Full metadata
Title
Institutional analysis of water management for agriculture in the Chancay-Lambayeque basin, Peru
Description
This research presents an analysis of the main institutions and economic incentives that drive farmers behaviors on water use in the Chancay-Lambayeque basin, located in Lambayeque (Peru), a semi arid area of great agricultural importance. I focus my research on identifying the underlying causes of non-collaborative behaviors in regard to water appropriation and infrastructure provisioning decision that generates violent conflicts between users. Since there is not an agreed and concrete criteria to assess "sustainability" I used economic efficiency as my evaluative criteria because, even though this is not a sufficient condition to achieve sustainability it is a necessary one, and thus achieving economic efficiency is moving towards sustainable outcomes. Water management in the basin is far from being economic efficient which means that there is some room for improving social welfare. Previous studies of the region have successfully described the symptoms of this problem; however, they did not focus their study on identifying the causes of the problem. In this study, I describe and analyze how different rules and norms (institutions) define farmers behaviors related to water use. For this, I use the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and a dynamic game theory model to analyze how biophysical attributes, community attributes and rules of the system combined with other factors, can affect farmers actions in regard to water use and affect the sustainability of water resources. Results show that water rights are the factor that is fundamental to the problem. Then, I present an outline for policy recommendation, which includes a revision of water rights and related rules and policies that could increase the social benefits with the use of compensation mechanisms to reach economic efficiency. Results also show that commonly proposed solutions, as switch to less water intensive and more added value crops, improvement in the agronomic and entrepreneurial knowledge, or increases in water tariffs, can mitigate or exacerbate the loss of benefits that come from the poor incentives in the system; but they do not change the nature of the outcome.
Date Created
2013
Contributors
- Rubinos, Cathy (Author)
- Eakin, Hallie (Committee member)
- Abbot, Joshua K (Committee member)
- York, Abigail (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
- Sustainability
- Water resources management
- Agricutlure
- Dynamic Modeling
- Game Theory
- Institutional Analysis
- Property Rights
- Water Management
- Water-supply, Agricultural--Peru--Lambayeque--Management.
- Water-supply, Agricultural
- Farmers--Peru--Lambayeque--Social conditions.
- Farmers
- Sustainable development--Peru--Lambayeque.
- Sustainable development
Resource Type
Extent
x, 130 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.18751
Statement of Responsibility
by Cathy Rubinos
Description Source
Viewed on Feb. 4, 2014
Level of coding
full
Note
thesis
Partial requirement for: M.A., Arizona State University, 2013
bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-120)
Field of study: Sustainability
System Created
- 2013-10-08 04:24:04
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:38:22
- 3 years 1 month ago
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