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Conference Paper Towards Design Principals for Nesting in Australian Watershed Management(2004) Marshall, Graham R."Despite the complexity of watershed management, policy-makers in Australia and other countries have given little systematic attention to the challenge of learning how to organise it effectively. Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that community-based organisational systems with enduring success in addressing complex problems of natural resource management are likely to consist of ‘multiple layers of nested enterprises’. This paper considers the contribution that organisational nesting of this kind could make to improving the performance of watershed management programs, particularly in Australia. After reviewing the theoretical advantages of the organisational nesting concept for complex problems, the focus of the paper shifts to identifying on the basis of a literature review a set of preliminary design principles that, after an appropriate process of ‘ground-truthing’ and refinement, might be used to guide application of the concept to watershed management, at least in Australia. The set identified contains 24 preliminary design principles. This includes 10 structure-related principles organised under four headings (i.e., base-level units, boundaries, rules, and subsidiarity) and 14 process-related principles organised under 12 headings (i.e., catalysing voluntary cooperation, formalising organisational processes, pacing organisational growth, purposefulness, recruiting leadership, learning, participation in decision-making, monitoring and enforcement, conflict resolution, government recognition, deliberative decision-making, and leading by example). The value of this set for actual watershed management programs in Australia is to be explored over the next few years through case studies of three such programs."Conference Paper Networking Between Parties Around the Baltic Sea and Lake Victoria: Local Authorities, Universities, and Non-governmental Organisations(1999) Stockholm International Water Institute"At the invitation of the Government of Uganda, a workshop was convened in Kampala and Entebbe, November 15-19, 1999, on the co-operation between the Baltic Sea region and Lake Victoria region through networking of local authorities, universities, and non-governmental organisations. The workshop was organised by the Ministry of Water, Lands, and Environment in response to the conclusions drawn from the High Level Visit to the Baltic Sea Region by an East African High Level Delegation during May 31 - June 5, 1999. Workshop participants included representatives of the Governments of Kenya, Sweden, and Uganda, the Secretariat of the Commission for East African Co-operation (EAC), the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida), and local authorities, universities, and non-governmental organisations in the Lake Victoria region as well as the Union of the Baltic Cities and the Baltic University Programme. No environmental NGO from the Baltic Sea region had the possibility to participate during the workshop."Working Paper Farmer-Based Financing of Operations in the Niger Valley Irrigation Schemes(2000) Abernethy, Charles L.; Sally, Hilmy; Lonsway, Kurt; Maman, Chegou"Presents the results of case-studies of the functioning of four pump-based irrigation systems in the Niger River Valley. Prospects for sustainability are analyzed, especially in the light of the government's policy of promoting irrigator organizations to take over responsibilities for operation and maintenance."Working Paper Improving Irrigated Agriculture: Institutional Reform and the Small Farmer(1982) Bromley, Daniel W."Irrigation is a technological and institutional innovation which permits cultivation of lands otherwise ill-suited to agriculture. The institutional environment in which irrigation takes place is critical to the successful operation of any system. This institutional environment has received little analytical attention by those concerned with irrigation. "A model of farmer interdependence is developed and is related to the concept of farmers as cautious optimizers. This allows a focus on institutional uncertainty as a major impediment to creating irrigation systems which meet both efficiency and equity goals. "Suggestions for improving existing irrigation systems-and for designing new ones-are derived from the framework."Working Paper World Water Demand and Supply, 1990 to 2025: Scenarios and Issues(1998) Seckler, David; Amarasinghe, Upali A.; Molden, David; de Silva, Radhika; Barker, Randolph"Presents two alternative scenarios of water demand and supply for 118 countries over the 1990 to 2025 period and develops indicators of water scarcity for each country and for the world as a whole. This study is the first step in IWMI's long-term research goal: to determine the extent and depth of water scarcity, its consequences for individual countries and what can be done about it."Working Paper Organizational Aspects of Improved Irrigation Management: An Experiment in Dewahuwa Tank, Sri Lanka(1990) Ekanayake, R.; Groenfeldt, David"This report is one of several IIMI publications addressing the issue of irrigation management to promote diversified crops during the dry season. As Sri Lanka approaches self-sufficiency in rice production, a target already achieved by some other countries in the region, there is little logic in growing rice using land and water resources which could support higher- value non-rice crops, using less water. Thus, one of the incentives in improving irrigation management is to find ways of stretching water further during the dry season in water-deficit systems, when rice is relatively more expensive to grow than during the wet season, and when other crops which can be grown only during the dry season (when there is less danger of water-logging) offer the farmer and the country a comparative advantage."Working Paper Evaluating Watershed Management Projects(2001) Kerr, John; Chung, Kimberley"Watershed projects play an increasingly important role in managing soil and water resources throughout the world. Research is needed to ensure that new projects draw upon lessons from their predecessors? experiences. However, the technical and social complexities of watershed projects make evaluation difficult. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, which traditionally have been used separately, both have strengths and weaknesses. Combining them can make evaluation more effective, particularly when constraints to study design exist. This paper presents mixed-methods approaches for evaluating watershed projects. A recent evaluation in India provides illustrations."Conference Paper Institutional Failure and Reform: A Problem in Economic and Political Analysis of Water Resource Development(1967) Ostrom, Vincent(From pp. 1, 2, & 8): "The purpose of this conference is to consider the question of what special contribution, if any, can political scientists make to the analysis and formulation of public policy? At an earlier time, essentially the same question might have been posed by inquiring about What special contribution can political scientists make to political reform? More recently, the reform motif has become something of an anathema to the more scientifically rigorous political scientists. Yet, we keep returning to the problems of reform like moths drawn to a candle flame. Perhaps we will be able to make a special contribution as political scientists to the analysis and formulation of public policy only when we develop the capability for analyzing the issue of reform with some measure of professional competence. "My invitation to participate in this meeting was to direct attention to the tangible and practical problems of public policy associated with water resource development and not to discourse about political reform as such. Yet, contemporary studies of water resource development persistently turn to allegations of institutional failure among resource development and management agencies and conclude by either explicitly or implicitly proposing a program of reform. Most of these studies have been made by economists, those done by political scientists have a similar, albeit, variant approach to institutional failure and reform. The studies by economists are both more systematic and more consistent in their critique, and I shall use their work as the principal point of departure. "There are quite tangible and practical reasons, unrelated to the wiles of politicians, for problems of water resource development to become deeply involved in the political process. The water problem is, in fact, a multitude of problems, but most of these are problems of fluidity. Whenever water behaves as a liquid, it has the characteristics of 1) a common pool, flow resource involving; 2) a complex bundle of potential goods and bads which sustain; 3) a high level of interaction or interdependency among the various joint and alternative uses. The interrelationships among all three of these characteristics of a water resource situation simply compounds the difficulties in settling upon stable, long-term institutional arrangements for the economics development of water resources."Journal Article Institutional Options for Irrigation: The Bulgarian Case(2003) Penov, Ivan"During the transition period the irrigation water usage in Bulgaria declined by nearly 85% and many parts of the existing canal systems were abandoned. We review the roots of the problem and discuss possible institutional options to cope with the situation. The following determinants of institutional change are considered: features of transactions related to nature; characteristics of actors; governance structure; and property rights system. Data and information refer to interviews conducted in the Plovdiv region."Working Paper Modernization Using the Structured System Design of the Bhadra Reservoir Project, India: An Intervention Analysis(1999) Sakthivadivel, R.; Thiruvengadachari, S.; Amarasinghe, Upali A."Evaluates the performance of the Bhadra Reservoir Project-before, during, and after the introduction of modernization with structured system design. Analysis focuses on water management, agricultural productivity, and farmer participation and perception. Identifies the absence of a continuing support mechanism and lack of farmer participation as the major causes for the project's decline."