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Abstract:
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"The land-water dynamics in the Mansagar lake governance highlight the polycentricism when observed through the presence of several recurring social-ecological events and disturbances taking place at different levels simultaneously. A normative presumption in this polycentric governance is that under certain conditions of collective action, the sustainability of the lake is improved. This presumption did two things at Mansagar, one it made the actors (organizations here) remain in the collective game through an agreement and second at the same time collectively the actors choose to caliber the very notion of sustainability of the lake. The land-water dynamics played a crucial role in the collective game of calibrating the Mansagar lake sustainability since a lake without water is a land parcel that has a direct high economic value. The improvement in the ecological performance of the lake is a matter of perception in the collective game. Similarly, the performance of the organizations in the collective action depends on the way they approached the governance and the lake sustainability problems. In this paper, we focus on the collective action situation. In other words, we present the conditions under which the collective action took place which includes, communication, vision setting, compliance, collaboration, coordination in management, conflict resolution, co-valuation, choice, control over decision making, control over implementing. The functioning of these conditions helped us understand the formal and informal rules between the organizations, first towards the consensually agreed (desired) lake improvement and second the understated land-water dynamics. The research design includes: open-ended interviews of the officials from the involved organization which were conducted to capture the collective action performance; perception survey of the local people to capture the ecological performance of the lake, and the historical and collective agreement data are analyzed to capture the change in the land-water composition of the lake. The Social-Ecological System (SES) framework developed by Elinor Ostrom (2009) is applied to document the lake ecosystem, interactions between the governing organizations and commoners and preferred outcome (value) towards sustaining the land and water of the lake. We conclude with food for thought: how do the conditions that facilitate collective action also challenges the same? What will it take to make the land-water dynamics dominated by the water, unlike the current situation? Did the collective action decision lead to the real ecological improvement of the lake or is the improvement a consensual perception of the actors? Through this study, we bring in some operational strategies in the lake governance in India pertaining to the collective action and the land-water dynamics that we believe could help the governing organizations to endure the values of urban lakes in India."
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