Advances in Groundwater Governance

Karen G. Villholth, Elena Lopez-Gunn, Kirstin Conti, Alberto Garrido, Jac Van Der Gun, Karen G. Villholth, Elena Lopez-Gunn, Kirstin Conti, Alberto Garrido, Jac Van Der Gun

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351808408
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book addresses groundwater governance, a subject internationally recognized as crucial and topical for enhancing and safeguarding the benefits of groundwater and groundwater-dependent ecosystems to humanity, while ensuring water and food security under global change.

The multiple and complex dimensions of groundwater governance are captured in 28 chapters, written by a team of leading experts from different parts of the world and with a variety of relevant professional backgrounds. The book aims to describe the state-of-the-art and latest developments regarding each of the themes addressed, paying attention to the wide variation of conditions observed around the globe.

The book consists of four parts. The first part sets the stage by defining groundwater governance, exploring its emergence and evolution, framing it through a socio-ecological lens and describing groundwater policy and planning approaches. The second part discusses selected key aspects of groundwater governance. The third part zooms in on the increasingly important linkages between groundwater and other resources or sectors, and between local groundwater systems and phenomena or actions at the international or even global level. The fourth part, finally, presents a number of interesting case studies that illustrate contemporary practice in groundwater governance.

In one volume, this highly accessible text not only familiarizes water professionals, decision-makers and local stakeholders with groundwater governance, but also provides them with ideas and inspiration for improving groundwater governance in their own environment.

Part 1

Setting the scene

Chapter 1

Groundwater governance: rationale, definition, current state and heuristic framework

Karen G. Villholth¹ & Kirstin I. Conti^2,3

¹International Water Management Institute (IWMI), South Africa

²International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC), The Netherlands

³Governance and Inclusive Development, Amsterdam Institute of Social Sciences Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Groundwater governance has emerged as a relatively new concept in water resources discourses. This opening chapter sets the scene for the book in terms of an introduction to the concept and definition of groundwater governance, its critical and distinctive features, and the rationale for bringing groundwater governance into the equation of broader water and natural resources governance. Building on the recent global Groundwater Governance project, it takes a brief stock of empirical advances in groundwater governance, from the local to the global level. Finally, a heuristic framework for matching the inherent ISD (invisible, slow, distributed) signature of groundwater with governance tenets as a tool to embracing the concept of groundwater governance as well as its expression in practice is proposed. A key conclusion is that groundwater governance provides a comprehensive overarching framework that may accommodate and support more concerted and conscious approaches to targeted, while integrated, management of increasingly at-risk groundwater resources globally.

1.1 RATIONALE FOR GROUNDWATER GOVERNANCE

Human population growth as well as lifestyle changes or lifestyle aspirations associated with economic growth and development are increasingly exerting pressure on water resources globally through increasing water demands. With water seemingly becoming a progressively limiting factor in human development, whether physically or economically and whether directly for consumption or for indirect use via food and other water-dependent products, the need for governance support structures arises. As such, water governance has been framed as a tool to address these needs. Critically, water governance is raised as a means to overcome deficiencies in historical, more engineering and linear approaches to water management. It has also been advocated as a superior approach than the more recent paradigms of sustainable water management and integrated water resources management, which to some extent have been disqualified as too difficult to implement (Biswas & Tortajada, 2011). Water governance is seen as the necessary and effective instrument to address increasingly complex issues of ‘water scarcity’¹, which are rooted in the interphase between the resource and human relationships. Water governance is, in fact, seen as the key instrument to ensure water security for all, as well as tackling water scarcity, which is merely the result of, and expression of, poor governance in the first place, rather than a physical condition. In other words, with good water governance, which necessarily encompasses scales beyond the local, where physical water scarcity may be overriding, proper institutions as well as technologies for engineered water and water solutions², it is contended that there is enough water for all – the challenge is to properly govern the resource, its use and other related human interactions and impacts (Biswas & Tortajada, 2011). Critically, the simple ‘water scarcity’-governance nexus portrays a simplified but strong argument for a change in mind-set, from focus on the physical expression and reasons for water problems to the more human and political aspects. However, it is clear that groundwater governance needs to encompass broader issues than ‘water scarcity’, e.g. water-related environmental issues (ecosystems, land stability, conditions for and interactions with land use, use of subsurface space, mining, etc.) as well as the socio-economic aspects (lack of or inequity in access).

The rationale for specifically focusing on groundwater governance, as a subset of water governance, stems from a number of factors:

1 Groundwater, as the largest store of freshwater on earth, has been developed at unprecedented rates over the past half century – for agriculture and domestic as well as industrial use. Rates of abstraction have exceeded natural replenishment rates over extended periods in many parts of the world, and environmental signs of unsustainable use and negative socio-economic impacts are increasingly evident (Famiglietti, 2014; Foster & Chilton, 2003). In many areas, groundwater is the water resource mostly relied on, either historically (especially in arid and semi-arid regions), or progressively as surface water resources either deplete, become contaminated, or become excessively variable to satisfy never-ceasing needs. Hence, there is an urgent need to address unsustainable trends of groundwater development and use.

2 Groundwater possesses natural distinctive characteristics that inherently complicate its effective and efficient management. These relate to three factors: 1. It is, in effect, an invisible underground resource; 2. It has relatively slow flow rates, and 3. It has a distributed occurrence, with open access opportunities to all stakeholders, at least in principle³. In short, this invisible-slow-distributed (ISD) signature unique to groundwater entails that the resource is susceptible to short-sighted and unaccountable exploitation under a first-come, first-served setting as well as to contamination from various indiscriminate or uninformed land uses and waste handling practices under a reactive management setting, rather than pro-active planning and governance.

3 Groundwater has been developed under generally very favourable policy conditions, especially in agriculture, the largest user of groundwater. These policies have provided subsidies for input costs, e.g. to well installation and energy consumption and guaranteed output (e.g. crop) prices. The policies have been justified in the need to support livelihoods, ensure food security, and enhance rural and economic development, but with often intentional or unintentional consequences of elite capture⁴ and skewed access to the resource (Closas & Molle, 2016). In addition, these policies and practices have proven difficult to change, due to vested interests and political gains for strong minorities, which calls for specific governance attention.

These three factors – the reaching of critical environmental or socio-economic tipping points⁵ due to unsustainability in use, the inherent ISD-signature, and the historic path dependence, which are somewhat related – all point to the need for concerted groundwater governance. On the other hand, these complexities also explain why groundwater has not received the required attention. It is basically not simple. Global institutions normally outside the community of groundwater management are increasingly arguing for better approaches, seeing groundwater depletion as a geopolitical challenge to sustainable growth (Earth Security Group, 2016). Clearly, better understanding of these challenges and developing governance schemes to address them are needed. This is also the justification of this chapter and the book it introduces.

Recognising that groundwater is part of the larger hydrological system, it is however important to stress that groundwater governance in isolation may not prove effective. Linkages across various water sources critically determine the physical status of groundwater. Conversely, groundwater status is underpinning a vast number of terrestrial, freshwater aquatic and near-shore marine systems, which implies that finding solutions necessarily will have to involve this broader perspective (Chapter 17 in this book).

1.2 DEFINING AND CONCEPTUALIZING GROUNDWATER GOVERNANCE

1.2.1 Background, justification and approach

The term ‘governance’ has been in use since the 1600s, but has mostly been used in its current conception since the 1980s. Contemporary conceptualizations of governance capture the increasing number of interactions, organizations and activities occurring outside of centralized state government (e.g. non-governmental and civil society-based), which, in effect coordinates and adds rules and structure to society through various mechanisms such as public participation and cooperation between a wide range of actors (Bevir, 2011; Chandhoke, 2003). Since then, many forms of governance have been conceptualized to understand governance in various locations and geographic levels (e.g. global governance, EU governance, multilevel governance), of various sectors (e.g. corporate governance), of various resources (e.g. fisheries governance, forests governance, groundwater governance) as well as different modes of governance (e.g. interactive governance, network governance, adaptive governance). These forms of governance have their own bodies of literature and empirical cases, which vary in their levels of development and advancement. The purpose of this section is to discuss the concept of groundwater governance as it is currently defined, understood, and practised.

We conducted a comparative analysis of definitions related to groundwater governance found in the literature in order to understand how the concept originated and evolved over time, what its key attributes are, where it currently stands in terms of its development as well as identifying some key areas where the concept’s definition could be refined going forwards. In terms of the latter, we focused on three aspects: (1) key elements of the groundwater governance concept; (2) how groundwater governance differs from groundwater management; (3) issues of vertical and horizontal integration of these frameworks and principles within and across actors, processes and geographic levels. Finally, we will explore whether a new definition of groundwater governance is warranted.

In order to frame the analysis and understand the origin of groundwater governance, we looked at a hierarchical order of increasingly specific definitions: governance, environmental governance, water governance, and finally groundwater governance.

1.2.2 Origins of the concept: from governance to groundwater governance

1.2.2.1 Governance

As the use of the term governance began to increase through the 1980s and 1990s, the number of ways the term was defined also increased. Definitions highlight management as the central purpose of governance and positioned governance as state power e.g. “the exercise of political power to manage a nation’s affairs (World Bank, 1989:60).” However, by the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s, conceptualization of governance had shifted in three key ways:

• First, governance was now conceived as a process e.g. “the process whereby societies or organizations make their important decisions, determine who has voice, who is engaged in the process and how account is rendered” (Institute on Governance, 2006); a relationship, e.g. “changing relationships between State and society and a growing reliance on less coercive policy instruments” (Pierre and Peters, 2000:12); an interaction, e.g. “the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken, and how citizens or other stakeholders have their say. Fundamentally, it is about power, relationships and accountability: who has influence, who decides, and how decision-makers are held accountable” (Graham, 2003: ii); and/or a framework, e.g. “creating an effective political framework conducive to private economic action: stable regimes, the rule of law, efficient State administration adapted to the roles that Governments can actually perform and a strong civil society independent of the State (Hirst, 2000:14)”.

• Second, the geographic scope of governance moved beyond the national to include the international and global: “Global governance is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs” (Commission on Global Governance, 1995:4).

• Third, ‘good governance’ emerged as a spin-off concept in the governance discourse. Typically, groundwater governance was defined in accordance with the United Nation’s (UN) set of eight core tenets (in no particular order): (1) responsibility, (2) accountability, (3) transparency, (4) efficiency, (5) legitimacy, (6) participation, (7) equity and inclusiveness, and (8) rule of law (UN ESCAP, 2006). The good governance concept is primarily used in the international development community – especially, development agencies such as the World Bank and United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

By the late 2000s, framing governance in terms of centralized power or authority ...