Currently still in its draft form, Groundwater and Society: Responding to Risk, Variability and the Limits of Management is a collaborative work between Dr. Marcus Moench of ISET, and Dr. Jacob Burke of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This page presents the book’s draft introduction and ending summary.
No section of the following draft document may be quoted.
Groundwater resources play
a fundamental role in the security and sustainability of livelihoods and
regional economies throughout the world. It is the primary buffer against
drought and plays a central role in food security at local and national as well
as global levels. Of equal importance, increasing access to groundwater plays a
key role in alleviating poverty, stabilizing populations and reducing the need
for farmers to migrate when drought threatens agricultural livelihoods
(Moench
2002). Assured access can, as a result, contribute substantially to
political and economic stability. The reverse is also true; when groundwater
resources are depleted or their quality becomes degraded, agricultural
livelihoods are threatened and poverty can increase. In arid developing
countries where agriculture is the primary livelihood option, degradation of
groundwater resources may lead to migration and the generation of large
displaced and unemployed populations – a common source of political and social
instability that can have major international as well as local implications.
Groundwater is a local resource where conditions and management options vary
greatly between areas. The aggregate condition of groundwater resources,
however, has major implications for issues such as poverty, migration, food
security and social stability that are of fundamental
importance at a global level. The agriculture literature dealing with
intensification rarely brings out the structural role of groundwater – as
opposed to surface water - despite the dominant
practice of groundwater irrigation. The source of water appears to be
unimportant to many agricultural researchers, yet the characteristics of
groundwater are important, and most farmers using groundwater are not
indifferent to this. In the best of all possible worlds, the source would not be
important were groundwater to be reliably recharged, but as drilling and pumping
technology becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, those usually reliable
groundwater buffers are getting used up. This may not be a problem if the rural
economy can transition out of such reliance. Our concern is with those rural
economies that are expecting continued access to groundwater. These
include not only the purely agriculture based economies, but also the pastoral
and mixed agro/pastoral economies where access to groundwater may be recent, but
has transformed rural economies (Burke 1996).
This paper is intended to
convey two clear messages. First, at a
political level the condition of groundwater resources has far greater
significance for basic questions of poverty and global security than has
previously been recognized. Very strong arguments exist for greater
international attention to emerging groundwater problems and potential avenues
for addressing them. Second, because
groundwater conditions vary greatly and options for directly managing the
resource base are limited, conventional approaches to groundwater management
based on models from highly industrialized or information rich regions often will not work. Strategic, adaptive approaches that can respond
to local conditions and move beyond ‘resource management’ to address deeper
livelihood issues are essential.
This paper touches on a
wide range of groundwater related issues. We focus, however, on agricultural
uses and options for addressing the increasingly unsustainable levels of
extraction now common in many arid and semi-arid regions. This focus reflects
the dominant role of agriculture both in terms of groundwater use and as a
source of the basic livelihoods central to poverty alleviation and social
stability. In this sense, this paper deliberately avoids the thrust of
groundwater research and policy coming out of developed countries, where the
emphasis is on the applied engineering aspects of resource protection,but
centers on the prospects for management in developing countries which will
continue to exploit resources and generate a broad array of socio-economic and
environmental externalities in the process. We take as a starting point the
projections in FAO’s World Agriculture: towards 2015/30 and examine the
implications for groundwater in a range of key settings. Why? Agriculture will
continue to dominate the extractive use of groundwater, both in terms of volumes
and its contribution to income generation. Agricultural use is the starting
point for examining the economic and social transitions that have occurred
around groundwater. Furthermore, groundwater-based rural development in key
countries, such as India, has been central to major productivity gains in
agriculture and the improvement of rural livelihoods.
The above focus differs
from published concerns regarding the impact of groundwater depletion on global
food security
(Brown
and Halweil 1998; Postel 1999; Brown 2000). Our own reviews suggest a more complex picture
(Moench,
Burke et al. 2001).
While groundwater clearly plays a very major role in food production, a very
wide variety of factors in addition to groundwater availability influence food
security at a global level. Furthermore, substantial uncertainty exists
regarding the status of groundwater resources and other key parameters in many
regions. As a result, while groundwater overdraft clearly can contribute to
regional food insecurity, direct links between overdraft and global food
security concerns cannot presently be substantiated.
Recognising the complex nature of global food security does not decrease the importance of attempts to address emerging groundwater problems. Assured water supplies are the lead input required for stable agricultural livelihoods. Where groundwater resources become degraded, normal climatic variability, extended droughts and climatic change can destroy regional agricultural economies and force brutal shifts in livelihoods. Where agriculture is the only available livelihood option, forced migration, social unrest and even famine can result.
The role of groundwater in
poverty alleviation and social stability is directly related to questions of
risk and variability. Research in numerous countries indicates that agricultural
yields and the economic value of production from groundwater-irrigated areas are
substantially higher than in rainfed areas or regions irrigated from surface
sources. From a user’s perspective, groundwater reduces or eliminates water
supply variability. When farmers have access to wells and pumps, gaps in
precipitation or variations in stream and irrigation system flow have little
impact on water availability to meet crop needs. Reducing water supply
variability reduces risk. Without assured water supply, investments in labor,
fertilizer, seed and other agricultural inputs carry a high level of risk –
drought or even ‘normal’ short-term gaps in rainfall can cause loss of the
entire investment. By reducing risk, access to groundwater increases the ability
of farmers to reduce losses and make investments that increase productivity.
While this increases the productivity and reliability of agricultural production
at a global level, the implications are particularly important for poverty
alleviation in the developing world. As argued elsewhere, reductions in
agricultural risk and variability associated with groundwater are a major factor
enabling small farmers to accumulate wealth and ultimately move out of poverty
(Moench
2001)
.
The value of groundwater
as a buffer against variability and risk has been a major factor underlying
rapid development of the resource over recent decades. While global estimates
are unavailable, groundwater development has expanded exponentially in many
regions since the 1950s. The impact this has on the resource base is only now
becoming evident. In many locations, groundwater resources are under threat.
Water level declines and mining limit access to and, in some cases, the physical
availability of groundwater. Quality
changes are equally important. Some, such as salinity increases associated with
water logging, are scientifically well understood and their dynamics are
predictable, although, as the Indus Basin has illustrated, economic solutions
may remain elusive. Others, such as the mobilization of arsenic, are less well
understood and, as the widespread poisoning associated with internationally
supported programs to develop groundwater as a ‘safe’ source for drinking in
the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin demonstrates, difficult to predict
(Nordstrom
2000)
. In the arsenic case, concentrations can vary greatly between
adjacent wells and over time within the same well. This variability combined
with the lack of a solid scientific understanding of mobilization dynamics make
it difficult to forecast the impact of development on water quality.
In many ways, the arsenic
case typifies the challenges society faces in responding to groundwater problems
of all types. Groundwater conditions vary greatly both spatially and over time.
As a result, substantial data would be required to document changes and develop
a solid scientific understanding of groundwater dynamics within individual
aquifers. Such data are, however, unavailable in most parts of the world. The
absence of basic data and scientific understanding of aquifer changes affects
the risk society faces in the groundwater development process. While access to
groundwater reduces the immediate agricultural risk facing users, rapid
unregulated development of a poorly understood and monitored resource base
carries its own risks. In many arid and semi-arid parts of the world,
unsustainable patterns of development have encouraged the creation of ephemeral
‘bubble’ economies. Apparently stable agricultural regions have grown with
the spread of groundwater extraction technology and now must manage, adapt or
wither as the resource base declines. The pattern follows the noted ecologist
Holling’s argument that “periods of success carry the seeds of subsequent
downfall, because they allow stresses and rigidities to accumulate”
(Holling
2001
p. 399).
Conventional groundwater
management is the obvious solution to the problems currently emerging in many
parts of the world – but is it a realistic one? The ability to manage
groundwater resources depends on a wide variety of factors including: data on
resource conditions, scientific capacity, the existence of management
institutions, user understanding and, perhaps most importantly, sufficient
consensus regarding the nature and significance of emerging problems. Without
sufficient consensus, the social and political processes necessary to initiate
basic changes in water use, the cornerstone of any integrated approach to
groundwater management, are unlikely to move forward. This challenge is
particularly acute in the ‘thin’ institutional environment characteristic of
many Third World countries.
Throughout the world, most
groundwater development has proceeded primarily on the basis of individual
initiative. Unlike surface irrigation or drinking water supply projects where
governments are generally involved in many aspects of design, financing and
implementation, most groundwater development is driven by the decision of
individual farmers to drill wells and buy pumps. While governments often
facilitate this process through subsidies and rural electrification, large
implementation departments are rare. In consequence, large-scale government
organizations having frequent and direct contact with groundwater users
generally don’t exist. Furthermore, surface water development generally
involves the diversion of flows or construction of storage on a clearly defined
stream or water body. The impact of such actions on downstream users is
generally clear, at least in a conceptual sense, and large bodies of customary
and formal law along with the resource monitoring and enforcement systems
required to implement them have, as a result, developed over the long history of
surface water development. This isn’t the case with groundwater. Planned
large-scale development is a recent phenomenon and diversions have a far less
directly observable impact on other users. As a result, groundwater extraction
remains highly ‘individualistic’ and tends to occur outside the framework of
established institutions for allocating, monitoring or managing the resource
base. In locations such as India, tens of millions of individuals own and
operate wells. Most of these wells are on private lands. The location, use and
even existence of such wells are often unknown to any individual aside from the
owner and his or her immediate community. No established institutional base
exists as a result for management.
From our perspective, the above conditions – which are typical of much of the developing world – mitigate against the probable success of attempts to develop effective approaches to manage groundwater resources in many regions. As we argue in detail in subsequent chapters, there are limits to societies’ ability to actively manage the groundwater resource base. The resource base is poorly understood, capacity is lacking and demographic, economic, social and political conditions are often changing too fast to allow the development of stable management institutions. As a result, responses that move beyond integrated management –that reflect the dynamic character and limitations of human organization rather than just the water demand-supply balance within hydrologic units – are needed.
In
this paper we argue for the development of highly strategic, adaptive,
approaches for responding to emerging groundwater problems.
Conceptually important (but often quite vague when it comes to detail)
conventional integrated water management strategies represent one end of the
spectrum of potential responses. Such strategies focus on direct management of
the groundwater resource base through the establishment of formal management
organizations with regulatory and other implementation capabilities. These
approaches tend to be applicable in highly institutionalized environments where
data are available and social/political conditions enable substantive
interventions to directly manage demand for water as well as supply. It is,
however, important to recognize that even where such approaches have been
implemented ground realities are often quite different from the formal
structures of management as outlined in organizational plans or legal rights
systems. Situations are dynamic and water use and management systems need to
evolve with them. This points toward the other end of the spectrum: the
potential opportunities for addressing groundwater problems that are inherent in
existing patterns of social transition. Reactive strategies that build off
insights from coping responses, disaster (particularly drought) mitigation and
ecosystem dynamics have been far less well explored than conventional attempts
to directly manage the groundwater resource base. They may, however, be much
more applicable in circumstances, common in many parts of the world, where the
institutional and technical capacity required to ‘manage’ the resource base
is limited. They may also be applicable to the equally, if not more common, set of
circumstances where society or climatic conditions are changing rapidly and
social/political incentives to implement management are fundamental constraints
despite the availability of adequate technical capacities.
This
last point is important to emphasize. Change is central to the human condition.
The observation that we live in an increasingly interconnected and
‘globalised’ world characterized by rapid processes of economic and social
change is now commonplace. Major institutions, such as the Soviet Union, were
once solid and are now memory. At a more local scale, the development literature
is filled with analyses documenting the decline of traditional water, forest and
other management institutions. There is no reason for the institutions we create
today to be any more stable than their predecessors. The dynamics of change and
the incentives such dynamics create for resource use and management are
underrepresented in debates over water resources. As a result, a core theme in
this paper is the need to move beyond conventional notions of management – to
understand, react, manage and, where necessary, adapt to groundwater problems in
a manner that reflects the much wider processes of change shaping human society.
Most
discussions of groundwater management are based on relatively static concepts.
In hydrology, the principle of stationarity – the idea that climatic and water
resource conditions are fluctuating about some long-term mean – serves as the
core foundation for most planning and analysis. It translates into practical
management criteria such as the sustained yield of aquifers, and the baseline
flow in streams. These, in turn, are the foundation on which institutions such
as water right allocations within aquifers or river basins are often based. The
concept of stationarity also often implicitly underlies discussions on
management. Terminology such as ‘sustainable development’ or ‘sustainable
institutional frameworks for management’ are often interpreted as implying
that institutions, once created, can function indefinitely as economic and
social conditions fluctuate around some long-term development path.
The
perspective we bring to this paper is fundamentally different from the above.
Because change is fundamental to both the human condition and (as growing
evidence of climatic warming indicates) to climatic processes as well, our
analysis emphasizes the dynamic nature of resource and human response systems.
Concepts such as risk, variability and the resilience of systems are, as a
result, central. In addition, the focus on system dynamics and change leads to
very different perspectives on some of the core concepts commonly utilised in
management discussions. Rather than a static definition of sustainability, based
for example on ‘sustained yield’ concepts, we follow definitions from
systems dynamics. According to C. S. Holling, a noted proponent of such
perspectives: “Sustainability is the
capacity to create, test, and maintain adaptive capability. Development is the
process of creating, testing and maintaining opportunity.” (Holling 2001
p. 399).
Perspectives
such as this underlie identification of avenues for responding to emerging
groundwater (or other natural resource) problems that are very different from
those advocated by many water resource professionals. In many cases, we believe
the most effective points of leverage for responding to groundwater level
declines, mining or quality concerns may have little to do with water per
se. Instead, actions that increase the ability of populations to adapt to
resource conditions – by migration, the development of non-agricultural
livelihoods or other changes – rather than through active management of water
supply or demand may often be more effective. Furthermore, in many cases
partially successful conventional management efforts may actually undermine the
long-term resilience of livelihood and social systems by discouraging
adaptation. Drought relief programs in arid rural areas – which often attempt
to ‘solve’ groundwater problems through the construction of water harvesting
structures – may, for example, encourage populations to remain within
unsustainable livelihood systems and thus increase long-term vulnerability. In
these circumstances it may be better to ‘do nothing’ and allow populations
to adapt rather than to initiate management interventions that only postpone
inevitable dislocations. Encouraging
populations to move away from unsustainable groundwater-based livelihoods
gradually during the course of ‘normal’ droughts may be far better than
actions that allow them to ‘stay put’ and thus invite larger crises later.
Overall, we believe it is important to emphasize the spectrum of objectives and potential strategies available for responding to groundwater conditions as development continues and conditions evolve. Direct management of the resource base is one end of this spectrum, pure adaptation the other. Both sets of strategies require a mix of hierarchical regulatory, distributed market and egalitarian (social or community derived) capabilities – but the specific points of intervention would be quite different. At present, most attempts to respond to emerging groundwater overdraft or quality problems emphasize conventional management strategies implemented through hierarchically structured management organizations. While such management is important, it often isn’t feasible. As a result, greater attention to other portions of the spectrum and other forms of institution is essential. In addition, mechanisms are needed to help countries identify under what conditions – and at what points in time – different approaches are viable. Water management issues often rise to political and social prominence in the context of drought and similar ‘crises.’ Such events can represent windows of opportunity for the initiation of long-term changes that would be politically or socially impossible under normal conditions.
The first objective of
this paper is to identify the critical role groundwater plays in relation to
basic objectives of poverty alleviation, food security and economic development
as a core argument for increasing international attention to emerging problems.
The second, and more fundamental, objective is to catalyze discussion regarding
effective avenues for responding to such problems.
The first objective
is relatively straightforward to achieve utilizing a combination of data and
case study information. Sufficient data and case study material now exist to
clearly document the key roles groundwater plays in many parts of the world and
the array of processes undermining the condition of the groundwater resource base.
The second objective is,
however, more difficult to achieve. Debates over potential responses to emerging
groundwater problems have generally been framed as a management question and
have been heavily influenced by the (limited) experiences generated over recent
decades in locations such as the Western U.S., Europe and, to a lesser extent,
the Middle East. Some of the most significant and potentially intractable
groundwater problems are, however, now emerging in locations such as India,
China and less comprehensively governed portions of the Middle East. Attempts to
implement comprehensive or integrated approaches to groundwater management in
these regions – and also in many of the regions that provide experiences to
global debates – have yet to achieve much success. We believe this lack of
success stems from fundamental characteristics of human organization and
response incentives under uncertain and changing conditions. As a result, in
order to meet the second objective the paper must address questions of human
organization and social change that extend far beyond the topics generally
discussed in relation to groundwater management.
Our ultimate objective in
catalyzing discussion is to identify concrete, practical approaches and
processes for responding to emerging groundwater problems that reflect the
dynamic processes of climatic, technical, social, economic and demographic
change better than the integrated management approaches that dominate global
debates over water management. While this won’t be achieved in this paper it
is important to recognize that our purpose is not to downplay the importance of
integrated water management concepts and approaches – but rather to recognize
their limitations and, as a result, to expand the pallet of approaches
considered when problems emerge. Most integrated water management approaches are
long-term at best and in many cases the target system has changed before the
institutions for management can be developed. By expanding our analysis and
widening the debate we believe approaches to groundwater problems can be
identified that can achieve results relatively quickly in the context of rapidly
changing circumstances and yet also contribute to the long-term resolution or
mitigation of groundwater related problems.
With these objectives in
mind, the purpose of the paper is to: