Browsing by Author "van Koppen, Barbara"

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The dynamics between water asymmetry, inequality and heterogeneity sustaining canal institutions in the Makanya catchment, Tanzania
(IWA Publishing, 2012-10-01) Komakech, Hans; van der Zaag, Pieter; van Koppen, Barbara
It has been suggested that the collective action needed for integrated water management at larger spatial scales could be more effective and sustainable if it were built, bottom-up, on the nested arrangements by which local communities have managed their water resources at homestead, plot, village and sub-catchment levels. The up-scaling of such arrangements requires an understanding of why they emerge, how they function and how they are sustained. This paper presents a case study of local level water institutions in Bangalala village in the Makanya catchment, Tanzania. Unlike most research on collective action in which water asymmetry, inequality and heterogeneity are seen as risks to collective action, this study looked at how they dynamically interact and give rise to interdependencies between water users which facilitate coordination and collective action. The findings are confined to relatively small spatial and social scales, involving irrigators from one village. In such situations there may be inhibitions to unilateral action due to social and peer pressure. Spatial or social proximity may thus be a necessary condition for collective action in water asymmetrical situations to emerge. This points to the need for further research, namely to describe and analyse the dynamics engendered by water asymmetry, inequality and heterogeneity at larger spatial scales.
The Last Will Be First: Water Transfers from Agriculture to Cities in the Pangani River Basin, Tanzania
(Water Alternatives, 2012-10) Komakech, Hans; van der Zaag, Pieter; van Koppen, Barbara
Water transfers to growing cities in sub-Sahara Africa, as elsewhere, seem inevitable. But absolute water entitlements in basins with variable supply may seriously affect many water users in times of water scarcity. This paper is based on research conducted in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania. Using a framework drawing from a theory of water right administration and transfer, the paper describes and analyses the appropriation of water from smallholder irrigators by cities. Here, farmers have over time created flexible allocation rules that are negotiated on a seasonal basis. More recently the basin water authority has been issuing formal water use rights that are based on average water availability. But actual flows are more often than not less than average. The issuing of state-based water use rights has been motivated on grounds of achieving economic efficiency and social equity. The emerging water conflicts between farmers and cities described in this paper have been driven by the fact that domestic use by city residents has, by law, priority over other types of use. The two cities described in this paper take the lion’s share of the available water during the low-flow season, and at times over and above the permitted amounts, creating extreme water stress among the farmers. Rural communities try to defend their prior use claims through involving local leaders, prominent politicians and district and regional commissioners. Power inequality between the different actors (city authorities, basin water office, and smallholder farmers) played a critical role in the reallocation and hence the dynamics of water conflict. The paper proposes proportional allocation, whereby permitted abstractions are reduced in proportion to the expected shortfall in river flow, as an alternative by which limited water resources can be fairly allocated. The exact amounts (quantity or duration of use) by which individual user allocations are reduced would be negotiated by the users at the river level.
Pangani River Basin over time and space: On the interface of local and basin level responses
(Elsevier, 2011-09) Komakech, Hans; van Koppen, Barbara; Mahoo, Henry; van der Zaag, Pieter
As the pressure on the water resources mounts within a river basin, institutional innovation may occur not as a result of a planned sequence of adjustments, but arising out of the interplay of several factors. By focusing on the basin trajectory this paper illustrates the importance of understanding how local-level institutional arrangements interface with national-level policies and basin-wide institutions. We expand Molle's typology of basin actors responses by explicitly introducing a meso-layer which depicts the interface where State-level and local-level initiatives and responses are played out; and focus on how this interaction finds expression in the creation and modification of hydraulic property rights. We subsequently apply this perspective to the case of Pangani River Basin in Tanzania. The Pangani River Basin development trajectory did not follow a linear path and sequence of responses. Attempts by the state government to establish ‘order’ in the basin by issuing water rights, levying water fees and designing a new basin institutional set-up have so far proven problematic, and instead generated ‘noise’ at the interface. So far water resources development in the Pangani has primarily focused on blue water, and the paper shows how investments in infrastructure to control blue water have shaped the relationship between water users, and between water user groups and the State. It remains unknown, however, what the implications will be of widespread investments in improved green water use throughout the basin – not only hydrologically for the availability of blue water, but also socially for the livelihoods of the basin population, and for the evolving relationships between green and blue water users, and between them and the State. The paper concludes with a question: will green water development engender a similar double-edged material-symbolic dynamic as blue water development has. The findings of this paper demonstrate that the expanded typology of basin actors’ responses helps to better understand the present situation. Such an improved understanding is useful in analysing current and proposed interventions.