Groundwater Governance: Moving Away from a Tragedy of the Commons

For anybody who hasn’t read Garrett Hardin’s (1968) ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, I thoroughly recommend it, and to anybody who has, take a deep breath and don’t panic, I have no plans on reaching similar doom and gloom conclusions here today. Indeed, as my fans have been quick to inform me, my tone towards African surface water governance has been, at best a lucid description of the water in which it seems to be drowning. Today my mood is not so downtrodden, however before explaining why, we cannot ignore the detrimental impacts that a precedent coined ‘a tragedy of open access’ has shown in the Asian region towards groundwater either (Bromley; Grafton 2000). It is this juncture that I will address today, as the fundamental crux that comes before any other technical or practical limitations is the difficulty in assigning (or not) property rights (Dalhuisen et al. 2000). If appropriate frameworks or alternative criteria, can be established for deciphering ownership rights, then groundwater can unquestionably help alleviate predictions made by the AdDB that 25 African countries in 2025 will suffer a ‘chronic shortage’ of water (AfDB 2005).

As has been well documented, things become more complicated when aquifer boundaries do not correlate to those of the overlying jurisdictions, and as illustrated in Struckmeier et al’s (2006) map below, this happens a lot in Africa.

 Outside of aquifer usage, as political ecology has taken on a distinctly commodified approach, it is understandable that most attempts to conceptualise the legalities concerning common resources have looked at ways to align proportionate empirical inputs to reflect the entitlements of use for single parties, and as such single benefits. In other words, to somehow (and one would argue paradoxically) apportion private property rights to a common resource.

Accurately delineating the physical make up of an aquifer to designate certain parts of the process to specific stakeholders is, not only a very difficult thing to practice with sub-surface water resources, but not the only available way that transboundary water disputes can be resolved (Comte et al. 2016). We only need to look at how Northern Sudan has welcomed the idea of the GERD in Ethiopia immediately across its border to see how benefit sharing can be a solution, reflective of wider opinions that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM is based on the natural boundaries of the basin not jurisdiction) is a much better way that relying on the jurisdictional confines. However, in order for theis kinds of more collaborative conduct towards groundwater resources to be realized, growing on the last post, a more mature

a.) Integration of groundwater governance methods with other water management institutions needs to be continued (eg. Surface water, pollution management)

b.) And as such, this can help reconcile a central strategy of action between all involved stakeholders markedly improving the efficiency of output with mutually reinforcing governance actions

(Braune and Xu 2010; Knuppe 2011)

Efforts to facilitate IWRM has been encouraged by The Global Water Partnership and World Water Council who in their findings have cited cross sector dialogues within government being the most important primary steps to take in establishing common requirements (Foster et al. 2012). Projects to integrate IWRM in sub-saharan Africa are underway and not before time as a platform for coordinating this enhancing integration of sectoral interests is a limiting factor (UNEP 2012, Mehta and Movik 2014). There is no doubt that the perceived importance of such co-operative measures will continue to increase when there is both an increased proliferation of the scientific endeavors that have helped heighten the social consciousness of unsustainable abstraction practice, and increasing realization amongst communities of the alleviation that groundwater extraction can continue to bring in SSA; increasing awareness and participation amongst local communities has demonstrated itself as being key in groundwater concerns being taken seriously as debates percolate up through the different tropic levels of governance power, with the coastal aquifer on the coast of Tanzania and Kenya proving itself to be a case in point  (Comte et al. 2016).

However, the ability to reconcile national policy and sustainable attitiudes towards groundwater through local action requires as yet unseen levels of governance sophistication. This shows that the emergent progress of institutions like the Global Water Partnership in co-ordinating,, the work of the scientific communities in elucidating the technical understanding and abstraction requirements, and the work of NGO’s in facilitating it can all improve. Embeding these fundamental principles in to institutional constellations is necessary for good governance practice and integration of groundwater going forward.

Bibliography

Braune, E. & Xu, Y., 2010. The Role of Ground Water in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Ground Water, 48(2), pp.229–238.

Comte et al., 2016. Challenges in groundwater resource management in coastal aquifers of East Africa: Investigations and lessons learnt in the Comoros Islands, Kenya and Tanzania. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 5, pp.179–199.

Grafton, Q. (2000): Governance of the commons: a role for the state?, in: Land Economics 76 (4), 504–17

Mehta, L. et al., 2014. The politics of IWRM in Southern Africa. International Journal of Water Resources Development, pp.1–15.

Struckmeier W. et al. (2006): WHYMAP and the World Map of Transboundary Aquifer Systems at the scale of 1 : 50 000 000, Special edition for the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico City, March

UNEP (2012) The UN-Water Status Report on the Application of Integrated Approaches to Water Resources Management: UNEP Division of Communications and Public Information, Nairobi, Kenya