a systems approach to unravel complex water management institutions

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systems approach to unravel complex water managementnstitutions§

.S. Saravanan *

entre for Development Research (ZEF), Walter-Flex Strasse 3, D-53113 Bonn, Germany

he paper is dedicated to Prof. Geoffrey T. McDonald and Dr. Basil von Horen for their intellectual and moral support during thisesearch whom we unfortunately miss in this final publication.

e c o l o g i c a l c o m p l e x i t y 5 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 2 0 2 – 2 1 5

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:

eceived 22 August 2007

eceived in revised form

2 March 2008

ccepted 28 April 2008

ublished on line 20 June 2008

eywords:

nstitutional analysis

ayesian network

omplex systems

ntegrated management

ndia

a b s t r a c t

The study unravels the complexity of water management institutions by analysing the

interactive nature of actors and rules to a particular water-related problem, using a systems

approach in a hamlet in the Indian Himalayas. The approach builds on the strengths of

institutional analysis development framework, but makes amendments to suit complex and

adaptive water management institutions. It applies multiple research methods to collect

both qualitative and quantitative information at different contextual levels. The informa-

tion collected is applied in Bayesian belief network model to identify differential rules in

influencing water management. Systems perspective in a problem context helped to

comprehensively understand the socio-political process of water management by identify-

ing broad array of actors and rules constraining water management, and at the same time

identify actors and rules facilitating agents and their agency for a change in the water

management process. In this socio-political process, the study reveals human entities –

stakeholders, actors and agents – occupy different positions, which they actively shift in a

problem context and when agents pursue ‘projects’ by integrating diverse rules and

resources to remain adaptive. It is this adaptive and dynamic behaviour that contemporary

programmes and policies fail to acknowledge. In this dynamic behaviour of the transfor-

mative capacity or power is everywhere, but they are displayed, maintained and upheld,

only when agents pursue their ‘project’ by negotiating with other agents. The paper high-

lights the importance of comprehensive approach, in contrast to simplistic, linear and single

package reforms to manage water. Such approach calls for conscious designing of rules and,

at the same time, enabling actors to design rules. A conscious designing of rules is required

to regulate water distribution, to build the capabilities of the poor, and to be adaptive to

institutional and bio-physical crises. It calls for the development of infrastructures to

further actors and agent’s capabilities to design rules for informed water-related decisions.

Such an approach will contribute towards sustainable water resource management.

# 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

avai lable at www.sc iencedi rec t .com

journal homepage: ht tp : / /www.e lsev ier .com/ locate /ecocom

§ The names of place, irrigation structures and people referred in the Paper are anonymous in order to conceal the identify of subjects.* Tel.: +49 228 734908; fax: +49 228 731972.

E-mail address: [email protected].

476-945X/$ – see front matter # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.oi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2008.04.003

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2008.04.003

e c o l o g i c a l c o m p l e x i t y 5 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 2 0 2 – 2 1 5 203

1. Introduction

Worldwide, there is a growing attempt to manage natural

resources through collaborative and partnership-based initia-

tives in a single coordinating basin-wide organisation. In

many cases, these initiatives are place-based nexus for

multiple actors (individuals and organisations) to address

complex resource management issues within a hydrological

entity (river or watershed). However, there is growing

recognition that multiple actors are interacting with diverse

rules across complex decision-making arenas that are beyond

individual coordinating bodies (Ostrom, 2005a; Genskow and

Born, 2006) making water management a socio-political

process (Bhat and Mollinga, 2006). Very little is known about

the complexity of interaction and the mixture of rules

involved in these decision-making arenas (Mehta et al.,

1999; Ostrom, 2001; Lubell, 2003). Attempts in the past (see

Gibson et al., 2005; Poteete and Ostrom, 2004; Agrawal and

Gupta, 2005; Agrawal and Chhatre, 2006) have focused on one

form of institutional arrangement (collective action) and its

causal relationship with social, ecological and institutional

variables, thereby undermining the inter-relationship

between variables and other institutional arrangements (the

state and market). Though complex linkages have been

recognised (Ostrom, 2005a), it is often considered extremely

challenging to solidify through empirical research. The study

takes on this challenge by examining the interactive nature of

actors and rules in a water-related problem-context in a

hamlet in the Indian Himalayas. A systems approach is

adopted to analyse the interactive nature in framing the

water-related problem, distributing water, building house-

holds’ capability to access water and in facilitating agents of

institutional change, thereby attempting to be comprehensive

in understanding the socio-political process of water manage-

ment. In the process, a series of questions are answered: how

various institutional arrangements interact over a period in

influencing water management; how socio-ecological and

institutional systems interact; how capabilities of actors are

built and how agents of institutional change emerge.

2. Systems approach to unravel complexity

Water resources are intricately linked with a number of

components that make it a socio-ecological system, in

response to stimuli in various sub-systems (Stephens and

Hess, 1999; Anderies et al., 2004). With many sub-systems

operating at various levels, the failure of one of these units

may be compensated by the functioning of the other, leading

to adaptive change in the water management regime. It is this

combination of adaptability and complexity that makes water

resource management a complex adaptive system, charac-

terised by openness, ‘ebb and flow’ partnerships amongst

multiple actors, and emergent properties (Dorcey, 1986;

Stephens and Hess, 1999; Ostrom, 2001; Pahl-Wostl, 2007). A

systems approach is central to unravelling this complex

adaptive system. Systems approach is often applied in

contemporary literature in two forms; one calling for ‘broad’

or comprehensive perspectives (Pahl-Wostl, 2007) to under-

stand water management and the other calling for an

integrative perspective (Bellamy et al., 2001), by identifying

key variables influencing water management. Rather than

considering these as opposing poles, Mitchell (2005) calls for

their utilisation in a phased manner, thinking comprehen-

sively at normative and strategic levels to identify and

consider the broad array of variables influencing water

management, whilst remaining integrated at a tactical and

operational scale of water management. This helps to develop

applied knowledge on water management practices, and focus

on the levels of institutional action for designing water

institutions.

The analytical framework builds on the strengths of the

institutional analysis development (IAD) framework (Ostrom

et al., 1994), which states that human entities and rules

interact in decision-making arenas to manage water. How-

ever, various amendments are made by drawing on Dorcey

(1986) and Gunderson and Holling (2002), to analyse complex

adaptive water systems. The framework consists of three

situational variables—human entities, prevailing rules and

bio-physical resources, which interact in diverse decision-

making arenas to reshape the same (Fig. 1).

Literatures differentiate human entities as stakeholders,

actors and agents; sometimes they are interchangeably used,

often creating confusion for understanding their role in water

management. Roling and Wagemakers (1998, p. 7) define

‘‘Stakeholders are natural resource users and managers’’.

These stakeholders ‘affect, and/or are affected by, the policies,

decisions, and actions of the system’ (Grimble et al., 1995).

They are ‘individuals, communities, social groups or institu-

tions of any size, aggregation or level in society’ or even

nebulous categories (‘future generation’, ‘national interest’

and ‘wider society’) (Grimble et al., 1995, p. 3). Actors as human

entities have gained prominence, largely among social

scientist. For them, actors are ‘active participants who process

information and strategise in their dealings with various local

actors, as well as with outside institutions and personnel’

(Long, 2001, p. 13). They have an incumbent of roles that exist

in the ‘singular’ and meet the strict criteria for possessing a

unique social identify, which is derived from their subjects

(Archer, 2003, p. 118). Here actors are organisations and groups

of individuals, who are stakeholders with legitimate interest.

This goes beyond ‘interest’ attached to stakeholders, to those

with ‘legitimate interest’. While all actors have powers,

following Hindess (1986, pp. 117–119), Long (2001, p. 18) argues

few of them have discursive powers, ‘they form a part of the

differentiated stocks of knowledge and resource available to

actors of different types’ (Emphasis added). This discursive

power enables local actors to transform into ‘social actor’,

signifying the social construction that closely relates to

Giddens (1984) agents having ‘transformative capacity’. The

social construction emerges through ‘collective actors’ in the

form of coalition of heterogeneous actor-network, and by

constituting a unitary whole (Long, 2001, pp. 56–57). Similar

view is expressed by actor-network theorist, but in addition to

human, they include non-human entities (Callon, 1991), which

is meaningless (Murdoch, 1997). These literatures illustrate

stakeholders, actors and agents as three different roles of

human entities. The paper proposes to examine these

differential roles of human entities in the socio-political

process of water management.

Fig. 1 – Framework for analysing institutional integration.


Rules are patterned behaviours of a social group, evolved

over a period, in order to govern human activity (Mitchell,

1975; Burns and Flam, 1987; Ostrom, 1998). They forbid, permit

or require some actions or outcomes to enable actors to derive

benefit (or loss) from certain resources (Crawford and Ostrom,

1995). Rules are structures of power relations that human

entities draw in the socio-political process of water manage-

ment. These rules may be statutory rules, socially embedded

rules, and shared strategies that are hierarchically arranged as

an institutional environment, institutional components and

integrative rules in an arena (Fig. 2).

Contemporary institutionalists recognise rules as formal

and informal, which fail to reflect the social reality of

Fig. 2 – Hierarchy of

management institutions. Rules classified as statutory,

socially embedded and as shared strategies (Crawford and

Ostrom, 1995 equates these as institutional statements),

constitute the institutional environment. Statutory rules are

constitutionally and legally valid, openly shared and clearly

structured arrangements enforced by either or both public and

private actors. Rules that are socially embedded are formal,

when they are practised widely amongst individuals and

groups, but concealed, unwritten and enforced by caste,

village councils, religion and so forth. Shared strategies rules

are those that are practised on a day-to-day living and upheld

by individuals (or groups of individuals) through mutual

agreements. Each of these rules have three institutional

rules in arena.


components: policy-making, administration, and implementa-

tion of water-resource management. Ostrom (1990) and others

(Saleth and Dinar, 2004) recognise these as constitutional

rules, collective rules and operational rules arranged hier-

archically. However, in the real world scenario, these rules are

complex and interact in non-linear forms representing an ‘ebb

and flow’ regime (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984; Dorcey,

1986). In this ‘ebb and flow’ regime, policies range from

statutory policies to cultural cognitive frameworks, legislation

refers to statutory-established law to socially embedded

norms, and administrative refers to regulative frameworks

(Scott, 1995). Each of these institutional components have

myriads of integrative rules that shape water-related deci-

sions. Ostrom and her team (Ostrom et al., 1994) broadly

classifies these as boundary rules (specifying who the actors

are), position rules (setting the position for actors to take),

scope rules (setting the outcomes for their decisions),

aggregation rules (specifying the outcome), information rules

(providing channels for communication), authority rules

(setting the actions assigned for actors) and pay-off rules

(prescribing the benefits and costs).

Applying prescriptively, Ostrom et al. (1994) and Ostrom

(2005b, p. 189) considers boundary and authority rules

assigned to position rules. The scope rules (potential out-

comes) of the actors depend on the information, aggregation

and pay-off rules. Applying these rules heuristically to

examine the socio-political process of water management

requires amendments on the inter-linkage between rules

(Fig. 3). Here the boundary and authority rules are assigned to

human entities position (position rule). The information rule

provides scope (potential outcomes) for actions, but the

actual action depends on the aggregation rule, which leads to

pay-off (rule) for human entities to interact. It is this ‘bundle

of rules’, which help human entities to enter, take positions,

and authorise certain water-related decisions in the action

arena.

Fig. 3 – Inter-linkages among rules. Source

In arenas, availability of natural resources (in terms of

quality, quantity and variability) does not affect the decision-

making process directly. Rather in conjunction with man-

made and human resources, they interact with rules in

influencing the decision-making process. These bio-physical

resources are of two kinds: authoritative and allocative

resources. Authoritative resources are derived from the co-

ordination of an activity by human agents, while the allocative

resources stems from the control of material products or of

aspects of the material world’ (including physical resources)

by agents (Giddens, 1984, p. 33). Callon (1991) distinguishes

three types of authoritative resources—texts, skills and

monetary resources. Texts are literary inscriptions, such as

reports, books, papers and notes. They are vital in many areas

of social life. They are objects that define the skills, actions and

relations. Embodied skills represent the knowledge and the

know-how. Finally, the money is interpreted as a reserve of

value and instrument of exchange. It is these bio-physical

resources that human entities draw for their strategies, for

their transformational capability and also during the negotia-

tion process.

Human entities draw on myriad of rules and diverse bio-

physical resources to interact in the decision-making arena

through networks. There is no single arena, but multiple,

existing at various levels in the social sphere (Dorcey, 1986),

representing ‘panarchy’ (Holling and Gunderson, 2002). This

‘panarchy’ is not a stand-alone entity, rather interacts with

situational variables (bio-physical resources, characteristics of

human entities and prevailing rules) in linear, cyclic and non-

linear forms of networks. These networks describe a coordi-

nated set of heterogeneous human entities interacting more or

less successfully to develop, produce, distribute and diffuse

methods for generating goods and services (Callon, 1991).

What makes the network approach significant is its ability to

highlight power relations and its ability to emphasise the

contribution of micro-scale actions to large scale outcomes

: Modified from Ostrom (2005b, p. 189).

Fig. 4 – Adaptive institutions within arena. Source: Holling

and Gunderson (2002).


(Woods, 1997). The interaction process within the network

represents a complex-adaptive system, where they negotiate

policies, and then spend time and energy in implementing

them, this leads to mismatch between target proposed and

achieved, allowing them to search for alternatives, and then

renegotiate with new policies making (Fig. 4) (Holling and

Gunderson, 2002). The decisions or social actions that emerge

from these arenas determine the outcomes, which reproduce

the rules and resources, thus making the framework adaptive

and dynamic, and representing Giddens duality of structure

and agency. Contextual variables influence the arenas at any

point in time, thus leading to punctuation in the decision-

making process.

The analytical framework is empirically applied in a water-

related problem context using diverse research methods in the

case study hamlet in the Indian Himalayas. Examining water

resource management in a problem-context helps to under-

stand the causal explanation of human activities, and to

conceive the nature of social reality (Crothers, 1999). It is only

during the problem-context that human entities having a

shared vision are triggered to make a well-informed strategic

choice (in contrast to their static roles and responsibilities) in

the socio-political process of water management. Further, in

such problem-context things are not as complex as presumed

for analysis (Ostrom, 2005a,b), rather ‘a definite ordering and

models of complexities can be built-up’ (Crothers, 1999, p. 221)

for the analysis.

The research methods are combined in four forms of

research investigation – primary, lead, follow-up and cross-

check investigation – in order to contextualise and obtain

different types of quantitative and qualitative information

(Hentschel, 1999). These investigations contribute toward an

understanding of water-related problems by engaging with

stakeholders to ascertain actors and agents and their

contested practices. In the process, structured interviews

(with 43 households), semi-structured interviews (with var-

ious 32 actors and 3 agents ascertained in context), focus-

group interviews, participatory methods, and participant

observation, were carried out in the region during a yearlong

field research in 2004. The information collected was analysed

using a Bayesian belief network that is based on the

probability calculus. The Bayesian network offers advantages

(Batchelor and Cain, 1999; Robertson and Wang, 2004) to

integrate both qualitative and quantitative information, and to

quantify the probability of relationships amongst variables. In

this network, the variable indicates the actors or the

contextual factors. The linkages amongst these variables

indicate the rule that governs their relationship, which is

derived either through chi-square (significance p value),

through qualitative information obtained from field research

and/or through the logical reasoning of the researcher. Based

on the rule in the network, these variables are classified as

‘boundary’, ‘position’, ‘aggregation’, ‘information’, ‘authority’,

‘scope’ and ‘pay-off’ variables. The variables and their linkages

are applied into a probability model of Bayesian Network (BN)

using NETICA software (Norsys Software Corporation

Canada). A panel of advisors for the research (households,

village leaders, bureaucrats, intellectual experts, non-govern-

ment officials and politicians) acted as a sounding board to

reflect closer to the reality.

3. Negotiating water management in the casestudy

The study unravels the complexity of water institutions in a

problem-context in the hamlet Pipal in the State of Himachal

Pradesh (hereafter Himachal), India.

The hamlet is a settlement within Pipal Revenue Village—

the lowest administrative unit in Indian administration) in the

Sohan district of the State. The hamlet is multi-caste and has a

population of about 382 households (85% of the total village

population). Being located in the low-hills sub-tropical

Shiwalik zone, it has unconsolidated deposits, making it

susceptible to soil and water erosion. The only river traversing

the watershed is the river Markhanda, which dissects the

region through a number of braided streams that flow from

northeast to southwest. This river water is diverted through

khuls (channels) to irrigate (known as khul irrigation) 304 acres

of cultivable land, mainly from June to August for paddy crop,

and supplemental irrigation (along with rainfall) in January

and February, for wheat and other vegetables. Though in

recent years (in the last 3 years from data available from

Village Administrative Officer, Pipal) there is significant shift

from predominantly food crops towards horticultural and

vegetable crops.

The settlement is said to have taken place sometimes in the

17th Century. It is understood that the then ruler of Sohan, the

King Shamsher Singh (hereafter the Ruler), brought in

different communities to work as tenant cultivators (in his

orchards and his fields), to supply milk and its products from

Gujjars (a traditional grazing community) and for rearing

horses and elephants for the Palace. Since Independence in

1947, the hamlet has witnessed various development initia-

tives from expanding infrastructure facilities, redistributing

unequal land ownership (Land Reforms Act), alleviating

poverty, conserving water and introducing democratic

reforms (Indian Constitutional 73rd Amendment). These

developments have significantly influenced the social and

economic status of the households. Currently, households

depend on milk marketing, labour employment and regular

Fig. 5 – Incremental evolution of khul irrigation command—Pipal.


employment (in government and private organisations),

which contribute 38, 35 and 16% to their annual income,

respectively. Agriculture contributes only 11% to the house-

holds’ total annual income. In spite of this, households in the

hamlet report a number of problems—‘inadequate road and

bus services to access urban centres in the Indian plains’,

‘unemployment among educated youths’, ‘inadequate avail-

ability of water to irrigate the existing khul command area’ and

‘increasing degradation of land’ (due to the physiographic

condition). Of these, ‘inadequate availability of water to

irrigate the existing khul command area’ is examined closely

to understand the socio-political process in constraining

water management and in facilitating agents of institutional

change.

3.1. Actors and rules constraining water management

Water resources are constrained by a number of actors having

diverse perspectives. These perspectives are policies that

provide strategic directions for actors in order for them to

adopt a particular course of action. These policies range from

paradigms, public sentiments, programmes and frames

(Campbell, 1998), which may be in the form of statutory

policies, programme statements, visions, goals and cultural

values amongst a range of actors. It is through these diverse

perspectives that the negotiations begin in framing water-

related problems and in distributing water amongst actors in

the region. The ability of households to administer the

problem and to overcome unequal distribution is structured

by actors and rules. It is a combination of these factors that

constrain water management in the region. The constraining

role of actors and rules is analytically described in a network of

relationships. The network depicts a number of variables

interlinked with each other in the form of a web. The source of

the variable indicates the actors or the contextual factors. The

state within the variable defines the nature of the variable in

terms of the probability of occurrences. The linkages between

variables indicate the rules governing the probability of their

relationship. The interconnection amongst these variables

indicate the network of actors and rules influencing the pay-

off variables—‘inadequacy of water (for khul irrigation com-

mand)’, ‘distribution of water’, and ‘actions to access water’,

which are discussed in the following three sections.

3.1.1. Framing the problem: incremental augmentation inkhul irrigation command

The hamlet Pipal witnessed multiple variables cutting across

socio-ecological systems when negotiating policies to frame

the water-related problem (Fig. 5). The boundary variables

influencing the perceived increase in the khul irrigation

command area were the contextual factors and the statutory

public actors. The contextual factors included ‘annual rain-

fall’, ‘physiography’ and ‘location of land’. The statutory public

actors included ‘ruler ownership of 123 acres of orchard’,

initiatives for ‘on-farm development-1990’, ‘Land Reforms Act

1958’, ‘Supreme Court Ruling 2001’ and ‘community-based

management’(CBM) programmes initiated by the World Bank

and the government of India (GoI). These boundary variables

were exploited by statutory public actors and socially

embedded actors through position variables—the ‘importance

of irrigation’ to overcome variability in water, constructing

‘Markhanda Khul-1880’, providing ‘employment in orchard’

for households in Rajouri, implementing land reforms by the

government of Himachal Pradesh (GoHP) under Himachal

Pradesh Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act (HPTLA) 1968 and

Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act (HPTLR)

1972, ‘creating water-users association’, and ‘on-farm devel-

opment-1990s’ by the Department of Irrigation and Public


Health (hereafter DoIPH). The socially embedded informal and

statutory public actors exploited the above boundary and

position variables using the following aggregation variables—

their ‘relationship with the ruler’, and ‘the presumed impact of

programmes’ that would lead to additional water availability.

Interestingly, the regional level statutory public actors

legitimised these through authority variables—extending

‘water rights to Rajouri’ and ‘water rights to Pipal’. This has

influenced the perceived pay-off variable ‘inadequacy of

water’ for the households, who in turn adopted different

forms of actions to manage the problem. In managing the Khul

over the past Century, there were no variables that provided

actors the information and scope rules for informed water-

related decisions. As a result, actors adopt ‘fire-fighting’

approaches to further their own policies without a proper

assessment of the existing water resources or offering various

scopes for their decisions.

The physiography in the hamlet is characterised by highly

fragile land (prone to erosion and denuded landscape). All the

‘official’ classified reserve forests, shamlat (waste) land and

grassland fall under the category of denuded landscape, which

account for approximately 90% of the total area of the Khairi-

Ka-Kala watershed. In this fragile landscape, variation in the

annual average rainfall is high. Based on the reading from the

nearest rainfall station, 95% variability in rainfall was

reported. In these contextual settings, the Ruler’s ownership

of 123 acres of orchard land set the ‘boundary’ rules for water

management in the hamlet. The Ruler exploited the ‘bound-

ary’ rules by taking the ‘position’ to irrigate and construct a

khul irrigation system for the 123 acres of orchard land in Pipal

(now known as Bagh), and employed the households of the

hamlet Rajouri (an upstream hamlet along the khul channel) to

maintain and meet the labour requirements (Department of

Revenue, 1890). This wise decision, argued the descendent

(great-grandson) of the Ruler, allowed these households to

provide security for the irrigation channels from water threats

and also helped in managing the horticulture crops (Personal

communication, 24 June 2004). Interestingly, the households

of Rajouri ‘aggregated’ this position (employer–employee

relationship) with another ‘boundary’ rule (the upstream

‘location of land’ that was close to the khul) to demand

irrigation rights. This was ‘authorised’ by the Ruler in the early

1940s to approximately 89% of the households of Rajouri, not

due to an informed assessment of the water resources, but

rather, as the great-grandson puts it, ‘to protect the khul

system and in turn the horticulture crops, due to constant

stealing of water by these households’ (Personal Communica-

tion, 17 July 2004).

The increase in the khul irrigation command in the 1940s

was augmented with additional interventions after India’s

Independence in 1947. The government of India introduced a

Land Reforms Act in 1958, while both national and interna-

tional agencies introduced on-farm development activities

in the 1990s to conserve water, and community-based

approaches were developed to democratise irrigation manage-

ment in 2001. The Land Reforms Act (1958) of the Indian

government was implemented in the state of Himachal, as the

Himachal Pradesh Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act 1968 and

the Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act 1972 by

the Department of Land Revenue (DoLR) to redistribute excess

land from the landlords (here the Ruler) to the tenant

cultivators (the households of the hamlet Pipal) in order to

provide livelihood security. This Act set the ‘boundary’ rule for

about 90% of the households, as the rest had prior land-

ownership rights. However, 80% of the households were able

to take a ‘position’ – as landowners – as the rest of the

households had their cases pending in judicial courts or were

denied due to various reasons. These new landowners

‘aggregated’ their ‘position’ with the ‘boundary’ rule – the

downstream ‘location of land’ close to the khul – to legitimise

their demand for irrigation rights.

Interestingly, the legitimacy of the households of Pipal to

demand irrigation rights were enhanced by other ‘boundary’

and ‘position’ rules from statutory public actors (the govern-

ment of Himachal Pradesh, the World Bank, and the Supreme

Court of India) that affected the Bagh khulmanagement. One of

the boundary rules enhancing the legitimacy was the on-farm

development programmes that received priority under 5-Year

Plans in the State of Himachal Pradesh. Under this pro-

gramme, 95% of the Bagh Khul was lined to conserve water in

1998–99. This ‘boundary’ rule enabled the officials of the DoIPH

to take ‘positions’, ‘‘if khuls are lined, irrigated area has to be

increased to show impact of the intervention’’ claimed the

official in the DoIPH (Personal communication, 25 May 2004).

This ‘position’ rule was strongly supported by the second

‘boundary’ rule. In the year 2001, the Supreme Court of India

directed all government agencies to regularise the contracts of

daily labourers who had worked for more than 10 years.

Regularising labourers would entail providing a monthly

salary (in contrast to daily wages) as well as other social

security benefits (such as pensions, housing allowances and

medical allowances). The probability of this ruling influencing

the maintenance of the Bagh Khul was significant as the cost of

maintaining the khul increased threefold (from 40,000 per year

to 115,000 in 2002 approximately), creating a financial burden

for DoIPH. At the same time, the World Bank funded Integrated

Watershed Development Programmes implemented by the

Department of Forest (DoF) and integrated wasteland devel-

opment programmes implemented by the District Rural

Development Agency (DRDA), was spear-headed as successful

community-based initiatives. Of the total user groups created

under the programmes on May 2004, officials perceived a

probability that 78% were functioning successfully. This

assessment was based on the completion of the physical

tasks of watershed management, maintenance of records and

more importantly, additional water availability. This intro-

duced a ‘boundary’ rule concluding that community-based

initiatives were efficient, that they could reduce financial

expenses, increase water availability and reduce water

conflicts. The above two ‘boundary’ rules (provided by the

Supreme Court of India and national and international

agencies experience in community-based initiatives) provided

an opportunity for the DoIPH to take a ‘positions’ rule—

creating a water-users associations to overcome financial

deficits and to promote democratic forms of irrigation

management. There was a high probability (76%) of this

position rule influencing the establishment of the Bagh Khul

Irrigation Society (BKIS) among officials of the DoIPH. These

officials believed, as summarised by the Junior Engineer of

the region, that ‘people have experience (from past), have


knowledge on the water flow and therefore conserve water

and resolve conflicts amicably’ (Personal Communication, 22

June 2004). However, the formation of the BKIS only

accommodated the interests of those households who had

cultivable lands beyond the khul irrigation command, due to

their close associations with the leaders, further increasing

the irrigated area informally.

The above two ‘position’ rules (lining of the khul channel to

increase water availability and the formation of the BKIS to

democratise management), were ‘aggregated’ by the DoIPH

and the households of Pipal to increase khul irrigation rights,

once in 1990, and then in 2002, respectively. Interestingly,

these were ‘authorised’ by the DoIPH as one of the successful

forms of participatory irrigation management in the district

without any adequate assessment of water resources and over

a period increased the khul irrigation command area from 123

acres in 1880 to 306 acres in 2004. There is a high probability

(80%) of households perceiving the ‘inadequacy of water’ due

to increase in irrigated area influencing their livelihood,

leading to different pay-offs for households.

3.1.2. Distributing water—retaining past legacyThe water distribution in the hamlet Pipal illustrates actors’

ability to retain past distribution practices, in spite of changing

authority (from Princely Ruler to the DoIPH and recently, to the

Bagh Khul Irrigation Society). In the past, water distribution in

the Khul irrigation command was controlled by the then

Princely Ruler on a ‘first-come-first serve’ basis (irrespective of

the location of the land). This meant that households owning

land in the khul irrigation command had to report to the

appointed ‘water distributor’ prior to their requirement (DoR,

1890). After Independence in 1947, the water bodies were

taken over by the Public Works Department (PWD) and later, in

the 1970s, by the DoIPH. The water distributor employed by the

DoIPH followed the same pattern. The current water distribu-

tion pattern is influenced by the boundary variables; the

‘prevailing notion of CBM’, ‘Supreme Court Ruling, 2001’

regulating contract labourers, the ‘location of land’ in the

irrigation command and the ‘experience of managing khul’

amongst households of Pipal (Fig. 6). These ‘boundary’

variables influenced the position variables—‘cost of khul

management’ by the DoIPH, ‘leadership in WUA’ and

Fig. 6 – Distribution

‘water-stealing by farmers’. These positions were combined

together by the aggregation variable – the ‘distribution of

water’ – to be applied in the form of a ‘first-come-first-serve’

principle in the hamlet. This principle led to transporting

water over long distances, over-irrigating crops, inadequate

crop planning and conflicts in water distribution, leading to a

high probability (70%) of it being perceived inefficient by the

households. Interestingly, these principles were authorised by

regional statutory public actors (DoIPH) as a ‘community-

managed system’, efficient in distributing water.

The Supreme Court of India (through a ruling in 2001), the

World Bank and the government of Himachal Pradesh

(through funding various community-based watershed devel-

opment programmes) set the ‘boundary’ rule for the current

water distribution practice (as elaborated in the previous

section-Framing the Problem). This provided an opportunity

for the officials in the DoIPH to take a ‘position’ for the

formation of the Bagh Khul Irrigation Society (BKIS), a user

group registered with the DoIPH. However, the functioning of

the BKIS is determined by the leaders of the BKIS to ‘aggregate’

experiences and current distribution practices. About 67% of

the households perceived the probability of inadequate

leadership affecting water distribution. Furthermore, house-

holds perceived about 75% of the distribution being inefficient

primarily due to insignificant experience in managing khul.

This coupled with a high probability (65%) of water-stealing

reported by the households who possess land either down-

stream or upstream of the khul command area. Insignificant

experience in managing khul, high probability of water-

stealing and social bonds of preferential treatment by the

BKIS leads to the probability (67%) of water distribution being

inefficient. As an elderly person put it, ‘‘water distribution in

our hamlet is based on the principle of ‘might is right’’’

(Personal Communication, 15 June 2004), thereby influencing

diverse actions to access water.

3.1.3. Influencing household’s capabilityWith inadequate availability and inefficient distribution of

water, households adopt various actions to access water for

irrigation. The capability of households to adopt particular

actions is structured by actors and rules. In the hamlet Pipal,

the capability of households is structured by the infrastructure

of water—Pipal.

Fig. 7 – Capability networks of households-Pipal.


facilities, i.e. road and bus services to the nearest town

provided by the government of Himachal Pradesh and the

livestock asset (Fig. 7). This sets the ‘boundary’ rule for

households to take a ‘position’ by building a social network

that enables the mobilisation of an optimal quantity of milk

for the market. The ability of households to ‘aggregate’ this is

‘authorised’ by the market that decides the cash income for

these households from dairy marketing. The differential cash

income from dairy marketing influences the actions of the

households toward successful water management. These

actions are in the form of resistance, negotiation, dissemina-

tion and resignation. The households adopted these actions

during 2003. Some of the variables that did not influence this

capability were those related to landholdings, demographic

factors, cropping patterns and income from other sources.

The diverse actions by households depict different forms of

arrangements. Resistance-based actions are based on indivi-

dual rationality, such as the stealing of water and using verbal

abuse to forcefully take water. They believe that these actions

will certainly effect change in the way the water is managed.

As one of the farmers commented, ‘‘It is only by this action

(stealing water) I can get water to my field’’. Negotiation-based

actions involve combining individual rationality with con-

sensus-seeking communicative behaviour, such as informing

the President or other executive members of the BKIS.

Dissemination-based actors communicate to the President

or other executive committee members their concerns, but do

not wait for responses to get their water. Resignation-based

actors withdraw from taking any action. Statements such as

‘‘what can we do in a world where might is right’’ are common

amongst these actors. Of these types of actors, the latter two

were adopted by 80% of the households. These actions are

highly context-specific, as households adopt a combination of

actions to access water over a period. It is common practice for

households to use resistance forms of actions to access water

and then negotiate with the BKIS.

3.2. Actors and rules facilitating agents of watermanagement

Different actions of the households were facilitated by diverse

agents, who are located at various levels. Examining these

agents offer opportunities to facilitate or constrain particular

forms of actions of the households. The agents involved in

facilitating negotiation-based action were examined, as this

type of action attempts to strengthen existing institutional

arrangements and seek consensus. The agent facilitating this

action was Mr. Parem Singh (hereafter PS), the President of the

BKIS, who was contacted by 86% of the sampled households

adopting negotiation-based action. PS argued that the

upstream stealing of water and an inadequate distribution

were the major causes of the problem. He argued that such

inefficiencies would arise due to ‘‘what fate has endowed on

the individual in terms of size of land, its differential location

and quality’’. He claimed he ‘‘often attempted to educate the

members in sharing of water leads to avoid misunderstanding

and the notion of favouring one another, and sometimes

conflicts’’. Given past experiences, PS avoided such social

confrontation and instead his fellow members (the Vice-

President and the Treasurer) and himself opted for technical

solutions, such as installing lift irrigation, lining and widening

the khul channel and efforts to reduce landslides (Letter to

SDO, DoIPH dated 30th August 2004). PS is seeking to pursue

one of these solutions as his ‘project’ – the installation of a lift

irrigation scheme – to solve the inadequate water available to

irrigate the khul command. He was interviewed through semi-

Fig. 8 – Agents negotiating change. Note: Individuals in bold boxes are agents who were interviewed for this paper, while

other boxes illustrate only the organisation that these agents contact to push their ‘project’.


structured open-ended interviews, between March and

December 2004, to gain an understanding of the network of

variables influencing their agency. Through snowballing

techniques, other agents across spatial levels were identified

(Fig. 8).

Networks of variables influence the agency of PS. The

boundary variable, work experience as a retired ‘truck driver’

in the Indian Army and with the Department of Agriculture,

the government of Himachal Pradesh enabled him to build

social networks (with government officials and politicians).

This ‘social network’ acted as an information variable in

offering ‘scope’ on different government programmes and

also regarding the officials involved in providing these

programmes. PS used the social network and scopes to

convince the DoIPH, who appointed him as the President of

the BKIS. As the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) justifies, ‘he is

most respected within the department of agriculture and also

within the hamlet’. Using this position, PS gains authority to

draw on another boundary variable (Indian Constitutional

73rd Amendment) to get required pay-off by accessing the

MLA and the SDO of DoIPH.. The pay-off remains in his ability

to demonstrate his status within the hamlet, which he expects

to benefit from when standing for the Panchayat (the lowest

democratic institutions set-up after the Indian Constitutional

73rd Amendment 1994 to decentralise governance) election in

December 2005.

The MLA, Mr. Dayanand Chauhan (hereafter DC), used the

opportunity provided by PS, to show his commitment as a

responsible elected member in order to sustain his position.

DC climbed the political ladder as a Member of the Legislative

Assembly (MLA) using three boundary variables—‘family

history as the local don’, representing ‘Scheduled Caste’

community and from the ‘poor performance of the then ruling

Congress Party’. Moreover, DC himself does not hold any

criminal record, but his father was a well-known drug

trafficker before India’s Independence in 1947, and one of

his sons were involved in the rape of a student in 2001 and is

now roaming scot-free. Being a Scheduled Caste himself, he

received immunity from his families’ criminal linkages

through the Indian constitution (where individual without

any criminal record are eligible, rather their families, if they

fulfil age, citizenship and other criterion) by being elected as

MLA in the Scheduled Caste reserved Sohan electoral

constituency. Furthermore, poor performance (non-suppor-

tive to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe population) of the

Congress party since Independence supported his immunity.

It is this position as MLA, which provided him with

information variables (‘existence of various development

programmes’ in the state and ‘political agents’ in his

constituency), which provides the scope of his intervention

to sustain his position (the ability to ‘seek state assembly for

fund allocation’ and the ‘availability of MLA development

funds’). It is these variables that provide different rules in

building his capabilities to pressurise Suresh Kumar, the SDO

of the DoIPH, to implement a lift irrigation scheme in the

hamlet Pipal.

For Suresh Kumar (hereafter SK) to react to the requests

made by PS and DC is largely dependent on the boundary

variables, ‘resident of Kethi village Panchayat’, which is a

downstream village from Pipal’ and the ‘SDO in-charge of

irrigation development’ in the Sohan jurisdiction. These

boundary variables provide the rules for him to take the

Table 1 – Attributes governing negotiation of agents

Attributes Actors/resources Parem Singh Dayanand Chauhan, MLA Suresh Kumar, SDO

Equity Resources Inequity is decided by fate Presence of Scheduled Caste

and Scheduled Tribe

population—Vote Bank

Technical and social

feasibility

Actors Mystical world GoI/GoHP DoIPH

Responsibility Resources Assumed Assigned Assigned

Actors BKIS GoI/GoHP DoIPH

Coordination Resources Informal network, personal

and formal communication

Formal letter, followed by

phone calls

Delayed formal letter


Participation Resources Trust built over a period

of time

Forceful means Reluctant participation


Accountability Resources Street talks Formal written communication Formal written communication



position of ‘Officer in-charge for irrigation development’ in the

hamlet Pipal. However, his position to implement decisions

depends on the information provided by his subordinate

officers (who had informed him that there is not enough water

available in the river Markhanda to lift water for irrigation), as

well as from the households in his native village Kethi, who

will be affected by the extraction of water from upstream

Pipal. This information variable provides him with rule that

‘less availability of water in river Markhanda—reject the

demand for additional lift irrigation scheme’. However, he did

not inform PS and DC about these decisions, as he claimed that

this would lead to a conflict of interest and a potential

demotion of his position due to political pressure. Due to these

factors, he avoided these two agents and bought time to finally

reveal his decision—the rejection of the lift irrigation scheme.

The transformative capacity or power of these agents is

gained incrementally and cumulatively with actors structur-

ing them at various point of time. This power is only activated

in a problem-context, when they are supported by socially

embedded and statutory rules for them to pursue and

negotiate a ‘project’. It is during this negotiation process that

agents display, maintain and uphold by revealing their

differential power relations. The interplay of power was

assessed by examining the attributes that govern their

decisions—on why they choose to support or pursue this

project, how they assume responsibility, coordinate, partici-

pate and are accountable during the negotiation process

(Table 1). Three main actors are involved in providing

differential rules for this agency—the BKIS, DoIPH and GoI/

GoHP. However, the resources used by these agents are

diverse. PS draws on mystical world to justify his choice of

‘project’. The choice of DC to support the ‘project’ depends on

his ‘vote-bank’ (the resource required for him to maintain his

position) and SK uses the socio-technical feasibility of DoIPH.

Responsibility is either assumed or assigned by agents, which

they take depending on the authority bestowed on them by

different actors. Coordination depends on the past social

relationship among these agents. PS maintains various form

of coordination and uses both historical relationship and

communication as resources for other agents’ coordination.

DC and SK use authority-based approach, and personal

communication as a resource. Agents adopt a range of

participation from participation based on trust, to reluctant

participation. Agents adopt two forms of accountability,

through street talks and formal means of communication.

The attributes that governs the decisions takes diverse forms,

which only question the contemporary notions to promote

water governance on the idealistic, communicative and

consensual-based resource management. It is important that

different characteristics of the attributes are embraced for

sustainable water management by providing opportunity for

agents to negotiate and contest. In these negotiation pro-

cesses, it is not rules and resources, per se that is important for

agents, rather their ability to integrate diverse rules and

resources to build their capability and negotiate their

differential power that is important.

The negotiation processes of the agents demonstrate their

effort to address the inadequate water availability in the

hamlet Pipal. More importantly is their ability to remain

supportive to other actors in the process. For instance, PS is

supportive to the households of Pipal, DC is supportive to

households within his constituency, and SK, the supportive to

the DoIPH of the DoIPH. Though these agents react to the crisis

of inadequate water availability, each pursue their own

interests in the process. PS aims to be elected in the Panchayat

and thereby remains ‘goal-oriented’, DC attempt to ‘maintain

his position’ as the MLA, and SK reacts to the situation, thereby

maintaining his position. Though they have been reactive and

were able to be supportive, they fail to respond to the problem

with long-term interests in water-management.

4. Concluding remarks on the case study:implication for integrated water management

Using systems approach in a problem-context, the study

unravels the complexity of water institutions in a hamlet. It

identifies multiple actors negotiating a bundle of rules in a

number of action arenas toward constraining and facilitating

water management. These arenas are location-specific or

generic, formal or informal, and are naturally evolved or

deliberately created by strategically located actors and agents.

The decision-making processes in these arenas do not

represent communicative and consensual partnerships or


strategic actions, but rather combines diverse social commu-

nicative skills over a period, making water management a

socio-political process. Here integration of institutions does

not have any tangible form, but are realised through linkages

between pre-existing activities (Morrison, 2004). The scale of

integration is complex that conceals the discrete distinction

between local, national and global, between state, market and

community institutions, and among various sectors involved

in water management. In spite of various institutions involved

in framing the problem, the core belief remains that ‘water is

infinite’ (and can be exploited) and prior water distribution

cannot be meddled with. The hamlet witnessed noticeable

change in the statutory actors (from the Ruler to the

government of India, the GoHP, international agencies and

local institutions), but even though the newly positioned

actors ascertained that ‘water is infinite’, they did so without

making any realistic assessment of water resources to meet

the growing demands. What makes these actors adopt such a

‘fire-fighting’ approach (to address the food crisis, water

conservation and in promoting democratic governance) is the

absence of ‘information’ and ‘scope’ rules. Facilitating their

decision-making process requires adequate opportunities that

enable actors to voluntarily share and debate available

information toward the formation of a consensual decision.

This could be achieved through infrastructure facilities (road,

telecommunications, mass media and others) that allow

actors to interact and seek various options for desired

outcomes using various forms of communicative skills.

The authority to distribute water changed from Princely

Ruler, to the DoIPH and later to the BKIS. But the newly

positioned actors still maintained the past ‘first-come-first-

serve’ basis of water distribution, thus making water distribu-

tion inefficient. In this case, there was no absence of

information rules, rather its inadequacy (or misinformation

that CBM were efficient), which resulted in the absence of any

aggregation rule that resulted in the DoIPH (not monitoring

and regulating water distribution) presuming that water

distribution would be efficient being a community-controlled

system now. This resulted in the wastage of water, inadequate

crop planning and conflict, making distribution inefficient.

This calls for strengthening the distributive form of govern-

ance, whereby sectoral statutory public actors monitor and

regulate water distribution on the ground. Households’

capability to access water is built over time by both statutory

public actors (GoHP) and socially embedded informal actors

(households), with the market playing a minor role. Avail-

ability of cattle, infrastructure facilities and a social network

played a major role in influencing households’ capabilities,

which cannot be negotiated through communicative action, as

presumed by contemporary development programmes. The

differential capabilities enable them to adopt various actions

to access water; resistance-, negotiation-, dissemination- and

resignation-based types of action. These actions are multiple

and are unpredictable. In these circumstances, the best option

is to build their capability through various infrastructural

measures and by directly targeting the disadvantaged house-

holds who do not have the capability to adapt to the

institutional changes.

The interaction reveals the adaptive behaviour of actors by

drawing on different rules to negotiate water policies,

distribute water and in influencing households’ capabilities.

For instance, the households in Rajouri (upstream hamlet)

who were granted the position of ‘employee’ in Bagh exploited

the contextual factors (location of their land) to demand

irrigation rights from their Ruler. Similarly, granting of land

ownership rights (position rule) to the households in Pipal

enabled their legitimacy to demand irrigation rights, which

was supported by the government of Himachal Pradesh, the

World Bank, and the BKIS. The adaptive behaviour of actors is

also notable with the introduction of infrastructure facilities

that provided ‘positions’ for households to build social

networks to market milk, in contrast to a subsistence economy

in the past. These actors (Princely ruler, community organisa-

tions, market institutions, government agencies, Supreme

Court, multilateral and private agencies) are stakeholders

having legitimate interest in influencing the water-related

problem in context. The adaptability of these actors were

dependent on the ‘position’ granted by statutory rules, which

were intelligently aggregated by socially embedded rules and

contextual factors to evolve into new strategies and in the

process constrained water management.

By constraining water management, actors facilitated the

emergence of agents, who intelligently combined their

practical (self-interest) with discursive consciousness (collec-

tive interest) to facilitate their agency. This is in contrast to

agent-based studies (see Saleth and Dinar, 2004; Janssen and

Ostrom, 2006), who presumes agents’ as autonomous entity

interacting with static rules in influencing institutional

change. The transformative capacity or the power of these

agents is gained incrementally and cumulatively with actors

structuring them at various points of time. They use this

capacity to integrate diverse actors and more importantly,

change statutory rules in collaboration with other agents. For

instance, PS emerged due to his experience as a ‘truck driver’,

which, in combination with his position as the President of

BKIS and as a member of Punjabi community, gave him the

authority for his actions. DC, who was a Scheduled Caste and

had links with the underworld, exploited the failure of

previous congress parties to gain immunity from the Indian

democratic constitution as MLA. Similarly, SK gained his

authority under the HP Administrative Service. Though

socially embedded and statutory rules provided them with

boundary and position, the authority to take decisions was

provided by statutory rules. All of them use their individua-

listic goal to pursue a collective ‘project’, similar to the study

by Llewellyn (2007). The ability of agents to pursue dual goals

makes them a ‘cunning players’ (Randeria, 2003) in the socio-

political process of water management. These agents are

goal-oriented (PS), opportunistic (DC), and reactive (SK). The

strength of these agents is located in informing other agents

at the macro-level regarding their dissatisfaction with the

existing institutional structures, and to then call for an

adaptive approach by integrating diverse sets of rules. These

agents do not always address issues related to poverty and

environmental management or any philanthropic ideals of

governance, due to limited knowledge and because of their

cunning nature. It is important for statutory public actors

to take notice of these external motives and to recognise

this adaptive behaviour when evolving comprehensive

strategies.


5. General conclusion

Using a system approach in a water-related problem context,

the study unravels the interactive nature of actors and rules in

the hamlet Pipal by applying multi-methods. The information

collected through these methods was applied in a Bayesian

network to identify the relationship amongst variables and for

its graphical representation in a network. This helped in

identifying different types of rules and their interactions

influencing water management. This demonstrated the

reflexive behaviour of human actors and more importantly,

in quantifying the probability of relationships. Though

Bayesian network had several advantages compared to

conventional analytical tools, they may be confronted with

real problems when analysing biophysical reality in terms of a

100% probability. Furthermore, integrating both qualitative

and quantitative information in the network may not be

statistically representative.

Applying systems approach in a problem-context helped to

comprehensively understand water management as a socio-

political process. It is in this process that human entities with

shared vision are triggered to make a well-informed strategic

choice by drawing on diverse rules and resources. Examining

the socio-political process in a problem-context helped to

understand and analyse complexity at a manageable scale.

This helped to identify broad array of human entities and rules

constraining water management, and at the same time,

identify actors and rules integrated by agents to bring about

institutional change to address the problem. In this process,

the stakeholders, actors and agents who are differentially

positioned play an important role in facilitating the socio-

political process. But they actively shift their positions

depending on the problem context and by the ‘project’

pursued by agents of institutional change, making the

socio-political process of water management a dynamic and

adaptive process. Here stakeholders are all natural resources

users and managers, who have a passive role in influencing

the socio-political process from outside the arena, but are

drawn as actors depending on the context and by agents.

Stakeholders as actors enter the arena depending on the

legitimacy granted in the context and by the agents. These

actors are organisations or groups of individuals, who not only

have an incumbent role, as demonstrated by Archer, but also

have a strategic role depending on the context. It is this latter

role that facilitates the agents and their agency. Agents ‘are

people with ‘project’ who develop out of actor-defined issues

or problematic due to inadequacy existing rules and bio-

physical resources. In this socio-political process, all human

entities have transformative capacity or power, which is

activated in a problem-context depending on the statutory

and socially embedded rules facilitating them. The power is

only revealed, displayed, maintained and upheld when agents

negotiate their ‘project’. Such negotiations do not always

address issues related to poverty and environmental manage-

ment or any philanthropic ideals of governance, due limited

knowledge and their cunning nature.

Given the dynamic and adaptive behaviour of human

entities, the study highlights the importance of a compre-

hensive approach to manage water resources, in contrast to

contemporary highly simplistic, standardised linear policy

and single package reform. Such an approach calls for

statutory public actors to formulate strategic policies, but to

benefit the poor, to enhance social justice and to bring about a

sustainable future it calls for a combination of conscious

designing of rules as well as enabling other actors to design

rules is of utmost importance. Conscious designing of rules is

required to monitor and regulate water distribution, to be

adaptive to resource crises and more importantly, to target

deprived households to build their own capabilities by

modifying historic socio-cultural determinants. Enabling

other actors to design rules requires infrastructure facilities

(roads, transportation facilities, and mass media), to enable

actors and agents to voluntarily share and debate available

information on water resources and to build their capabilities

toward self-organisation in integrating water-resource man-

agement.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to University of Queensland for the UQ-

IPRS fellowship and also to International Water Management

Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka for field research. Geoff T

McDonald, Basil von Horen, David Ip, Maria R Saleth, Kanchan

Chopra, Ruth-Meinzen-Dick, Carl Smith, Clive Mcalpine,

Michael La Flamme, Conrad Schetter, Peter Mollinga and

Keith Richards provided extensive comments on the earlier

drafts that helped in refining the paper. In addition, the author

is grateful to anonymous referees of the journal and Prof. Bai-

Lian Larry Li for suggestions to improve the manuscript.

However, usual disclaimers apply.

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V.S. Saravanan is a human and political Geographer specialisingon water resource institutions and public health. He obtained hisdegree in applied Geography, ‘environment and development’,and ‘planning’. He researches on integration of institutions andsocio-ecological modelling in the context of water resources man-agement and, more recently on environment and health. Hisexpertise includes, IWRM, institutional analysis, systemsapproach, socio-ecological modelling. Current research focuseson integrated water management, water politics and developmentand, recently into water pollution and human health.



a systems approach to unravel complex water management institutions

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