Conflicts and water governance challenge in irrigated areas of semi-arid regions
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EMCEI 2017
Conflicts and water governance challenge in irrigated areas of semi-arid regions Jamel Ben Nasr 1 & Mohamed Salah Bachta 1 Received: 16 July 2018 / Accepted: 15 November 2018 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2018
Abstract Agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions faces two of the principal global challenges: sustainability and water scarcity in the context of climate changes. To overcome the water scarcity constraint, Tunisia adopted different strategies and policies. Since 1989, it has embarked on a policy of decentralization and participatory water management in irrigated areas BIA.^ This policy has led to the state disengagement in favor of collective water management. Since then, water management becomes a task of irrigator associations. These associations have experienced a series of transformations ranging from Bcollective interest associations: CIA^ to the current form BDevelopment Agricultural Groups: GDAs.^ In spite of these institutional changes, GDAs are suffering from several problems impeding their functioning such as budgetary deficit, conflicts between stakeholders, leaving of irrigated activity by some farmers, and inequality. The current situation of GDA and most IA hypothesizes the existence of local governance problems; these governance problems are causing a performance decrease in IA. The analysis of the interdependence between governance and performance of irrigation water management, in Nadhour IA, is the main aim of this paper. To conduct this analysis, the strategic analysis approach was adopted. Assuming that IA forms a concrete action system, the analysis of structured games between actors allowed assessing their power, convergence, divergence, and ambivalence. Results confirm the hypothesis of a significant effect of governance problems, including political source, on the performance of water management in IA. Keywords Actor’s power . Collective action . Governance . Performance . Water management
Introduction The nexus food security-water and energy scarcity is the major issues of the Tunisian economy. To overcome the water scarcity constraint, Tunisia adopted a number of technical measures to improve the efficiency of irrigation systems and This article is part of the Topical Collection on Water resources and water management for environmental integration in the Euro-Mediterranean region * Jamel Ben Nasr [email protected] Mohamed Salah Bachta [email protected] 1
Department of Agricultural Economics, National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia, 43 Avenue Charles Nicolle, 1082 Tunis, Mahrajène, Tunisia
to save water resource (rehabilitation of irrigation systems, subsidy for drip irrigation, etc.). Political measures are also institutional. In fact, the institutional framework developed for water management has been profound changes. The main important institutional transformation was the collapse of Development Offices of Irrigated Areas in 1987 and the decision to replace it with collective decision-making (Bachta and Zaïbet 2006). The new institutional framework involv
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