The Four Study Basins

The watersheds of the four study areas are quite disparate, but drought or seasonal water scarcity is an issue in all four. The Yaqui Valley and San Pedro basins are geographically close: Both span the Arizona–Mexico border. The San Pedro River flows north to connect to a tributary of the Colorado River. The Yaqui River flows southwest to the Sea of Cortez. Both the San Pedro and the Yaqui basins have a bimodal climate system, with winter rains associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions as well as a summer monsoon. Drought is particularly acute in Ceará, Brazil, where it has significant impacts on the large rural population that depends on rainfed agriculture and precarious drinking water-supply systems. Ceará has only one rainy season, in the spring, and again ENSO is a strong regional climate driver. The arid landscapes of these three regions have a similar vegetation structure: desert scrub with lush but very limited riparian areas. The Upper Ping River, in a monsoon-dominated climate regime, passes through Chiang Mai, the biggest city in northern Thailand, and its sister city, Lamphoon. Extended periods of wet weather are followed by a long dry season; both flooding and water scarcity are issues in this river basin.

Institutional water-management arrangements also vary. In the Yaqui Valley an irrigation district and the National Water Commission each have roles in water management. In the Upper San Pedro a voluntary citizen partnership is the key decision-making body, although a more formal district is under consideration. In Ceará there are management roles at the state and federal level as well as local water committees, and in the Ping River Basin a hierarchy of river basin and subbasin committees is overseen by a National Water Resources Committee.

Expanded Stakeholder Participation

Water-management institutions in each of the basins have evolved over the last 10–20 years from a relatively centralized water-management structure at the state or national level to a decision-making structure that involves engaging water users within the basins and the development of participatory processes. This evolution is consistent with global trends in which states increasingly are expected to document public acceptance for larger water-infrastructure projects and policy changes before implementation (25). In each case, expanded citizen engagement in identifying options and in decision-making processes has changed the manner in which water-related knowledge is produced and communicated, but with some variability in details across the basins.

We found three primary implications of increased participation for knowledge systems in all four of the cases. First, there is significant focus on the transparency and fairness of processes of assessment and deliberation, with expanding perceptions that the process of decision-making itself is as important as whether the decisions are technically well supported or produce equitable outcomes. This focus is a substantial deviation from the expert-dominated decision processes of the past, which were judged almost exclusively on the basis of engineering criteria with little evaluation of social or environmental issues.

Second, the involvement of larger numbers of people and more diverse interests creates demand for building the capacity, on the one hand, of technical agencies skilled in conducting participatory and deliberative exercises, and on the other, of the wider public in gaining a broader view of water resources and the challenges in their management. However, when one group with superior power and knowledge dominates a stakeholder group (as was observed in all cases), the stakeholder group is not necessarily an effective advocacy tool for less-powerful stakeholders. In the Yaqui Valley, short-term water-management decisions are controlled largely by agricultural water-user groups. Agricultural water-user groups and government entities both rely primarily on internal, experiential knowledge for routine management. A government-sanctioned “Watershed Council” has been created but as yet has not proved to be a meaningful forum for nonagricultural water users because of political and knowledge imbalances among the players.

Building a common understanding of the facts, as well as of differences in interests, values, and preferences that might become the basis for negotiation, requires significant time and resources: Building this understanding requires learning about and integrating different kinds of knowledge, including some sources and interests that may never have been considered in previous decision-making. Tellingly, the San Pedro Basin experience suggests that even when a knowledge system is very strongly integrated with the decision-making process, such integration does not make difficult political decisions any easier to make (20).

Third, multistakeholder processes are more likely than more narrowly defined groups to bring in the diversity of interests and kinds of knowledge needed to negotiate sustainable water-management objectives (12). But participatory processes can easily turn into cosmetic exercises designed to gain public acceptance for, and to strengthen the legitimacy of, decisions manipulated by the state. (This circumstance is not as evident in the San Pedro case as it is in the other arenas). Participation exercises also may be a tool for confining public debate to a narrow set of decision points while over-arching goals and key infrastructure decisions are not scrutinized. In each of the cases evaluated in this study, the mechanisms for stakeholder participation focused on the management-related components of the knowledge system, as opposed to the knowledge used for developing infrastructure. In all cases, determination of the supply of water is derived primarily by experts outside the participatory process, but the public/stakeholders play more significant roles in allocation and management. An example is the planning process in the UP-RBO, which generally is confined to microprojects, whereas the knowledge informing decisions about large-scale infrastructure that demands truly integrated approaches to water-resource management remain largely consultant driven and nontransparent.

Although the socioeconomic conditions in the four basins vary dramatically, it was striking how similar the observations of participants were when they were given an opportunity to share perspectives in an international workshop. In all cases, there were discussions of the tension between the knowledge needed for making better decisions and available resources to put that information to use, issues related to the difficulties of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, and frustration about the nature and effectiveness of participatory processes.

Alternative Arenas for Engagement

In all four basins there is an increasing need for, expectation of, and effort to achieve better integration of planning and implementation at multiple levels with respect to water. There is a hope that this process may help facilitate progress toward sustainability. The expansion of interests and organizational mandates beyond single uses and narrowly defined objectives arose from different starting points in each of the basins but ultimately reached a similar set of knowledge-system challenges associated with integration and scale. Our comparative study suggests that fostering and maintaining effective links between knowledge and action in the development and management of water resources at multiple levels requires institutional arrangements that support both focused short-term interaction and broader, longer-term engagement.

Consistent with the findings of others (10, 26, 27), arriving at a joint understanding of the nature of the problem and an understanding of hydrological reality appears to be fundamental to building a base for collaboration. All the cases examined involved formation of a technical assessment group that engaged in joint fact-finding. Establishment of a common base for decision-making through such processes is commonly cited as an important first step in collaborative processes. The USPP Technical Committee, for example, has actively and deliberately conducted joint research efforts to answer critical questions, expanding the knowledge base over time, and this activity is strongly supported both financially and politically.

Shorter-term engagement processes often take the form of task forces, working groups, and committees, whereas longer-term issues usually require more permanent organizations. Typically such structures include a strategic body or council that meets a few times a year, and an operational unit with significant knowledge-brokering capacities. Such efforts need more secure funding to operate. The World Bank has had an important historical role in funding the establishment of such organizations in multiple locations, including three of the four in our study areas. In Ceará, linkages between stakeholders and those who generate water-related knowledge are generally well supported by state government institutions, such as FUNCEME and COGERH, but the initial engagement was affected by World Bank policy, which, in a reversal of previous approaches, recently focused heavily on including stakeholders in water-related decisions. In the Yaqui Valley, the World Bank supported decentralization of water management to district-level organizations, which it had a hand in designing. In Thailand both the Asian Development Bank and World Bank provided funding for initial establishment of river-basin and river-subbasin organizations (24).

Although the USPP has received tens of millions of dollars from the US government for projects and studies, it is not clear that this level of funding will continue. Ongoing funding is critical, because major infrastructure investments are contemplated. In the Yaqui Valley, in contrast, private funds from agricultural water-user groups are becoming a major new source of funds for financing knowledge-producing activities (in support of infrastructure planning). Federal funds are limited, leading to increased reliance on partnerships with other state/local agencies or the private sector for water-management research and projects.

In all four basins, however, we noted that the longer-term knowledge systems being established nevertheless may continue to support and strengthen skills making in short-term decisions rather than the more strategic, long-term considerations that are significant for sustainability. This situation may relate to the nature of knowledge systems themselves, because it is much easier (and less politically charged) to process short-term incremental decision-focused knowledge than the bigger-picture assessments required for investment policy decisions (26).

Individuals can play an important role in helping create and expand the influence of citizens in decision processes, but conventional skills in leadership do not seem to be most important. In the Yaqui Valley case, key individuals were influential in the evolution of the knowledge system because they were able to bring different forms of knowledge into engagement processes and mobilize its sharing across the actors. In several of the cases, participants noted that experts who live in the community they serve are more trusted and more in tune with local concerns than experts who live at a distance.

Finally, we found that in several of the basins key forums for bringing together knowledge and action sometimes may lie, literally, beyond the reach of the basin’s inhabitants. The World Bank continues to have a significant impact on the knowledge systems of the basins in Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand. As the World Bank’s goals have changed over time, study participants observed that there have been changes in the pressures on the institutions in their countries. In Brazil, establishing water markets was critical to the Bank in its first loan agreement; in the second loan agreement, that focus on water rights and price signals to encourage efficiency was de-emphasized, and the third had an entirely new focus on participatory decision-making. This new focus, along with other influences such as the rise of environmental activism in the United States, probably is correlated with the trend toward participatory decision-making generally.

The World Bank goals continue to influence water-management institutions and the broader social structure of countries long after the completion of infrastructure that resulted from the loan. In Thailand, the Asian Development Bank also has been influential, attaching conditions to an agricultural loan that led to the creation of a new Department of Water Resources, a National Water Resources Committee, and the introduction of river-basin organizations, including the UP-RBO (23). An interesting parallel in Arizona is that in the 1970s the US federal government insisted that the state change its water-management system and manage groundwater more actively in return for the federal investment in the major new surface-water delivery infrastructure for the state, the Central Arizona Project.

Decision-Making, Participation, and Uncertainty

Actual or perceived uncertainties in the knowledge base profoundly affect how people act on information about water resources and development options. Hydrologic uncertainties affect the willingness to make difficult decisions, but in many cases the sources of uncertainty within the knowledge base were not well understood by the stakeholders. Whether the uncertainties derived from a lack of understanding of the connections between surface water and groundwater or from inadequate knowledge of climate drivers, for example, we found evidence in all four basins that key organizations and actors often struggled to understand and communicate uncertainties and to know how much information was adequate to make a decision.

In all four cases we observed tension between those who believed that decisions could be based purely on scientific information and those who acknowledged that values are inseparable from decision processes and even from science itself. Because politics benefits from a degree of ambiguity that is not always compatible with the degree of precision suggested by scientists, acknowledging that shared knowledge is negotiated among parties rather than devoid of social values could have been a useful part of these conversations; to our knowledge, this issue was not explicitly addressed.

Although it evolved primarily in the context of managing ecological resources, adaptive management, sometimes characterized as “learning by doing,” has been suggested as an approach to decision-making under uncertainty (10). The reality is that some kinds of decisions, for example major infrastructure decisions, do not leave much scope for fine-tuning or reversing once the facilities are completed (28). This consideration, along with the major financial investments required, may be part of the explanation for not involving stakeholders in such high-stakes decisions. This principle is illustrated in Ceará, where the introduction of basin committees has led to broader acceptance of an adaptive management framework but primarily for decisions on shorter timescales. Ceará formally incorporates climate forecasts for the next year in the allocation decisions but allows for changes in these decisions throughout the year. The need to learn-by-doing also is well accepted in the activities of the Thai river and subbasin organizations. Adaptation in the Yaqui basin has been driven by a prolonged drought crisis that prompted significant changes in management objectives and strategies, and hence research needs, aimed at lowering the risk of prolonged or repeated crises involving the reliability of the water supply. The San Pedro case has involved adaptive reactions to new sources of information, although so far all the commitments made are relatively low-cost and low-impact projects in comparison with the large augmentation schemes that also are being considered.

Effectiveness

Based on a comparison of cases and the comments of the participants, we identified criteria by which to assess the effectiveness of these knowledge systems in supporting sustainable water-resources management (Table S1). These criteria include a “culture of learning,” or the capacity to integrate both science and stakeholder knowledge into adaptive decision processes; the presence of a monitoring system to evaluate the success of past decision processes; secure funding; the degree to which the process is “trusted” by the participants, which we represent in Table S1 as transparency; the degree to which the process can support both long- and short-term decisions; and whether participants believe that nongovernmental participants have a meaningful role in decisions. Several of the criteria selected for this comparison are derived from the findings of the Effective Knowledge-Action Systems for Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasting workshop developed within the broader Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development Project (29).