Due to increased adoption of irrigation and advancements in technology, producers in the Mississippi Delta have been unsustainably depleting the water stocks in the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer (MRVAA). This research investigates the impacts of various regulatory threats uniformly applied to heterogeneously located producers to avert further overexploitation of the MRVAA. If a regulatory threat successfully incentivizes reduction of producers’ extraction rates, costly implementation of a binding limited-use regulation could be avoided. Laboratory experiments incorporating the major characteristics of the MRVAA were conducted to test two threatened uniform policies, limited-use and moratorium. The main finding of the research is that even with the threat of a moratorium, the regulatory trigger point was too lax to result in significantly slowing over exploitation of the water resource.

A Common Pool Resource (CPR) is a natural or man-made resource system with open or widespread access where the resources are depletable with increased use. CPR examples include forests, pastures, irrigations, rivers, lakes, and fisheries. This research examines a common pool resource in Thailand, i.e. a canal in Nonthaburi Province (NP). The canal, named Klong Om-Klong Bangkok Noi-Klong Bang Kruai, is utilised for agriculture, transportation, commerce, tourism and aesthetics. Currently, urbanisation threatens the canal through changes in land use along the canal. Also, an increasing amount of garbage and water hyacinths in the canal are degrading the quality of the canal environment and waterway transportation. The aims of this thesis were to identify essential factors in the canal system that support the success of collective action in environmental management. This study analyses CPR management in the NP canal system by applying design principles illustrated by long-enduring CPR institutions. These have been identified by Elinor Ostrom (Ostrom, 1990; 1992) and by analysing the situational variables as barriers or resources for collective action. The research was conducted on five communities in Thailand. The primary data collection techniques were qualitative and consisted of two different interview processes and five focus groups. The interviews were completed with local residents and government officials while the focus groups were completed with individuals from five communities. The N6 computer program for handling qualitative data was used to analyse the responses.

This paper concerns the planning for sustainable development of a global common pool resource within an autocratic region. The study is focused on the coral reef of the Red Sea, shared between the basin countries; Djibouti, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Israel, Jordan and Eritrea, where most nations are autocracies and developing countries. The viewpoint of this research is the only multinational project within the region focused on the conservation and sustainability of the coral reefs in the Red Sea, the “Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of Coral Reefs in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (RAP CCRRSGA)”. The aim of the research in this paper is to study the planning of this project in relation to sustainable development, through an interpretation of Ostrom’s framework using seven out of eight design principles. This research is executed through a method of ideal-type analysis, in order to assess how ideal-types of these design principles correlate with the planning of this project through similarities between the project and the design principles. This research has resulted in and demonstrated the importance of clarified compliance and cooperation, to reach effective and successful planning of sustainable development pertaining to a shared common pool resource within an autocratic region.

No description available.

This dissertation explores how property rights to a natural resource affect economic decisions for investment or sale, and how these decisions may in turn impact other areas of the economy. The first essay focuses on how incomplete land ownership on Indian Reservations in the United States affects landowner incentives to engage in agricultural production. The second essay explores how the transfer of water in arid regions via water right sales affects local labor markets and environmental outcomes. The third essay seeks to understand how shale-gas drilling has affected organic food production. This dissertation provides several policy implications. First, the findings suggest that the key to improving lagging agricultural development on American Indian land is to improve tribal farmers’ access to capital, so they can invest in agricultural systems (including irrigation) at the level of their neighbors enjoying fee-simple title. Second, while a potentially effective solution to reduce costly water shortfalls among high-value urban users, water sales from agricultural to urban users appear to simultaneously decrease employment and environmental quality in the water exporting region. Third, Drilling activities appear to discourage organic farming in Colorado. While farmers with mineral ownership benefit, identifying the direct causes of lost organic certification can inform policy that regulates negative externalities on organic farms caused by drilling.

In many areas of India and Australia, groundwater has been and is being withdrawn at rates far beyond the recharge capacity of the aquifer. The resulting depletion of groundwater supplies has a number of adverse social, economic and environmental consequences. These consequences and conflicts have led to a debate over the suitable institutional arrangements to manage common pool groundwater resources in a sustainable manner.

Self governance has proved to be a suitable instrument for the management of a common pool resource like fisheries. Under self governance, individuals organize themselves for the use of a resource, to deal with problems derived from the free access: overexploitation and low profit levels. Although there is a large amount of research devoted to investigate the common pool resources and self governance, there are two areas that represent a gap in the current research. One, what are the main variables related to likely self governance adoption? Two, how is the potential for self governance related to the economic efficiency of the resource users? Unlike most of previous research that involves ex-post analysis, this is an ex-ante assessment of the potential for self governance for management of a common pool resource: a small-scale fishery located in Mexico. This research hypothesizes a positive relationship between fisher's technical efficiency and the likely adoption of self governance for the management of the fishery. Taking a set of theoretical conditions, this research assesses the fishers' perception on the adoption of self governance. Further, a stochastic frontier analysis is applied to estimate the technical efficiency of each fisher. Finally, a relationship between the potential for self governance with technical efficiency, revenue, and other variables such as education and fisher experience is explored. The results show no significant effect of technical efficiency and revenue on the potential for self governance, as well a weak positive effect of fisher experience on the likelihood for self governance adoption. The findings of this research may be useful to improve the efficiency of the fishing activity and encourage the adoption of self governance in the study site. The method proposed in this research is based on attitudes of the fishers, and it represents a step toward understanding apriori whether self governance would be implementable or not. Thus, as an ex-ante assessment, it is hoped to help predicting individual's behavior to deal with the overexploitation and low income levels derived from the use of a common pool resource.

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

In Texas, landowner associations for the management of common-pool resources such as wildlife and groundwater have become increasingly popular. Successful management of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) depends upon the collective decision-making of landowners. Likewise, aquifer reserves are a trans-boundary resource subject to the "rule of capture." Numerous factors may affect the success of common-pool associations, including property ownership and habitat characteristics, landowner demographics, and social capital. I used a mail questionnaire to explore the relationship between these factors and their effect on association activities and management practices for eight Wildlife Management Associations (WMAs) occurring within the Lower Post Oak Savannah (LPOS) and the Central Post Oak Savannah (CPOS). In addition, I compared responses of members of WMAs in CPOS to members of the Brazos Valley Water Alliance (BVWA), a groundwater association situated in the region. Compared to CPOS, members of WMAs within the LPOS belonged to much larger groups, were generally more recent landowners that met more often, raised more money using more funding methods, and tended to have longer association membership than CPOS landowners, yet they had lower social capital. CPOS landowners owned significantly more land and considered relaxation/leisure and hunting more important land uses than LPOS landowners. The smaller group size in CPOS may be the most important factor in building social capital. Intra-association trust was positively influenced by the longevity of property ownership, the number of association meetings, the percentage of males in the association, and other factors. Negative influences on trust included absentee ownership and Habitat Cover Index, which was a measure of the amount of wooded habitat present. In CPOS, members of the BVWA were part of a much larger, more heterogeneous, and more recently formed group than members of WMAs. They also placed greater importance on utilitarian aspects of their properties, as opposed to land stewardship for conservation as practiced by members of WMAs. If associations are kept small ( < 50) with more frequent meetings, greater social capital and information sharing may be achieved, which may lead to increased land stewardship practices. However, landowners may be motivated more by their shared values independent of any benefit from their association.