Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
It is invisible - there is always an information problem between users; who is using
what and how much is left?
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Depending on the local hydrogeology, extraction by one user will often affect
groundwater availability for other users.
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Depending on the depth of the water bearing strata, groundwater can be accessed
individually or in relatively small groups.
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It is most commonly perceived by the users as 'local' - which contributes to a ten-
dency of local water managers to elude central regulation or control and therefore
stimulates local autonomy in management and governance while the effects of the
local management might not be in agreement with regional or national objectives.
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The locality of the resource makes it difficult to create awareness of the effects of
groundwater use on other users of the same reservoir.
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Groundwater can be replenished through natural and manmade recharge, making
it a renewable resource in principle.
Hardin (1968) introduced the idea of the tragedy of the commons, focusing on how
the commons will suffer from overuse by individual users in the absence of property
rights. It is interesting to note that later research on the management of the “com-
mons'' has provided more insight into the mechanisms that cause the tragedy and,
more importantly, mechanisms that can prevent it (Ostrom 1999; Ostrom et al. 1999;
Dietz et al. 2003). Properly stimulating and rewarding co-operators and frustrating
and penalising free-riders can create enough internal authority to compensate for the
intrinsic weakness of external authorities (Vollan and Ostrom 2010). A closer analysis
of these external authorities is still needed as it provides more understanding of the
underlying causes of conflict and provides opportunities to generate alternative solu-
tions. The role of politics is very important in this respect as this domain has the power
to either obstruct or facilitate the development of the resource.
In general, it might be helpful to compare nature with a factory that uses renewable
and depletable natural assets (Collier 2010; Low 2010), and include the interac-
tion between the human system and ecosystems by analysing the ecosystem services
(Costanza et al. 1997). Groundwater can be both types of assets, renewable or non-
renewable. If groundwater management fails, the resource can turn into lost assets.
The use of groundwater is expected to increase and therefore the challenge of safe-
guarding a good balance between the role of groundwater in the short and long term
interest of the human system and the ecosystem becomes larger. The resource is valu-
able in classical economic terms as well, in large part because we let our access to and
dependency on the resource be determined by the market. If the dependency dwindles,
the cost lowers. In the case of water, however, it is more likely that we become more
dependent on it as our economies develop. This is due to the fact that economies need
water to thrive, especially emerging economies, and good water will become scarce as
dependency, use and pollution increase. Moreover, societies become more dependent
on water when water and other governance regimes, which are resilience factors that
aim at proper management of commons, are weak or even absent.
A governance regime is the set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules
and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge (Krasner
1983). Governance regimes can differ greatly, reflecting the resource differences in
quality, quantity and the number of actors and governance levels involved. The sets of
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