Session 1. 3. A.

In the 1990s several counties in California adopted policies prohibiting the export of groundwater outside the county. County policymakers’ declared rationale was protecting local water resources – and local water users – from water speculators and water marketers who might seek financial gains from moving water to other locations where it might command a higher price. Looking back at this period of local policy-making, we pursue three goals in this paper. First, we examine how these local ordinances came about and spread across the state, using the analytical tools of the IAD framework plus Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for sustained management of common-pool resources. Second, we reexamine those ordinances in light of the groundwater policy changes in California over the past ten years – the enactment of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the formation of local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies and the development of Groundwater Sustainability Plans – and assess whether and in what ways the export-restriction ordinances will aid or hinder basin-scale efforts to attain groundwater sustainability as defined in SGMA. Third, we compare the California experience with county water export bans with an effort newly underway in Indiana to block the extraction and transfer of groundwater outside a county there. The overall aim of the paper is to offer insights and analysis about the intentions and effects of these types of policies on the management of groundwater as a common-pool resource.

Conceptualising irrigation command as a socio-technical system, this research traces the change in irrigation infrastructure and water use practices in the last three decades in the command area of Nira Right Bank Canal in Sangola, Maharashtra, India. The evidence suggests that the canal command area is dynamic in nature in terms of irrigation sources, infrastructure, and water use practices. In the 1990s, after introducing borewell technology and pomegranate crop, the command witnessed a considerable shift in farming and irrigation practices. The drought-prone nature of the region, scarce and unreliable groundwater, increasing competition for groundwater use, the use of micro-irrigation, and the mismatch between canal water rotation schedules and the irrigation needs of pomegranate crop and soil texture led to the adoption of individually owned farm ponds as intermediary storage. Using pumps and a network of underground pipes connecting farm ponds, wells, and multiple farm plots, within and outside the command area, individual farmers are tapping multiple water sources and carrying water in multiple directions. Documenting the complex and dynamic nature of irrigation sources, infrastructure, and water use practices, the paper reveals the several institutional challenges associated with governing water in canal command and demands a reconceptualisation of canal command. The interdisciplinary STS approach adopted for this research facilitates examining biophysical aspects of irrigation (e.g. sources, infrastructure, soil texture, crop water requirements) and its relation to water use practices and irrigation governance.

Groundwater is a vital resource for domestic, irrigation, and industrial water supply in most countries. But it is one of the most difficult common pool resources to govern due to mobility, invisibility, conflicting interests, large numbers of stakeholders, and limitations of available institutions. While groundwater may seem like a typical example of a common pool resource, conventional solutions based on controlling extraction through regulatory sanctions or financial incentives usually fail. Framing the problem in terms tragic overexploitation or sustainable yield can leave out or misconstrue many of the complexities, dynamics, and tradeoffs of multiple uses and users, including groundwater quality and environment. Approaches emphasizing only top-down or bottom-up approaches are not so helpful for finding combinations of institutions for effective agency in governing groundwater commons.
This presentation draws from work on groundwater governance in Punjab Province, Pakistan, particularly Rahim Yar Khan District, where a recently-developed Groundwater Management Information System (GMIS) highlighted hot spots of groundwater depletion and contamination. This case illustrates how addressing wicked problems requires tailored approaches, starting with the understanding and involvement of the key actors. As a contribution towards finding comprehensive and lasting solutions, we apply a framework to identify the key actors and consider what can provide them with the knowledge, motivation, and agency to act together to address the groundwater problems. Experiences of a recently-convened multistakeholder platform for water governance in the district provide examples of the scope and limits of existing approaches, and the need for more attention to the narratives and power dynamics that might move or constrain action to address critical groundwater problems.

Supporting the sustainable management of commons in the face of rapidly evolving and complex challenges calls for systemic changes. For instance, addressing over-extraction of groundwater in India, with profound implications for food security, livelihoods, and economic development, depends in improved coordination among various stakeholders at different scales. Strengthening this coordination through governance mechanisms requires a good understanding of the factors driving individual and collective behavior. We offer a behavioral perspective to system transformation and apply it to the design of an intervention strategy for supporting sustainable water management and governance in India. The starting point was the question who needs to take which actions in order to improve groundwater management. In a second step, we inquired about what drives actors’ behavior paying special attention to their knowledge, motivation and agency. Based on this assessment, we co-designed and applied interventions in collaboration with NGOs, academic and government partners. At the local level, these interventions include groundwater monitoring and crop water budgeting, combined with experiential learning tools such as games for demand management, and supply side interventions to support water harvesting and recharge. At the regional level, we strengthened multi-actor platforms, built coalitions and developed the capacity of government, civil society and private sector actors to support groundwater governance. By combining these approaches, we aimed to influence water governance and management on a larger scale. Our experience illustrates how conceptual thinking can inform multi-method approaches which consider that sustainably improving groundwater management requires inter-linked behavioral changes of diverse actors. Our approach constitutes critical reflection and conceptualization, based on situated knowledge which contributes to designing better adapted and more powerful intervention strategies through informed arguments.

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of water pollution abatement policies in the Ganges
River, focusing on the effects of different regulatory models. It examines two distinct models: Model 1, characterized by technocratic, top-down approaches with formalized actors and institutionalized bodies, and Model 2, marked by socio-technocratic, bottom-up strategies prioritizing blended actors and institutions. The central research question explores the enabling and constraining effects of these modes on policy outcomes related to pollution abatement in the Ganges.
The article explores how institutions shape policy processes and outcomes, considering both formal and informal rules, norms, and organizational structures. Emphasis is placed on understanding the historical and social institutional contexts within which these policies operate, including the role of norms, values, and beliefs. Historical and social institutionalism serve as major theoretical frameworks for this research, examining how past decisions and critical events shape current policy outcomes.
This article also highlights two case studies analyzing cross-cutting path dependencies, whereby past decisions influence current policy outcomes, and highlights the gradual endogenous changes within the system. A mixed-methods approach is employed, combining qualitative methods such as analysis of grey literature (government reports, publications, press releases) with quantitative methods utilizing water quality monitoring data.

Water governance at the basin scale requires collaboration between a diversity of actors with very different interests. To address this challenge, water basin committees and similar groups have been promoted as the institutional arrangement to facilitate finding common ground and better governance. However, not all territories may be prepared for such an endeavor, especially if there is no previous history of collaboration, or the adequate institutional mechanisms in place. In Chile, despite the private and productively based water governance system, water basin committees have been promoted by an interministerial group for social ecological transition. Although these have not been implemented yet, learning from similar water group experiences is important to identify challenges that may require policy change. This study presents an evaluation of 7 water users’ organizations in Chile using a Context-Mechanism-Outcome approach (Carr Kelman et al., 2023). The 7 cases identified represent different geographical, historical and management capacities. The analysis shows contexts and mechanisms that may have influenced different collective action in each case. Preliminary analysis uncovers the importance of distinguishing nuances in variables that may intuitively be assessed as similar as they may plan in different ways depending on the context (e.g. users rights established by law). Understanding the mechanisms that may affect water management where water users’ organizations exist, can help preparing for territories where there is no history of collaboration.

References
Carr Kelman, C., Brady, U., Raschke, B. A. & Schoon, M. L., 2023. A Systematic Review of Key Factors of Effective Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems In: Society and Natural Resources. 36, 11, p. 1452-1470 19