A common-pool resource experiment in acequia communities

Farmers and rural advocates in New Mexico assert that traditional irrigators are better adapted to water scarcity and variability than other communities. Data to actually test this are often scarce, but such information could be useful for planning the state’s water future, especially as climate cha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of the commons Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 306 - 321
Main Author Raheem, Nejem
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Uopen Journals 01.03.2015
Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals (Publishing Services)
Subjects
common pool resources
governance
irrigation
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Summary:Farmers and rural advocates in New Mexico assert that traditional irrigators are better adapted to water scarcity and variability than other communities. Data to actually test this are often scarce, but such information could be useful for planning the state’s water future, especially as climate change predictions tend toward less reliable supplies. This paper reports results from a common pool resource (CPR) experiment that simulates irrigating behavior using two groups: rural irrigators and undergraduate students. Despite predictions to the opposite, there was no significant difference between mean withdrawals or predictions of other players’ behavior. On average, both groups withdrew above the social optimum but below the Nash equilibrium. This work appears to be the first example of a common pool resource experiment conducted with traditional New Mexican irrigators.
ISSN:1875-0281
1875-0281
DOI:10.18352/ijc.491