Commons as Demanding Social Constructions: The Case of Aquifers in Rural Karnataka

Abstract

It is only recently that research on Indian groundwater has considered a perspective in terms of commons. ATCHA, an interdisciplinary project that includes among others hydrology, crop modelling and remote sensing analysis, includes such a lens in its study of the Berambadi watershed, Karnataka, India. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews and focus groups have shown that the local aquifers are not managed as a commons, and brought into light several factors hindering collective action. In this paper, these factors are reconsidered, in particular through Ostrom’s criteria. The national policy is currently trying to define a new legal framework for more sustainable management of the resource, but this new law is not known to users and it seems difficult to implement because it calls into question too many vested interests. We argue for aquifer management committees, which could be an intermediary between national policy orientations and users who are (rationally) not endorsing collective action.

Groundwater irrigation reduces overall poverty but increases socioeconomic vulnerability in a semiarid region of southern India

“…To conclude the discussion of the characteristics of the employment induced by the development of irrigation, we should note that it is also highly sensitive to the evolution of water availability. In villages where there has been a return to rainfed agriculture, there has also been a reduction in work requirement and an increase in migration in families with little or no access to land, who were dependent on this paid labour for their survival 77 .…”

“…This collective management can focus on the infrastructure associated with irrigation, through tubewell partnerships 69 or in the groundwater recharge movement 96 . It can also concern the water itself, which would become a “common good” regulated by “water parliaments” assembling stakeholders at the scale of an aquifer 77 . Collective actions of this type encounter numerous obstacles but the recent national “groundwater bill” seems to have opened up possibilities in this area 97 , 98 .…”