Chronicle of a demise foretold: State vs. local groundwater management in Texas and the High Plains Aquifer system

Alvar Closas
International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Cairo, Egypt; a.closas@cgiar.org

François Molle
UMR G-Eau, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Univ Montpellier, France; and (at the time of the research) International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Cairo, Egypt; francois.molle@ird.fr

ABSTRACT: This paper assesses a case of co-management of groundwater between the state of Texas, pushing for the rationalisation of groundwater management, and local (mainly farming) communities organised in Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs), which are protective of their private groundwater rights. We first describe the main legal and policy steps that have shaped this relationship. The article focuses on the Texan portion of the Ogallala Aquifer in the High Plains aquifer system – an almost non-renewable system covering 90,000 km2 and providing 95% of the irrigation needs in northern Texas. With this example, we further highlight the strategies of both parties, the different political, administrative, legal and regulatory complexities of the struggle around the definition of GCD-level aquifer management rules (the so-called 'Desired Future Conditions'). We end by reflecting on the power balance that has resulted from successive adjustments to a co-management form of governance, the advantages and disadvantages of a multi-layered state water governance system, and whether the de facto 'managed depletion' of the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas should be seen as an achievement or a failure.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater governance, co-management, groundwater policy, regulation, aquifer depletion, Ogallala, Texas

Adaptive groundwater governance and the challenges of policy implementation in Idaho’s Eastern Snake Plain aquifer region

Margaret V. du Bray
Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, USA; megdubray@augustana.edu

Morey Burnham
Idaho State University, Stop, ID, USA; burnmore@isu.edu

Katrina Running
Idaho State University, Stop, ID, USA; runnkatr@isu.edu

Vicken Hillis
Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA; vickenhillis@boisestate.edu

ABSTRACT: Globally, groundwater overdraft poses significant challenges to agricultural production. As a result, it is likely that new water management policies and governance arrangements will be needed to stop groundwater depletion and maintain agricultural viability. Drawing on interviews with state and non-state water managers and other water actors, this paper provides a study of a recent resource management agreement between surface water and groundwater irrigators in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer region of Idaho. Using adaptive governance as our descriptive framework, we examine how groundwater governance arrangements emerge and are applied to mitigate the impacts of groundwater overdraft. Our findings suggest that adaptive governance, while not a stated goal of the agreement, may enable flexible and sustainable social and ecological outcomes. Our findings also indicate that this new governance arrangement creates a vacuum in enforcement authority that may prove challenging as the management agreement is implemented. These findings extend our understanding of the conditions necessary for effective adaptive governance of groundwater resources, and highlight the challenge of creating capacity for local resource managers as governance shifts from more bureaucratic to adaptive and decentralised arrangements.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater governance, adaptive governance, irrigated agriculture, US West, Idaho

The ostrich politics of groundwater development and neoliberal regulation in Mexico

Jaime Hoogesteger
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; jaime.hoogesteger@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: In this article I present the politics that spurred groundwater development in Central and Northern Mexico between 1930 and 1990, and analyse the working/effects of the neoliberal groundwater policies that were implemented in the country since the 1990s. I first present, based on an analysis of the Comarca Lagunera and the state of Guanajuato, the socio-economic, political and institutional dynamics that shaped groundwater development between 1930 and 1990, with a special focus on how with state support large commercial farmers and small ejidatarios developed groundwater irrigation. My analysis shows how the actors involved in groundwater development, just like ostriches, stuck their head in the sand, oblivious to aquifer overdraft and its environmental consequences. Then I present how – since the 1990s – neoliberal groundwater regulation policies have worked out on the ground opening the doors to regulatory capture and groundwater accumulation through capital, oblivious to sustained aquifer overdraft, a shrinking peasant ejido sector, increased rural outmigration and the health threat of toxic concentration of Fluoride and Arsenic in many groundwater dependent areas. This analysis raises serious doubts about the capacity of – often (inter)nationally lauded – neoliberally inspired groundwater policies to contribute to socio-environmental sustainability and equity.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater, water policy, water markets, water grabbing, agrarian policies, Mexico

Water grabbing via institutionalised corruption in Zacatecas, Mexico

Darcy Tetreault
Department of Development Studies, Autonomous University of Zacatecas (Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas), Mexico; email: darcytetreault@yahoo.com

Cindy McCulligh
Department of Development Studies, Autonomous University of Zacatecas (Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas), Mexico; email: cindymcculligh@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Groundwater overdraft is a growing problem in the central region of Zacatecas. In this high-altitude semiarid region located in the Western Sierra Madre of north central Mexico, the over-exploitation of aquifers is compounded by problems of water contamination and unjust distribution. Most of the water extracted from wells, and the best quality water, is delivered to the private sector: to large- and medium-scale farmers and to industrial producers of beverages. Conversely, water with concentrations of arsenic and fluoride far above permissible limits for human consumption is channelled mostly to the public urban sector. Recently, the government of the state of Zacatecas and the National Water Commission have laid plans to build a large dam on the Milpillas River to the west of the state capital, to increase the supply of water for public, urban and industrial consumption in the central region of the state. What are the political economic forces that have historically shaped and continue to shape the water crisis in the central region of Zacatecas? Why have existing water governance policies and practices been unable to effectively address the crisis? Can an interbasin transfer from the Milpillas Dam deliver on its promise to allow aquifers in this region to recover from over-exploitation? We introduce and employ the concept of institutionalised corruption to explain the modus operandi of infringement on water laws by government agencies and large water consumers and/or polluters, particularly for the purpose of accommodating the needs of extractive capital. Along these lines, we demonstrate that the Milpillas Dam will not allow aquifers to recover and argue that the driving political economic forces behind the project treat it as a vehicle for the realisation of capital through the commodification of produced water, which allows for the extraction of rent.

KEYWORDS: Institutionalised corruption, water grabbing, value grabbing, rent, Zacatecas, Mexico

A doubly invisible aquifer: Hydrogeological studies and actorsʼ strategies in the Pampa del Tamarugal Aquifer, northern Chile

Elisabeth Lictevout
Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile; and Carpe Science, San Pedro de la Paz, Chile; elisabeth.lictevout@gmail.com

Nicolas Faysse
G-Eau research unit, Cirad, Montpellier University, Montpellier, France; and Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok , Thailand; faysse@cirad.fr

ABSTRACT: In northern Chile groundwater resources are used intensively for mining activities, drinking water and agriculture. This article analyses the groundwater management in the Pampa del Tamarugal Aquifer, paying special attention to the links between (a) how information relating to groundwater resources and its uses is applied to management and (b) actors’ strategies and discourses on groundwater management. The analysis focuses on two moments: the decision to stop issuing new water rights and the short-lived experience of a regional water resources research centre. Actors never actually discussed an appropriate groundwater pumping rate and some used groundwater resources as a means of pursuing strategies that were not related to water management per se. Many called for a participatory process to allocate water for different uses, although this would entail changes to Chilean legislation. Such a process would help the Pampa del Tamarugal Aquifer become more 'visible' and could trigger genuine discussion about the status and use of groundwater resources.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater management, hydrogeological assessment, Pampa del Tamarugal, Chile

Groundwater governance: The case of the Grootfontein Aquifer at Mahikeng, South Africa

Jude Cobbing
Consulting hydrogeologist, Washington, DC, USA; jcobbing@gmail.com

Cleo Rose-Innes
Economist, Washington, DC, USA; cleoroseinnes@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This research investigates the case of the Grootfontein Aquifer at Mahikeng. The main aim is to understand why, despite well-established capacity in hydrogeology and progressive groundwater governance rules and practices, groundwater management continues to be poor, with significant deleterious outcomes now and likely in the future. A combination of hydrogeological and institutional analysis reveals a complex set of institutional issues that has inhibited the outcomes anticipated in South African water legislation. The research identifies why conditions are unfavourable for the self-organisation anticipated in the groundwater governance approach that was adopted after 1994, and why actions by specific problem-solving actors are fundamental to the success of this approach. These findings illuminate approaches to economic development that have occurred within the larger public policy context in South Africa since 1994 and find that this has implications for the wider developmental agenda and the political-economic role of the modern African state.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater governance, hydrogeology, Grootfontein Aquifer, common-pool resource, South Africa