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Institutional plasticity in river basin organizations: A review of 100 years of Spain’s Confederaciones Hidrográficas (1926-2026)

Carles Sanchis-Ibor
Centro de Investigación en Regadíos y Agrosistemas Mediterráneos (CIRAM), Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain;

Nuria Hernández-Mora
Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua, Madrid, Spain;

Lucia De Stefano
Departamento de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain;

Leandro del Moral
Departamento de Geografía Humana, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain;

ABSTRACT: River basin organisations are frequently portrayed as technically grounded and politically neutral instruments of water governance, but this framing conceals the contested social and political processes through which they are constituted and transformed. This article reviews the hundred-year trajectory of Spain’s confederaciones hidrográficas – established in 1926 and among the oldest RBOs in the world – through three analytical threads: 1) vertical governance (the central state versus peripheral regional powers), 2) horizontal governance (social participation), and 3) shifting ideological projects. Drawing on critical institutionalist and political ecology perspectives across four periods of institutional reconfiguration, the analysis shows that each one of those components has been variously interpreted, diluted, instrumentalised, or contested across radically different political regimes. Crucially, while the first three periods were organised around the hydraulic mission as a shared political project, the fourth reorients the confederaciones hidrográficas towards the European Union’s Water Framework Directive. This illustrates a decoupling between an institution’s continuity and its political purpose. Meanwhile, social participation has oscillated between irrigation associations having genuine autonomy, their authoritarian subordination, and procedural formalism that achieves no substantive redistribution of decision-making power to a broader range of social actors. Basin unity, though technically legitimised, has been persistently contested by provincial, regional, and sectoral interests. The centralisation-decentralisation balance has proven no less volatile, reflecting broader disputes over territorial organisation rather than water-related governance needs. These findings challenge the narrative of the confederaciones hidrográficas as a pioneering and exemplary model and contribute to debates on the institutional plasticity of river basin organisations – understood as their capacity to accommodate divergent political projects while preserving formal institutional continuity. Ultimately, they underscore that the performance of basin organisations cannot be understood in isolation from the historically specific power configurations and hydro-social conflicts in which they are embedded. These socio-political relations must be rendered visible, and governance arrangements must not only incorporate broader participation but actively challenge entrenched power asymmetries.

KEYWORDS: River basin organisations, water governance, water management, social participation, basin unity, hydrographic confederations, Spain