Common Property Water Resources

Property rights on water, largely a common property resource, are very crucial in inducing collective action for management and conservation. State support to community action, both technical and financial, appears to be the prerequisite to affirmative actions in harnessing and managing water resources at the village level in India. These are two important messages coming out of this research study. It also adds to the evidence that landless labourers and marginal farmers in India depend in a major way on common resources for their traditional livelihood activities and domestic uses. A significant revelation is the emerging undercurrent of competition between big and small farmers over the use of such resources and the apparent exclusion of social minorities, landless, and women in their management. The discussions on water markets and the unique state-specific case studies reflect that 'necessity and scarcity' induce people to organize themselves for creating greater availability of common water resources and sharing the benefits more equitably.

In International Investment Law and Water Resources Management, Daza-Clark offers an appraisal of indirect expropriation, including an analysis of the doctrine of police power.

The purpose of this report is to produce a review on water resource valuation issues and techniques specifically for the appraisal and negotiation of raw (as opposed to bulk or retail) water resource allocation for agricultural development projects. The review considers raw water in naturally occurring watercourses, lakes, wetlands, soil and aquifers, taking an ecosystem function perspective at a catchment scale, and takes account of the demands from irrigated and rainfed agriculture. It is hoped that the review will have particular application to developing countries where agreed methods for reconciling competing uses are often absent, but nevertheless takes account of valuation approaches that have been made in post industrial economies.

This report is based on the results of an action research program in pakistan conducted by the International Water Managament Institute (IWMI). An analysis of empirical data is presented in the light of existing theoretical kmowledge on collective action for natural resources management. the report also highlights the current constraints associated with a wider application of some of these findings, which reflect the difficulties in pursuing large-scale institutional reforms in the rural sector of developing coutries. finally, the report raises some key research issues that need to be explored further.

The fifteen chapters of this book analyse the living community-based water laws in Africa, Latin America and Asia and critically examine the interface between community-based water laws, formal water laws and a variety of other key institutional ingredients of on-going water resources management reform.

This book addresses the major challenges in assuring globally sustainable water use. It examines critical contemporary and global issues through the lens of global change processes and with a focus on mountain regions. In doing so, it aims to bring state-of-the-art science from numerous disciplines to bear on important environmental and policy questions related to water resources. The volume will be a boon to a range of readers, from environmental scientists to hydrologists.