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Management of groundwater as a common pool resource relies heavily on an institutional design that is fitted to the aquifers to be managed and is scaled to provide efficient and effective governance. Texas has committed to a decentralized system of groundwater management through Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs) that offers a high level of local control and area-specific adaptability. However, increasing pressures on the state’s groundwater resources coupled with a strong local aversion to outsider interference has resulted in a proliferation of small single-county GCDs that are neither well fitted to the aquifer systems nor sufficiently scaled to be efficient or effective. In recognition of these challenges, the persistent response has been a slow transition towards larger-scale management. Although a full transition to centralization via state control is not likely to be politically feasible, it would also be limited in its effectiveness, recognizing the wide diversity of climate conditions, water use patterns, growth projections, and aquifer characteristics that exist across the state. Regionalization is offered as a policy proposal for an institutional arrangement and scale of groundwater governance that provides a balance between centralization and decentralization, using institutions that are better fitted to the aquifer systems and appropriately scaled to provide sufficient funding and resources. The merits and logic of regionalized groundwater management have been recognized as demonstrated by the establishment of the joint regional-planning process within aquifer-based Groundwater Management Areas (GMAs), using GCD representatives as the de facto regional groundwater planners. However, the new unfunded mandates for which the already underfunded GCDs are now responsible and the extraordinary planning process complexity that has developed may prove to be unworkable. This realization compels consideration of management through regional authorities designed using the ready-made framework of the GMAs and principles gleaned from successful models of regionalization from other states and within Texas. Such regional authorities, if provided with sufficient resources and authority, would respect the logic of fit and scale and would be better equipped to address the current and future groundwater management challenges in Texas. / text

<p>Despite 21 years of protection, sideneck river-turtles (<italic>Podocnemis expansa</italic>, <italic>P. unifilis</italic> and <italic>P. vogli</italic>, arrau, terecay and galápago, respectively), an important food resource for riverine communities (<italic>ribereños</italic>) in the Middle Orinoco, have not recovered. To determine the most effective conservation alternative for recovery, we conducted semi-structured interviews of ribereños and determined their attitudes towards turtle conservation; we collected discarded turtle remains in riverine communities to estimate the level of turtle harvest; and constructed a population model to study the effect of reduced survival and future extraction on arrau turtle population growth. We found that ribereños blame continued commercial extraction for the lack of turtle population recovery. Ribereños have a desire to participate actively in conservation and, despite feeling alienated by governmental officials charged with protecting turtles, prefer to be included in conservation efforts. However, ribereños also fear retaliation from turtle poachers. We found widespread turtle harvest along the Middle Orinoco centered on juvenile arrau turtles, and adult female terecay and galápago turtles. In our population model, reducing harvest causes an increase in population growth. A 10% increase in survival causes rapid exponential growth in arrau turtles. The population continues to grow in over 70% of projected scenarios with limited harvest from a recovered stock. Due to the widespread distribution of turtles and their harvest, we recommend increasing ribereño participation in conservation activities, closing outsider (non-ribereño) access to the resource, increasing enforcement against illegal commercial harvest, instating possession limits for subsistence harvest, and promoting localized captive breeding of faster maturing terecay and galápago turtles to satisfy desire for turtle consumption.</p> / Dissertation