooperated with the states to ensure that the reforms are workable and that the affected local and state agencies are involved in their planning. A review of California's experience illustrates the present potential for conflict.