William Blomquist

Political Pitfalls of Integrated Watershed Management

ABSTRACT Integrated watershed management, preferably under the direction of a watershed or basin management body, has been prescribed in the water policy literature and from other quarters for decades. Few instances may be found where this recommendation has been implemented. This gap between prescription and practice is sometimes attributed to politics, as a sort of nuisance to be overcome or avoided through rational, comprehensive, consensus-based decision making. Fundamental political considerations are inherent in water resources management, however, and are unavoidable even if the desire for watershed-scale decision-making bodies were realized. Boundary definition, choices about decision-making arrangements, and issues of accountability will arise in any watershed and may help to explain why watershed management has more often taken polycentric organizational forms composed of subwatershed communities of interest. An example of a small Southern California watershed is used to highlight the political issues inherent in attempts at watershed management.

Integrated River Basin Management through Decentralization

1. River basin management at the lowest appropriate level: When and why does it (not) work in pracitave? - 2. Comparative analysis of case studies.- 3. Determinants of river basin management decentralization: Motivation, process, and performance.- 4. Australia: Murray-Darling basin.- 5. Brazil: Alton Tiete basin.- 6. Brazil: Jaguaribe basin.- 7. Canada: Fraser basin.- 8. Costa Rica: Tarcoles basin.- 9. Indonesia: Brantas basin.- 10. Poland: Warta basin.- 11. Spain: Guadalquivir basin.- 12. River basin management: Conclusions and implications.

Comparison of Institutional Arrangements for River Basin Management in Eight Basins

This study represents an effort toward understanding conditions that affect successful or unsuccessful efforts to devolve water resource management to the river basin level and secure active stakeholder involvement. A theoretical framework is used to identify potentially important variables related to the likelihood of success. Using a comparative case-study approach, the study examined river basins where organizations have been developed at the basin scale and where organizations perform management functions such as planning, allocation, and pricing of water supplies, flood prevention and response, and water quality monitoring and improvement. This paper compares the alternative approaches to basin governance and management adopted in the following river basins: the Alto-Tiete and Jaguaribe River Basins, Brazil; the Brantas River Basin, East Java, Indonesia; the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, Canada; the Guadalquivir Basin, Spain; the Murray-Darling River Basin, Australia; the Tarcoles River Basin, Costa Rica; and the Warta River Basin, Poland. The analysis focuses on how management has been organized and pursued in each case in light of its specific geographical, historical, and organizational contexts and the evolution of institutional arrangements. The cases are also compared and assessed for their observed degrees of success in achieving improved stakeholder participation and integrated water resources management.

A Framework for Institutional Analysis of Decentralization Reforms in Natural Resource Management

Reforms directed toward decentralizing the management of natural resources are intended to increase stakeholder involvement and improve the effectiveness and sustainability of resource management arrangements though application of the principle of subsidiarity. The widespread advocacy of such reforms has given rise to numerous case-study examples around the world. This article presents a framework for such studies, based in institutional analysis, for researchers who wish to assess both the decentralization process and the outcomes of decentralization efforts. Rationale for the inclusion of variables and hypothesized relationships of variables to prospective outcomes are explained.

Boundaries seen and unseen Resolving Transboundary Groundwater Problems

Abstract International groundwater problems represent a distinct and important category of transboundary groundwater problems, but not all transboundary groundwaters are international. This paper considers transboundary groundwater problems in both intranational and international settings. First, difficulties attending the resolution of transboundary groundwater problems are identified, with intranational and international setting compared as general categories. Second, a set of intranational transboundary groundwater problems in the U.S. setting of southern California is compared with the analysis and recommendations that have emerged in the literature of recent decades on international transboundary groundwaters. The purpose of these comparisons of intranational with international transboundary groundwater problems is to more fully identify and understand what is, and is not, special about the challenges of resolving international groundwater problems. While international transboundary problems require the involvement (and in many instances the development) of different institutional arrangements, there are sound reasons to believe that in both international and intranational settings, the processes by which problem resolution is achieved may be more important than the content of the resolution.

Multi-level Governance and Natural Resource Management: The Challenges of Complexity, Diversity, and Uncertainty

Most human-environment interactions with regard to any natural resource occur on multiple scales. Furthermore, the “human” aspect of humanenvironment interactions always involves multiple communities of interest and identity, and the “environment” aspect always involves multiple dimensions, uses, and values of any natural resource. These facts pose a significant challenge in the design of institutions to aid in the sustainable management of those humanenvironment interactions. Literature addressing that challenge spreads across several disciplines, including resource economics, ecology, law, and political science. Any quest for the “right” scale of resource management institutions may end up being unsuccessful, but this does not mean there is no difference among institutional alternatives. Some arrangements offer more favorable conditions than others for information collection, deliberation, learning, and adaptation. This chapter provides arguments in support of the conclusion that polycentric arrangements operating (albeit imperfectly) in a number of settings improve human beings’ prospects for handling the challenges of complexity, diversity, and uncertainty and, therefore, enhance the possibilities for human societies to organize and maintain more nearly sustainable management of natural resources.

Decentralization of river basin management : a global analysis

Decentralization and increased stakeholder involvement have been major elements of water sector reform as ways to promote sustainable and integrated resource management particularly of river basins. Based on an analytical framework for relating decentralization and stakeholder involvement to improved river basin management, this paper infers several hypotheses about factors associated with greater or lesser likelihood of success of the decentralization process using data from 83 river basins worldwide. The results suggest that physical, political, economic, financial, and institutional characteristics of the basin do affect the process and the level of performance of the decentralization. In particular, the presence of water scarcity may be a stimulus to reform, uniting the stakeholders in the basin and leading to better performance; organized user groups push for the initiation of decentralization reforms but may be associated with costs to the process and difficulty of achieving decentralization; the existence of dispute resolution mechanisms supports stakeholder involvement and improves decentralization performance; where stakeholders accepted greater financial responsibility, complying with tariffs and contributing to the budget for basin management, the decentralization process and performance measures increased; basins with higher percentages of their budgets from external governmental sources benefited from better stability and support and it shows in the performance of the decentralization process.

River Basin Management at the Lowest Appropriate Level: When and Why Does It (Not) Work in Practice?

When the research project that has led to the material and analysis presented in this book started, a great deal of investigation had been carried out into the application of the four so-called Dublin Principles of 1992 (ICWE 1992). These are frequently quoted in the water literature and have been guiding much of the thinking about water resource management in the past one and a half decades. Most discussion, however, has taken place around three of the Dublin Principles: those related to water as an economic good, the role of women in provision and management of water, and the need for integrated water resource management. Interestingly, the fourth principle, which concerns river basin management at the lowest appropriate level, was also being promoted and applied, but it was more or less taken for granted that it was a desirable practice, with little enquiry into whether it really worked and what the outcomes of its application were. These questions are, of course, vital for policymakers and water users throughout the world, especially in light of the number of river basin management efforts that are under way in the 21st century. Governments in several countries, multilateral financing agencies such as the World Bank, and other institutions such as the Global Water Partnership promote river basin organizations as a means of advancing river basin management at the lowest appropriate level. Accordingly, a study was carried out to consider those questions in a systematic way; this book presents the outcomes of the investigations into this issue.

Comparative Analysis of Case Studies

As noted in Chap. 1, this study of decentralized river basin management posed several questions. What factors might affect the likelihood of stakeholder involvement really contributing to effective basin-level resource management? Are efforts to conduct integrated water resource management at the basin level able to succeed? How can stakeholder involvement and effective resource management at the basin level be sustained over time and changing conditions? What factors might account for the longevity of decentralized arrangements in some cases and their demise in others? The eight river basin case studies were undertaken to pursue answers to questions such as these. This chapter discusses the eight cases with respect to those questions, while highlighting other factors that emerged as important during the course of the study.

Institutional and policy analysis of river basin management: the Gudalquivir River Basin, Spain

The authors describe and analyze river basin management in the Guadalquivir River Basin in Spain. The Guadalquivir river flows westerly across southern Spain, with nearly all of its 57,017 km2 drainage area within the region of Andalusia. Water management issues in this semi-arid, heavily agricultural, but rapidly urbanizing region include drought exposure, water allocation, water quality, and in some areas, groundwater overdraft. A river basin agency (Confederacion Hidrografica del Guadalquivir, or CH Guadalquivir) has existed within the basin since 1927, but its responsibilities have changed substantially over its history. For much of its life, CH Guadalquivirs mission was water supply augmentation through construction and operation of reservoirs, primarily to support irrigation, under central government direction with little provision for water user participation. Following the Spanish political systems transformation and Spains accession to the European Union, water law and policy changes greatly expanded CH Guadalquivirs responsibilities and restructured it to incorporate representation of some basin stakeholders. Although the basin agencys accomplishments in reservoir construction have been prodigious, its record of performance with respect to its newer responsibilities has been mixed, as have perceptions of its openness and responsiveness to basin interests other than irrigators.