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Conference Paper Impacts of Management Turnover in Two Irrigation Districts in Colombia(1996) Vermillion, Douglas L.; Garces-Restrepo, Carlos"This paper assesses the impacts of the transfer of management for two irrigation districts in Colombia from a government agency to farmer water users associations. Changes in governance and management roles, responsibility and rights are defined and related to incentives of the water users to achieve certain performance objectives. Since the transfer in 1976, the financial viability of the districts has improved primarily through increased water charges, sideline revenues and reductions in staff. Farmer-elected boards revised operational procedures and cropping patterns, which supported an enlargement of service area with the same water. A complete inventory of canals and structures documented that the schemes have been reasonably well maintained by the districts. Gross value of agricultural output has risen well ahead of inflation. The total cost of irrigation has declined relative to both cost of production and gross value of output. The paper also presents survey data on perspectives of farmers, irrigation staff and agency officials."Conference Paper Voices from Below and from Within: Institutions and Resource Management in Coastal Ghana(1997) Soeftestad, Lars T."With reference to resource management, the two interrelated issues of tenurial arrangements and the social organization of production are of overriding importance. It is crucial to understand these issues in detail in connection with implementing work along the lines of both poverty alleviation and sustainable development. The call for sustainability is useful specifically in that it emphasizes close scrutiny of the factors that make development and poverty alleviation interventions more likely to succeed. An 'enabling environment' refers, in part, to a situation where people are motivated to participate because they identify individually and collectively with an enterprise, whether it be part of traditional culture or planned development activities. Therefore, creating an enabling environment requires increased emphasis on 'localizing' development to the extent that it makes possible meaningful local participation and communal development. The impact of national policies and policies at the local level depends largely on the effectiveness, efficiency and outreach of the national government. Given the variability of governments' presence at the local level, centrally initiated government interventions on CPR management institutions are likely to have different effects and interact differently with institutions, NGOs and community groups. Based upon field work in Ghana, the paper examines the interaction between government and local-level planning on the one hand, and the modern and traditional spheres on the other hand, in the context of coastal resources management. The emphasis will be on constraints and incentives operating on the macro and micro levels, as well as the interaction between them, resulting in the mode in which local systems adapt to various macro-level interventions. Topics discussed include: NGOs, traditional knowledge, local institutions, conflict resolution and design of property rights systems."Conference Paper Private Exchange and Social Capital: Multiple Functions of Common Property Regimes in Haiti(1996) White, T. Anderson"A great challenge facing CPR enthusiasts today is understanding the conditions in which CPRs can be successful. Meeting this challenge requires understanding when and why individuals choose to create and maintain CPRs. Research in this domain often focuses on the relationship between individual incentives and the output of collective action (e.g. the managed forest or irrigation system). Increasingly, practitioners and researchers realize that individuals often contribute to collective actions for reasons not directly related to the output. This paper describes the findings of research on factors associated with individual choice to participate in watershed management groups in Haiti, as well as the survival of those groups. Results indicate that (1) a substantial percentage of individual participation could be explained by motivations associated with process, rather than the output, of action; and that (2) high levels of pre-existing collective action groups were a necessary condition for the survival of watershed management groups. A majority of participants (and almost all of those who did not directly gain from management) were members of labor exchange groups and farmer associations. Additional analyses indicated that labor exchange groups serve as antecessors of more complex forms of public good-producing groups. This study indicates that the existence of some 'critical mass' of social capital is a necessary condition for successful CPRs, and that in addition to utilitarian functions, CPRs maintain and extend that social capital."Conference Paper Economic Incentives to Promote the Abatement of Nile Pollution(1996) Khouzam, Raouf F.From Introduction: "The abatement of Nile pollution is a serious concern in Egypt's development. Four factors support this assertion, (i) demand for water exceeds available freshwater; (ii) water demand is increasing over time; (iii) opportunities to increase the water supply are limited; and (iv) although reuse of returning water to counteract the growing water shortage is a viable option, it is not used often enough. The government has tried to improve water quality for reuse while avoiding adverse impact on the environment. But recent studies indicate that efforts made so far to protect water quality have not achieved the desired goals. Hazards associated with the degraded quality of returning water necessitate the search for policy instruments to boost the effectiveness of water quality management. This paper is a contribution to that search. "This paper recommends the adoption of positive economic incentives for the design of quality management policy and demonstrates the effectiveness of improving the quality of returning water. It relies on local and international research findings for its recommendations for modifying existing production techniques to eliminate or at least reduce polluted inputs or processes and to find an economic use for emitted pollutants to transfer it to an economic "good." The approach depends on motivating firms to adopt the proposed modifications, leaving the responsibility of policy execution and information dissemination to the government."Conference Paper The Use of a Tradable Permit System for the Control of River Pollution in Wuhan, China(1996) Jia, Hua Pan"As a typical external problem, environmental pollution cannot be brought under efficient control in a lassie fair economy. Early in the 1920s, Pigou (1924) suggested a levy on pollution to remove the difference between private and social costs, or external cost associated with environmental pollution. In theory, such a levy is capable of producing an optimum level of pollution, but in practice it has been hardly implemented due to the lack of information on external costs and constant erosion of its effectiveness by inflation and expansion of the economy. A command and control approach is able to protect the environment from excessive pollution, but it intervenes in the operation of the market and causes of inefficiency in environmental management. Late in the 1960s, the concept of pollution permits was proposed, which were defined in accordance with environmental standard and tradable in the market (Dales, 1968). In the early 1970s, the cost-effective nature of a pollution permit system was discussed and demonstrated using an equilibrium analysis (see, Baumol and Oates, 1988). However, this approach as a policy alternative was employed as late as in the 1980s when it was adopted by the USEPA for the control of waste water discharge and emission of air pollutants. In 1988, a pollution permit registration system was put into operation in China but the trade of permits has hardly been institutionalized ever since."Conference Paper Types of Irrigation Management Transfer in India(1996) Brewer, Jeffrey D.; Raju, K. Vengamma"The Government of India and many of the state governments have decided that irrigation management transfer is one means to help solve some major problems in the performance of irrigation systems in all types of irrigation systems. However, the policies and programs adopted by the states, although influenced by national policies, differ considerably. Each state has adopted or is considering adoption of irrigation management transfer policies that are adapted to a) cultural traditions and prior policies in the state, b) physical and ecological conditions in the state, and c) the goals of the irrigation agencies. "This paper, using data from six states in India, identifies the major types of policies and arrangements being carried out and identifies the factors underlying the choices of management models made in each state. Some data on the level of operational, maintenance, financial, and agricultural performance is provided. Based on key elements, particularly the right and functions that are proposed for transfer from the government to the farmers, the paper proposes a typology of irrigation management transfer models in India and discusses the applicability of this typology in other parts of the world."Conference Paper Role of Community in Irrigation Management: Sustainability of Traditional Water Harvesting Practices in South India(1996) Chidananda, B. L.; Gracy, C. P.; Suryaprakash, S."Many of the developing countries including India are endowed with a variety of natural resources which have helped In crop diversity and growth. In India a substantial share of budgetary resources apart from Private Investments have been made on irrigation development each year. Historically also many of the rulers, kings and local leaders have evinced keen interest in developing irrigation structures. Statistics show that the overall irrigated area in the world rose from an estimated 8 million hectares in the year 1800 to 260 million hectares in 1994. India and China have contributed to as much as 40 per cent of the increase from developing countries. But the productivity per unit of water is very low in India due to various management factors. "Since there is a natural limit on the water availability for irrigation, due to decrease in the annual rainfall and other factors, efforts must be made towards conserving water. In most of the areas the problem with minor irrigation is that of the receding water table. Of late the policy makers have realised the need for reviving traditional irrigation structures. In the recent past many tanks have become defunct and those which are functional have reduced capacity to irrigate owing to the bad management practices. In scanty rainfall areas the water from seasonal streams are harvested by constructing pickups at suitable locations and it is very popular in coconut belts of Karnataka. "This study examines the institutional factors responsible for the deterioration of tank irrigation, the community management practices for tanks and pickups and an assessment of the sustainability of the management practices towards rehabilitating the tanks for irrigation."Conference Paper Cambodia's Great Lake: How to Sustain its Ecological and Economic Diversity(1996) Thuok, Nao; Ahmed, Mahfuzuddin; Nuov, Sam"Cambodia's Great Lake is one of the most productive freshwater lake in the world. Located in center of the country's north-west plains, its 3,000 km2 waters expand to more than 6,000 km2 area inside the inundated forests, draining about 67,000 km basin area and feeding the Mekong river's flood water through the Tonle Sap river. The inundated forest that surrounds the lake in a diverse ecosystem consisting of hundreds of plant species and wildlife More than 280 different species of fish utilize this forest for at least 6 months for breeding, nursing and feeding during the monsoonal inundation The six provinces that surround the lake have a population of nearly 3 million people (about 30% of the country's total population). About one third of this population live on floating villages around the lake and within the inundated forests. Fishing and foraging for wood and wildlife,combined with occasional fanning form the principal basis of livelihood of the people. Due to the effects of massive over exploitation of the fisheries and destructive practices in the inundated forests, the resources and their diversities are declining, causing an imbalance in the ecological and economic system. The paper describes current management regime, and identifies the factors that have led the current regulatory management through control and enforcement to become ineffective. Likewise, factors responsible for the current lack of incentive to protect and conserve resources of the lake by its current users have been discussed. The effect of continuing destruction of watershed forests and waste disposal, such as, increasing rate of siltation has been identified as a major threat to the lake ecosystem and its diverse plant and wildlife population. The paper recommends for a more equitable fishing rights distribution and development of partnerships between government authorities and the local fanning and fishing communities as an alternative management option."Conference Paper Irrigation Management Transfer in Turkey(1996) Svendsen, Mark; Nott, Gladys"Turkey has been transferring partial responsibility for managing irrigation schemes to farmers at a rapid pace over the past three years. This experience has been judged a success by proponents, largely on the basis of the rapid rate of transfer. This paper will evaluate the performance outcomes of the transfer, to the extent that they are so far evident, in terms of system hydraulic and agricultural performance. It will also explore the motives of the national irrigation agency, DSI, in undertaking the transfer program, the motives of farmers in taking on managerial responsibility between DSI and the farmers' association, and the extent to which farmers' associations have acquired actual control over the water resource -- in both the short and long term. Discussion and conclusions will be based on case studies undertaken inb Izmir, Antalya, and Adana in early 1996."Conference Paper Institutional Design for the Co-Management of an Urban-Sited Port in New Zealand: Local Implications of National Reforms(1996) Memon, P. A.; Selsky, John W."Our objective in this paper is to describe our current research on urban-port development conflicts in terms of common-pool management systems. This is an attempt to move the discussions of locational conflicts, and corporate social responsibility, into the discourse on common-pool resource management. "Since 1984 institutional reforms in environmental management in New Zealand have sought a more integrated approach, as compared to previous statues and practices. The Resource Management Act (1991) overturned decades of town and country planning statutes, and focused environmental management on the objective of sustainable outcomes. This was complemented by a major reform of local government boundaries and responsibilities. In this paper we question whether these sweeping reforms can achieve their stated policy objectvies in local harbour/port contexts. "We address this question first by examining the current situation of harbour management in New Zealand. This is characterized by a strong thrust toward corporatization and privatization of harbour management bodies, as well as by pressure from diverse stakeholders. Then we examine the port on the Otago Harbour as a case study in shifting institutional arrangements in a complex CPR. We analyze the long standing conflicts between the port company based at a local community on the harbour and the local community itself as a critical issue in understanding the new institutional arrangements for harbour and port management. We conclude with implications for the design of effective co-management arrangements for ports located in dynamic and diverse communities."