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(revised: June 2004)

Research Proposal for Comprehensive Assessment of Water Use in Agriculture

Governing Groundwater: Comparative Analysis of National Institutions and Policies in Asia and Africa

Abstract

The goal of this Project is to contribute to sustainable use of groundwater for livelihoods, food-security and environment by bringing groundwater governance issues to the centre-stage of global discussions on water management. While the Project will use information and knowledge bases available around the world, its playing field will centrally be Asia and [Southern] Africa, where groundwater irrigation faces by far the most profound opportunities and threats; but experiences will also drawn and analysed from middle income countries such as Iran and Mexico which have useful lessons to offer to the developing world.

Its purpose (or intermediate goal) is to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the global situation of groundwater use in agriculture with particular focus on identifying the elements of a strategy of governing the resource that might be tailored to suit diverse social and ecological contexts obtaining in Asia and Southern Africa. The central methological approach proposed is of comparative institutional and policy analysis. The Project will be carried out over 2003-2004 by harnessing, reinterpreting and synthesizing existing understanding and knowledge bases on the subject. It will [a] commission studies; [b] provide research contracts; [c] support student research, and [d] organize 3 consultations, one each in South Asia, China and Southern Africa. Outputs will include three conference proceedings, one book synthesizing the learning gained (outline presented) and several ‘policy briefs’, ‘research highlights’ and ‘comments’ designed to disseminate results of ongoing work. The project will harness synergies with the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program as well as other projects proposed under IWMI T3.

Preface

“Groundwater will be an enduring gauge of this generation’s intelligence in water and land management”. 1 Nowhere will this intelligence be put to a harder test than in Asia which uses some 500 out of the world’s total use of 750 m3 of groundwater in agriculture. US, Australia and Europe also use groundwater a lot, but largely for municipal and industrial uses. These too face the challenge of balancing the demand with availability; but the Asian groundwater challenge is altogether different, more serious and intractable. Africa has modest reserves of groundwater; but it still uses only a small fraction of what it has; Africa’s challenge is to use its groundwater to promote livelihoods of the poor but in a sustainable manner. Many problems Asia is now facing might have been averted—or, at least, ameliorated—if it had acted in good time; Africa has that opportunity to hasten slowly on the path of groundwater-induced agrarian boom, which in many parts of Asia is ready to bust.

1 The credo of the Australian Groundwater School at Adelaide.

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Rapid growth, during the 1970-95 period, of groundwater irrigation in South Asia and North China plains has been at the heart of their agrarian growth; but with growing problems of resource depletion and/or deterioration, Asia’s groundwater socio-ecology is under siege. Much concern about the problems of groundwater depletion, pollution and quality deterioration is fueled by worries about their environmental consequences. These are indeed serious; however, equally serious are their consequences for the sustenance of agrarian economies and millions of rural livelihoods that have come to precariously depend upon groundwater irrigation, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Here, over the past 50 years, public investments and donor funds have been showered over surface irrigation but the bulk of its irrigation and agrarian growth have been delivered by millions of small pumps and wells financed mostly through private farmer investments (see Box 1). New analysis for Indian agriculture, which suggests that in the recent decades, of the agricultural productivity of a ‘representative’ (or typical) net sown hectare, the portion contributed by groundwater irrigation is very nearly twice contributed by surface irrigation (see Box 2). This analysis has also shown that groundwater development has been spatially dispersed and even where as canal irrigation projects have created small islands of affluence leaving large catchment areas poor and deprived (Box 3). It is not surprising then that while canal irrigation projects are seldom seen as regional poverty reduction interventions, providing access to groundwater irrigation through pump subsidies or public tubewell programs has been at the centre-stage of poverty reduction programs in South Asia.

Threatened Resource and Socio-ecology This good run that many countries of the world, particularly in Asia, are having with groundwater irrigation may soon come to an end. Throughout the world regions that have sustainable groundwater balance are shrinking by the day. Three problems dominate groundwater use: depletion due to overdraft; water logging and salinization due mostly to inadequate drainage and insufficient conjunctive use; and pollution due to agricultural, industrial and other human activity (see Box 4). Groundwater depletion has major environmental consequences; but it has important economic consequences too. Declining water tables raise energy and capital costs of accessing groundwater to prohibitive levels; in some regions, such as North Gujarat or Baluchistan, entire agrarian economies face serious threat of extinction from the decline of groundwater socio-ecologies. Water quality and health problems—such as very high fluoride and arsenic content—have similarly immiserizing social impacts in South Asia as well as China. The pathology of the decline in groundwater socio-ecology in region after region reflects a remarkably similar 4-stage pattern: Stage 1; where undeveloped groundwater is viewed as a big opportunity for livelihood creation for the poor, resource management goal is to stimulate its development and use; . Stage 2: Agrarian prosperity fired by groundwater irrigation ensues; but institutions and management regimes for orderly and sustainable use of the resource are not in place; Stage 3: Early symptoms of groundwater over-draft and quality degradation emerge; but irrigators interests are well-entrenched and they resist attempts at regulation;

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Stage 4: Advanced state of depletion and deterioration that threatens the social and ecological fabric of a region leaving immiserizing impacts. This underpins the typical progression of a socio-ecology from a stage where unutilized groundwater resource potential becomes the instrument of unleashing an agrarian boom to one in which, unable to apply brakes in time, it goes overboard in exploiting its groundwater (Box 5). The critical issue for Africa is: can it put in place an institutional and policy framework that can stabilize its emerging groundwater irrigation economy at stage 2 or 3? Are there adaptive policies and management responses early on that can generate a steady-state equilibrium, which sustains the groundwater-induced agrarian boom without degrading the resource itself? The critical issue for Asia is: does stage 4 always have to play out the way it has so far in many areas of Asia? More pertinently, what might be done to sustain groundwater socio-ecologies under threat and keep them from falling over the edge of the precipice? Nobody has worked out a complete answer to this question that is also practical and implementable in diverse conditions obtaining in the developing world. But a cursory overview of global experience suggests that strategies used by different countries for sustainable groundwater management are determined inter alia by their stage of economic development.

Demand management

A variety of techno-institutional approaches have been tried to improve the balance between groundwater use and safe yield. Western US and Australia have tried direct regulation, and creation of water rights. In Southern Australia, where the central management issue is coping with salinity, active markets have been catalyzed in salinity credits. In a spate of water sector reforms from 1992 onwards, Mexico too has tried to nationalize water and alter the property rights on water. Iran banned construction of new tubewells in 2/5th of its plains in order to ensure water supply for its major cities. China has been trying to use economic incentives and disincentives as tools for groundwater demand management. Some of these have worked, but mostly in the industrialized world where costs of regulating groundwater extraction in terms of livelihoods of large groups of poor people are insignificant. As a consequence, transposing these lessons uncritically in the Asian context sems destined to fail, since for several decades to come, uppermost concerns of policy makers in these countries will be to enhance livelihoods of the poor households dependent on agriculture. Many people view groundwater management only from the food security perspective. In the ‘virtual water’ framework, it has been suggested that it is cheaper to transport food—rather than water-- from South China to North China to alleviate high pressure on groundwater from North China farmers. The point is farmers in North China need to earn income to support their families; just providing food, even if free, does not help providing them secure livelihoods.

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There are also important issues of what is practical in the Asian context. In countries like the US and Australia, the presence of small number of large users and low population density creates uniquely favorable conditions for some institutional approaches to work; but these break down in Asia with its high population density and multitude of tiny users. For instance, a stringent groundwater law is enforced in Australia but would come unstuck in Asia because of prohibitive enforcement costs. Europe has high population density; but it is much more comfortable than Asia in its overall water balance. Moreover, at its high level of economic evolution, Europe can apply huge technological and financial muscle power to manage its natural resources which South Asia and North China can not; for instance, what the Netherlands spends per capita on managing its groundwater is 5 times the total per capita income of rural North Gujarat. As a result, while direct resource management is ideal, what might work best in immediate future in Asia are strategies of indirect management, such as through affecting economic incentives and disincentives in groundwater use. Many observers believe that South Asia uses a lot more groundwater than it can afford because of the presence of perverse incentives; others also believe that where groundwater tables are on a secular decline, at some stage soaring energy costs of pumping would catch up with the incentives in groundwater use. Management of economic incentives may well offer a powerful approach to influencing the behaviour of millions of individual groundwater users (Box 6).

Reconfigured River Basins

Groundwater irrigation worldwide has been found difficult to curb and regulate. And often, resource depletion has been countered by augmenting water supply. In the western US, one can argue that all institutional reforms together have done less to counter groundwater depletion than large scale imports and inter-basin transfer of water. Many Chinese also believe that groundwater depletion in North China plains can be countered primarily through transfer of 25 km3 of water annually from South to North China. During every drought year, Indian media is abuzz with talk of linking Ganga with Kaveri; and Gujarat is already looking forward to the Narmada water replenishing the exhausted aquifers of north Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kachcha. Search for ways to augment water supply in closing basins will remain an enduring element in the strategy of coping with groundwater depletion. However, high capital costs and paucity of resources will keep many countries from trying out these grandiose ideas for long time to come. In many situations, there are indications that water infrastructure in river basins is getting reconfigured by autonomous local action in private or community domain. Where groundwater stress has deepened enough to threaten life, there are some signs of people and local institutions shaking off their generally passive attitude of dependency on the government, and have taken charge of the resource. Such signs are most visible in western Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat which are most critically dependent on over-exploitation of groundwater for sustaining their agriculture. However, even here, there is little accent on rule-making and demand management; but great mobilization has occurred around rain water harvesting and groundwater recharge in a decentralized format (Box 7). Scholars have suggested that the first step to resource management under stress is to establish secure property rights over groundwater; as Andrei Shleifer recently showed, doing this entails attacking two problems: inefficient structures of control rights over the resource

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(open access in the case of groundwater); and poor contract enforcement. This is easier said than done anywhere in the world, but particularly in developing Asia. All in all, we need a more refined and nuanced understanding of the peculiarities of the groundwater socio-ecology in Asia and Africa and a resource management approach suited to its genius. In much of Asia, modern groundwater development occurred in a chaotic, unregulated fashion shaped by millions of tiny private users. Now, in many parts of Asia where groundwater is under worst threat of depletion—such as Western India, Baluchistan and North China—there is a growing groundswell of popular action—equally chaotic and unregulated--in rainwater harvesting and local groundwater recharge. At the frontline of this movement are regions like Rajasthan and Gujarat in India where untold havoc and misery are a certain outcome if the groundwater bubble were to burst. Here, rather than waiting for governments and high science to come to their rescue, ordinary people, communities, NGOs and religious movements have made groundwater recharge everybody’s business. Many scientists and technocrats feel lukewarm, even skeptical, about this groundswell of activity; but chances are that here in lie the seeds of new institutions for decentralized local management of a natural resource. For long, people in Asia treated water like manna from haven and saw no need to manage it; but now that they have begun to invest effort and resources in harvesting water and recharging aquifers, we find first inkling of community efforts to manage it.

Comparative Analysis of Institutions and Policies

The basic research method proposed is of comparative institutional and policy analysis. Much policy research so far has been focused on country-specific analyses: thus, there is a large and growing body of groundwater management research in India, Pakistan, China, Mexico and other countries that make intensive use of groundwater. However, we believe there is little effort to undertake systematic comparative cross-country analysis. Policy prescriptions that are placed on the table are of a simplistic variety: the institutions of trading in water and salinity credits in Australia should be applied to the Indus basin, and water rights that have worked in Western US should be experimented with in North Gujarat. However, these recommendations for cross-transplantation of institutional innovations would acquire a great deal more credibility and appeal if these were situated in a systematic comparative analysis of wider hydro-geological, social, institutional and political conditions in different countries. IWMI Theme III has initiated some such comparative analysis between South Asia, China and Mexico; and we find that this approach may yield better insights about which ideas might best work in a given setting. Table 1, for instance, summarizes a comparison of social and institutional context of groundwater irrigation in South Asia and North China plains (Shah, Qureshi, Wang 2002). It suggests why some interventions might work better in North China than in South Asia, and the other way around. We believe that focusing on such comparative analysis rather than detailed study of each national context would result in more useful, interesting and implementable ideas for national and regional decision makers.

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Table 1 The social and institutional context of groundwater irrigation: Comparative Analysis of South Asia and North China Plains South Asia China 1. Does the village government have significant regulatory role?

In India Village Panchayats dispense resources, provide basic services and maintain land records, but have little or no regulatory role in agriculture

Village Committee and Party Leader play promotional and active regulatory role, and have significant presence in the village economy.

2. Are there significant taxes on agriculture? Are these collected?

Land taxes are either absent or levied at trivial rates; these have no incentive-impacts. There is no income tax on agriculture

Agricultural tax is non-trivial; it is collected fully, and is used to sustain local governance structures.

3. Is there a system of registering and licensing groundwater structures? Is it enforced?

No South Asian country registers-- leave alone licenses-- groundwater structures.

Under 1988 Water Law water permit system\ is enforced on industries; but agricultural deep tubewells are individually licensed in depleted areas of NCP; elsewhere, village as a whole holds a license.

4. Nature of the water bureaucracy

Fragmented vertically between canal irri, GW, water supply & sanitation, pollution control, etc. GW bureaucracy is absent below district level, and is mandated just to monitor; institutional vacuum deepens as we move from district to the village level.

Water Bureaus at township, county and province level are unified, deal with surface and groundwater, and with all uses; these play active executive and regulatory role. Post-1988, greater decentralization has empowered local water bureaus.

5. Water as an economic good

Water is not priced for most users; domestic users pay a flat charge more in the nature of a tax; collection is indifferent; in all the states of India, groundwater pumps are subject to flat electricity tariff which is also a tax. This implies that over 90% of water is not viewed by users as a ‘ private economic good’ but as a public amenity.

Water is an economic good as users pay a price for it rather than a tax. Domestic and industrial users pay on metered consumption; groundwater irrigators do not pay for water but pay a non-trivial energy cost based on metered use; canal irrigators pay based on area irrigated but at the reservoir level, water rate is collected on consumption basis.

6. Does the “system” have capability to enforce broad-spectrum measures?

No, unless they enlarge entitlements and benefits to farmers. Vote- bank politics is advanced as the reason; but even the military govt in Pakistan has been unable to implement tough measures

Yes; rice cultivation was stopped in many parts of NCP 25; hundreds of polluting industries were summarily closed under the ’12.00 mid-night offensive’.

7. Are there institutional limits to ‘competitive deepening of tubewells’?

Norms for well-siting and reducing well-interference are only indirect; these are loosely implemented by linking access to institutional credit and electricity to adherence to norms.

Since tubewells are owned and operated as collective assets by Village Committees, well-interference can be avoided easily; even with rivatization, Village Committee and Village Leader can check competitive deepening.

8. Adoption of water saving methods and technologies

Very limited, and restricted to high value crops and large commercial farmers; the primary motive is improving productivity and quality rather than saving water

Growing; green houses vegetables and AWADI in rice yield real water savings. Improved income and water saving are prime motives and the two are not in conflict as in South Asia

9 Macro-economic safety walves

South Asia is agricultural, rural, and poor; agriculture is crucial for food and livelihoods; it has no scope for quick, large scale shift of farm-based livelihoods to off-farm sectors. Pressure will remain high on land and water.

Rapidly industrializing; its problem of food security is easier to resolve through GE than supporting livelihoods. Once the work permit system liberalizes, exodus east-ward will ease pressure on agricultural water use.

10 Institutional reform in water sector

South Asia institutional reform agenda is dominated by infrastructure viability; it is turning to management transfer to WUA’s as a method of making irrigation systems financially viable. This will help cost recovery, but not raise water productivity, which is critical as water scarcity intensifies.

The buzzword in Chinese water bureaucracy is ‘transforming itself into a business organisation’. The idea is not to transfer its responsibility to user organizations, but for itself to become a business-like viable service provider that charges economic price for the water services it renders. China is moving from collective management to franchise mode with focus on water productivity.

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Goal, Objectives, Outputs and Timeframe

The goal of this Project is to contribute to sustainable use of groundwater for livelihoods, food-security and environment by bringing groundwater governance issues to the centre-stage of global discussions on water management. While the Project will use information and knowledge bases available around the world, its playing field will centrally be Asia and [Southern] Africa, where groundwater irrigation faces by far the most profound opportunities and threats; but experiences will also drawn and analysed from middle income countries such as Iran and Mexico who have useful lessons to offer to the developing world.

Its purpose (or intermediate goal) is to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the global situation of groundwater use in agriculture with particular focus on:

1. Nature and extent of groundwater use in agriculture in Asia and Africa; 2. Its socio-economic and livelihoods impacts on the poor; 3. Variety of institutional arrangements that have evolved in different parts of the

developing world for appropriation, use and sharing of groundwater; 4. Groundwater irrigation and environment; 5. Policies and institutional approaches evolved and tested in different parts of the

world to promote sustainable groundwater management;

The Project is based on the premise that there already exists vast amount of information and knowledge about local groundwater contexts in many countries of the world. However, in order to develop a global groundwater assessment, it is critical to surface these knowledge bodies, assimilate and synthesize them in creating a big picture. The approach of the Project will then to harness existing knowledge resources through collaborative work, support supplemental studies and research but not engage in a mega-scale enterprise in primary research. The primary output of the research will be three reports of regional consultations and one book:

• Three edited volumes containing proceedings of carefully prepared and organized consultations, one each for South and South East Asia, North China and Southern Africa;

• Second, a volume authored by IWMI’s scientist/s who will use the knowledge gained in the project to produce a lucid narrative for policy makers, administrators, political leaders and lay public.

• Policy Briefs, Research Highlights and Comments all short communications based on ongoing research and addressed to policy makers.

The two outputs will use a common information-gathering and knowledge-building process but serve distinct purposes: the first will be a source book, emphasize rigour and scholarship and will use a formal review process to improve the quality of material included. The aim of the second will be to reach a wider audience of readers who may not be water experts, yet are in charge of some of the most crucial decision making processes in national and regional

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governments. Tushaar Shah, the project leader will take a lead and will be responsible for its development and delivery. The project will be completed in 2 years.

Approach and Project Management

The Project leader will be Dr Tushaar Shah, IWMI’s theme leader for ‘Sustainable Groundwater Management’. Other IWMI scientists who will be involved include: Dr. Hugh Turral (IWMI, Colombo) (co-project leader) Dr. Mark Giordano (IWMI, Colombo) Dr Asad Sarwar Qureshi (IWMI, Pakistan) Dr Christopher Scott (IWMI, India) Dr Stephanie Buecheler (IWMI, India) Dr Jinxia Wang (China) Dr M Mainuddin (IWMI Thailand) Dr Mutsa Masiandima (IWMI South Africa) Ms Aditi Debroy (IWMI, India) Dr O P Singh (IWMI, India) This Project will benefit link with two other IWMI activities that share a common agenda:

1. Under the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program in India and under the Groundwater theme budget, a field survey on groundwater economy is already in progress in India, Pakistan, Nepal Terai, Bangladesh and Thailand. The results of this survey will make important contribution to the CA project on groundwater in agriculture.

2. IWMI has received funds form the OPEC fund focusing on groundwater

governance and links to resource analysis for good policy development in Pakistan, with some initial study in Africa. Part of that funding will cover work in Africa.

3. FAO provided funds to support work in China directly related to the project.

The work programme outline for S.Asia, China and Africa is appended as a spreadsheet (Groundwater Governance Workplan_062004.xls). The work is scheduled in the following steps:

1. National survey of villages and tubewell owners in South Asia. Analysis of survey. 2. Regional (North China Plain and surrounding areas) survey of villages and tubewell

owners in China. Analysis of survey. 3. Literature reviews of agricultural groundwater use in sub-Saharan Africa and desk

studies for 5-10 selected countries. 4. Final synthesis studies and preparation of books and other publications.

The total project cost would be US $ 443,500, in operational funds (that is, excluding IWMI staff time allocation under Theme 3 and including contributions from OPEC and FAO), which will be allocated roughly as follows:

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South Asia : US $ ..123,000 North China: US $ 155,000 Southern Africa US $ 95,000 Book Produciton US $ 100,000 Table 2: Budget for the CA Project on Governing Groundwater: Comparative Analysis of Institutions and Policies South

Asia China Southern

Africa Book Totals

Staff salaries & Benefits 30,000 20,000 50,000 50,000 150,000

Consultants: Int 10,000 0 0 30000 40,000

Consultants: National 30,000 70000 25000 125,000

Office & Research Supplies 10000 500 2000 12,500

Travel-International 10,000 15000 10000 20000 55,000

Travel-National 10,000 10000 5000 25,000

Publications & dissemination 3000 10000 3000 16,000

Contract research 20000 20,000

Total 123,000 125,500 95,000 100,000 443,500

Annexure 1 Preliminary Outline of the Edited Volume: Groundwater in Global Agriculture: The Challenge of Balancing Food, Livelihoods and Environment Part 1 Introduction: 1.1Global Groundwater Situation: Overview of Issues Part 2 Assessing Groundwater Use in Agriculture 2.1 Over the Top?: Groundwater Use in Asian Agriculture: 2.2 Ground Uncovered: Groundwater Use in African Small-holder Agriculture Part 3 Groundwater and the Poor

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3.1 Groundwater economy of Asia 3.2 Groundwater and the Poor in Asia 3.3 Groundwater and Small-holder Agriculture in Southern Africa 3.4 Groundwater Institutions in Asia and Africa Part 4 Groundwater Irrigation and the Environment 4.1 Groundwater Depletion in Western India and North China plains: Causes and Consequences 4.2 Groundwater Irrigation and Secondary Salinization: The Pakistan Case 4.3 Groundwater in Coastal Aquifers: Salinity Ingress on the Indian Coast-line 4.4 Arsenic in Groundwater: Health Impacts in Bangladesh 4.5 Fluoride in Groundwater: Health Impacts in Western India Part 5 Governing Groundwater 5.1 Policies and Institutions for Sustainable Groundwater Management: Lessons from the Industrialized World 5.2 Law and Regulation: Making Them Stick 5.3 Economic Incentives and Disincentives 5.4 Supply Augmentation 5.5 Ways Forward Box 1 Why Does Groundwater Account for 60% of India’s Irrigation?

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In countries of South Asia and Southern Africa, rural poverty is entrenched by unequal access to farm lands. In the aftermath of Independence from Colonial rule, many countries—such as India—tried land reforms to promote more equitable access to farm lands. However, land reforms have generally met with failure; and ownership of farm lands continue to be highly skewed in South Asia as well as Southern Africa.

This was a matter of great concern for national policy makers during the 1950’s and 60’s. However, with the onset of Green Revolution, farm land began losing its absolute and relative contribution to agrarian wealth creation; and irrigation emerged as a major productive factor. A major reason why governments in low-income countries aggressively support groundwater development is that it is proving to be an ‘equalizing’ influence. While access to canal irrigation is limited to those located in command areas, access to groundwater irrigation is more egalitarian, across space as well as socio-economic category. The short above analyses data gathered by a national census carried out by the Government of India in 1995; it shows that ownership of manual lift irrigation devices,

followed by diesel pumps and electric pumps is far less unequal compared to the ownership of farm land. Moreover, as the chart below suggests, unlike large irrigation projects, groundwater infrastructure is predominantly farmer-financed. Source: Tushaar Shah and Aditi Debroy. 2002. Major Insights from India’s Second Minor Census, Anand: IWMI-Tata Water Policy Research Program (forthcoming).

India: Access to wells is less unequal than access to land

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100% Landholders

% Cumulative area % Cumulative Electric % Cumulative Diesel% Nonmechanized % Wells_Abandoned

Figure : Source of funds for creating minor irrigation

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Dug wells STWs DTWs Surfaceflow

systems

Surface liftsystems

type of structure

% o

f stru

ctur

es

governmentsubsidy

own funds,loan andsubsidy

own funds

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Box: 2 Groundwater irrigation is big business in India, Pakistan and China

India Pakistan China A Total number of Groundwater 19 0.5 3.5

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In many parts of Asia, groundwater has become the mainstay of agriculture. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China invested heavily in public sector irrigation projects during the 1960’s and 70’s. However, increasingly, farmer-financed groundwater irrigation capacity has caught up—and in some regions, even surpassed—public irrigation. In India, some 20 million farmers—1 in every five—already owns a tubewell; this number is growing at a rate of around 1

million/year. Moreover, through localized, fragmented pump irrigation markets, every pump owner sells irrigation service to an average of 3 neighbouring plots, implying that it would be rare to find an Indian farmer who does not use groundwater irrigation at all. Same is the case with Pakistan Punjab and North China. Table 1 calculates that the market value of groundwater used in these regions is likely to be around US $ 10 billion/year; and the value of agricultural output made possible by it in the range of US $ 40-60 billion/year. In these poor agrarian economies, this makes groundwater irrigation big business. Early years of the decade of the 1970’s seems to have been the watershed. Before then, agricultural expansion was driven by public investments in large surface irrigation projects. But 20 years after 1970 have witnessed a massive shift, as IWMI’s analysis of the Indian data shows. A model explaining factors that contributed to agricultural productivity variations across 240 districts, encompassing over 90% of India showed that during 1971-73, surface irrigation availability explained the bulk of the variation; during 1991-93, it was the groundwater irrigation that explained the bulk of the variation across districts in the value of agricultural output/ha. This portends that Asia is in deep trouble over groundwater. Groundwater irrigation in many parts of Asia is unsustainable. But arresting and reversing this trend by regulating groundwater use would pose massive resistance from farmers. Protecting and managing groundwater brings Asia face to face with the most difficult trade off, the one between livelihoods and sustainability. [ Source: Debroy, Aditi and Tushaar Shah. 2002. “ Socio-ecology of Groundwater Irrigation in India”, Anand, India: IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program] Box: 3 Population pressure, not resource availability determines intensive groundwater use in agriculture

Structures (million)

B Estimated groundwater use (km3) 150 59 106.2 C Average output of Groundwater

structures m3/hour 25 100 413

D Average hours of operation/well/year 315 1180 11343

E Price at which pump irrigation from standard-sized pump sells (US $/hour)

1 2 0.963

F Imputed value of groundwater used/year (B/C*E) or (E*D*A) (billion US $)

6 1.2 2.5

0

2 0

4 0

6 0

1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 1 10 1 12 1 14 1 16 1 1 81 20 1 22 1 24 1

D is t ric t s

Changing contribution of ground and surface water irrigation in Agricultural Output in India’s 252 districts: 1971 73 and 1991 93

0

20

40

60

1 21 41 61 81 101 121 141 161 181 201 221 241

D i s t r i c t s

% c ont ribut ion of S WI t o Agric ult ura l GDP % c ont ribut ion of GWI t o Agric ult ura l GDP

1971-73

1991-93

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It has been commonly believed for long that tubewell development is concentrated where surface water is aplenty, that is in canal commands; that it is a response to the failure of canal system management to provide farmers on-demand irrigation service; and that by promoting conjunctive use of surface and groundwater, private tubewell development improves overall efficiency of large irrigation systems. Recent IWMI research suggests that tubewell density closely follows population density and pressure on land. The adjoining figure shows that tubewell density in Pakistan Punjab is highest in the most densely populated districts. Similarly, the figure below shows that tubewell

density is certainly high throughout the Ganga basin in India with high groundwater availability but also very high population density. However, it is also high in many other parts of India—such as Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka—where water resource is limited but population density is high. On the other hand, in many parts of central India, little of the available resource is developed; yet tubewell density is low because these regions are sparsely populated. China too has a similar pattern: groundwater development is low in south China which has abundant surface water and low population density (except in the eastern costal region); but tubewell densities are high in north China plains with low surface water resource and high population density. Compared to large public irrigation projects which are driven by hydrologic opportunity, groundwater development is democratic, providing irrigation whereever people are. This pattern of groundwater development has pros and cons; without groundwater development, agriculture would have stagnated or declined in peninsular India and North China; food security would of course be endangered; but a more critical problem would be supporting rural livelihoods during the decades these regions would take before they can transfer sufficient proportion of their agrarian populations to off-farm livelihood systems. [Source: Shah, Tushaar, Aditi Debroy, Asad Qureshi and Jinxia Wang. 2001. Sustaining Asia’s Groundwater Boom: Overview of Issues and Evidence, IWMI Contribution to Bonn conference on Freshwater, December 2001] Box 4: The Challenge of Groundwater Governance in Asia

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The challenge of governing groundwater socio-ecology in Asia is a question of contending with the enormous diversity in its hydro-geological conditions and the unique ways in which the region differs from other groundwater-stressed regions of the world. The following table provides a typology that IWMI has been using in its work under the theme Sustainable Groundwater Management; the map illustrates the regions of Asia representing the different hydro-geological settings. Resource depletion as a result of groundwater overdraft in agriculture is the central issue in arid and coastal plains as well as in hard rock areas. Humid alluvial plains essentially comprising the vast Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin in South

Asia, most of South China and many areas of Mekong basin have some concerns with groundwater quality but offer a major opportunity for groundwater use in poverty reduction through conjunctive management of surface and groundwater resources. In coastal plains along with arid alluvial plains facing overdraft, central resource governance challenge is coping with salinization which, in a chronic form, may seal the fate of agriculture,and of human settlement itself. Box 5

SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

HYDRO-GEOLOGICAL SETTINGS

Resource Depletion*

Optimizing Conjunctive Use**

Secondary Salinization ***

Natural Groundwater Quality Concerns

A.1. Arid ●● ●● ●●● ● A. Major Alluvial Plains

A.2Humid ● ●●● ●●

B. Coastal plains ●● ● ●●● ● C Inter-MontaneValleys

● ●● ● ●

D. Hard-rock Areas

●● ● ● ●●●

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Rise and Fall of Groundwater Socio-ecology [Source: Shah, Tushaar, Aditi Debroy, Asad Qureshi and Jinxia Wang. 2001. Sustaining Asia’s Groundwater Boom: Overview of Issues and Evidence, IWMI Contribution to Bonn conference on Freshwater, December 2001]

Box 6 Energy-Irrigation Nexus: How high must pumping costs go before groundwater irrigation becomes unprofitable?

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

Sta

ges

The rise of Green Revolution and Tubewell Technologies

Groundwater-based Agrarian Boom

Early Symptoms Groundwater Over-draft

Decline of the Groundwater Socio-ecology with immiserising impacts.

Exam

ples

North Bengal and North Bihar, Nepal Terai, Orissa

Eastern Uttar Pradesh Western Godavari Central and South Gujarat

Haryana, Punjab, Western Uttar Pradesh, Combatore and Madurai, Tamilnadu

North Gujarat, Coastal Tamilnadu, Coastal Saurashtra, South West Bengal

Cha

ract

eris

tics

Subsistence agriculture; Protective Irrigation Traditional crops; Concentrated rural poverty; Traditional water lifting devices using human and animal power

Skewed ownership of tubewells; access to pump irrigation prized; rise of primitive pump irrigation `exchange’ institutions. Decline of traditional water lifting technologies; Rapid growth in agrarian income and employment

Crop diversification; permanent decline in water tables. The groundwater-based `bubble economy’ continues booming; But tensions between economy and ecology surface as pumping costs soar and water market become oppressive; Private and social costs of ground-water use part ways.

The `bubble’ bursts; agri. growth slows and then declines; migration and pauperization of the poor is accompanied by depopulation of entire clusters of villages. Water quality problems assume serious proportions; the `smart’ begin moving out long before the crisis deepens; the poor get hit the hardest.

Inte

rven

tions

Targeted subsidy on pump capital; Public tubewell programmes; Electricity subsidies and flat tariff

Subsidies continue. Institutional credit for wells and pumps. Donors augment resources for pump capital; NGOs promote small farmer irrigation as a livelihood programme

Subsidies, credit, donor and NGO support continue apace; licensing, siting norms and zoning system are created but are weakly enforced. Groundwater irrigators emerge as a huge, powerful vote-bank that political leaders can not ignore.

Subsidies, credit and donor support reluctantly go; NGOs, donors assume conservationist posture zoning restrictions begin to get enforced with frequent pre-election relaxations; water imports begin for domestic needs; variety of public and NGO sponsored ameliorative action starts.

Pre-monsoon water table

Size of the agrarian economy

Groundwater abstraction % of pump irrigation sold Pump Density

17

Groundwater depletion and degradation are critical issues in many industrialized countries as well. And even here, these problems are yet to be fully resolved. However, techno-institutional innovations—such as speficiation of enforceable property rights on water, trading in salinity credits, groundwater laws and regulations—offer some hope of containing overdraft and degradation of the resource. Strategies tried in these countries are often recommended to Asian countries; but conditions here are vastly different. Property

rights in groundwater in Asia are perceived as an easement attached to land ownership. Making laws is easy; but enforcing them effectively on say 21 million private pumpers in the Indian countryside may prove an uphill task. Indirect regulation may be the only hope; and researchers like David Molden of IWMI have suggested that with falling water tables, pumping costs may at some stage rise to a level that makes groundwater use uneconomic in farming. When would this happen is difficult to figure out. But energy used in pumping groundwater has become a national issue in

India and Pakistan. In India, the proportion of total electricity generated that is used by farmers for tube well irrigation ranges from 30-40%. So critical seems the energy cost to the economics of irrigated farming that farmer lobbies throughout India have forced state governments to subsidize agricultural power supply. Political leaders have complied because they have figured out that power subsidies benefit rural poor like few other subsidies do. But the electricity industry is going bankrupt and, in some regions, it has neglected the repair and maintenance of rural power supply infrastructure. The result is to be seen in the above figure which shows that much of rural eastern India has got all but de-electrified. What would be the impact on groundwater use in agriculture if power subsidies were done away with? It would vary across regions. In North Gujarat, where farmers pump from 200-250 meters, irrigated farming may go out of business; and its well-developed dairy business, the mainstay of poor and women-headed rural households may decline. Elsewhere, groundwater extraction would for sure decline; but the poor farmers who depend on pump irrigation markets for their supplemental irrigation would face far more adverse terms of business. It looks as though pumping costs would begin to matter when they reach 25-30% of the output value. This seems to be the situation in North China plains where electricity subsidies to agriculture are absent or marginal; the adjoining chart shows how irrigation cost/mt of wheat rises as depth to pumping water level increases across nine villages of Henan and Hebei provinces. Taking wheat price @ Y 1/kg, irrigation costs are approaching 20-25% of the value of output in many areas in Hebei; and it is here that we find adoption of green houses, sprinklers, drip irrigation and high value crops taking off amongst farmers. [Tushaar Shah and Aditi Debroy. 2002. “Major Insights from India’s 2nd Minor Irrigation Census”, Anand, India: IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program. And Shah, Tushaar, Aditi Debroy, Asad Qureshi and Jinxia Wang. 2001. Sustaining Asia’s Groundwater Boom: Overview of Issues and Evidence, IWMI Contribution to Bonn conference on Freshwater, December 2001] Box 7 Decentralized Groundwater Recharge in Gujarat

Figure: Decline in Water Table and Irrigation Cost/mt of Wheat inNine Villages in Henan and Hebai Provinces, China

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Xiaotan

, Yan

jin co

unty, H

enan

Guantun,Yan

jin co

unty, H

enan

Xijie, Y

anjin

county,

Hen

an

Zhao Zhuan

g, Ci c

ounty, H

ebei

Dong wan

gnu, Ci c

ounty, H

ebei

Shi cun Ying, C

i county,

Heb

ei

Yao Zhung Zi, C

hang Zhou co

unty, H

ebei

Xi Huay

uan, C

hang Zhao

county,

Heb

ei

Xi Tun Zi, C

hang Zhou co

unty, H

ebei

Wat

er L

evel

(met

ers)

Irrig

atio

n co

st/m

t (Y

)

PumpingWater Level

Irrigationcost/mt ofwheat

18

In the Surashtra region of Gujarat, one of the most groundwater-stressed parts of India, a popular movement to collect rainwater and dispatch it to the groundwater storage has been in progress now for

nearly 15 years. Studies differ in their conclusions on whether these create any ‘net benefit’; but a study sponsored by the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program compared impact of the movement on the rise in static water level (SWL) during the monsoon using pre-monsoon and post-monsoon records of groundwater levels in 30 talukas maintained by Gujarat Water Resources Development Corporation. This analysis is summarized in the figure. The first pair of maps shows the long term average in rainfall SWL respectively; and the next two pairs show the rainfall and SWL changes during the monsoon during 2000 and 2001 respectively. The long-term average maps show lower monsoonal SWL rise despite higher rainfall. The latter maps show that during 2000 and 2001, although rainfall has been less than average, groundwater availability at the end of the monsoon is better in most talukas. Many critics believe that impacts of water harvesting and recharge movement

are localized. But the GWRDC data suggest these impacts are widespread and region-wide. [Source: Tushaar Shah and Rohit Desai, 2002, ‘Decentralized Water Harvesting and Groundwater Recharge: Can These Save Saurashtra and Kutch from Desiccation?’, Anand, India: IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program].