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Governance is key to tackling water challenges and transforming water management under the increasing pressures of competing water uses and climate change. Diverse water governance regimes have evolved in different countries and regions to regulate the development and management of water resources and the provision of water services. Scholars and policy analysts have been comparing these water governance regimes to analyze elements and processes, to assess performance, or to draw lessons. Although the number of such studies has increased since the 1980s, no comprehensive synthesis exists. We present such a synthesis by conducting a systematic review of the emerging field of comparative water governance studies, and we critically reflect on how water governance is defined, conceptualized, and assessed in different contexts. Based on the resultant insights, we identify four areas for future research:(1) improving the balance between small-, medium-, and large-N studies that are used in comparative studies of water governance; (2) conducting longitudinal comparisons of water governance to identify temporal governance trends and patterns; (3) expanding the geographical coverage of the comparisons to include underrepresented countries and regions, focusing more broadly on the global South; and (4) addressing the issues of justice, equity, and power, which are becoming increasingly important in tackling the water governance challenges that are exacerbated by the effects of climate change, industrialization, and urbanization.

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This article presents the results of comparative fieldwork on the huerta of Valencia in Spain, a successful community‐managed irrigation system of medium scale, one governed collectively by thousands of small farmers organized into 10 autonomous but highly interdependent irrigator groups. The study tested a model identified previously in research on successful systems of much smaller scale in Peru, a set of principles of operation that, when affirmed by farmers and obeyed as collective‐choice rules, interact to create equity among water rights and transparency in water use in an unusual way. The authors show that a nearly identical set are at work in all 10 communities of Valencia, revealing the unique manner in which these work together to promote successful and sustainable cooperation, both within and between the user groups, and arguing that their presence in Spain and the Andes is indicative, not of diffusion from one continent to another, but of independent invention. These principles together laid the foundations for separate Andean and Islamic hydraulic traditions, which were often manifested locally in robust and equitable systems of the same general type, here called the moral economy of water. This kind of communal system appears to have emerged repeatedly, and often independently, in a great many other locales and settings throughout the world; its adaptive dynamics are shown to be of great relevance to small farmers today as they face the growing scarcity of water being induced by population growth and by climate change. WIREs Water 2014, 1:87–110. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1008 This article is categorized under: Human Water > Rights to Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented

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One of the most important challenges that agriculture faces is sustainable water management and its adaptation to climate change. This adaptation is more important in regions where recurrent draughts and overexploitation of water resources happen. However, historical irrigation systems, such as the Real Acequia de Moncada (RAM) in Valencia, have found innovative approaches to deal with this phenomenon. This paper analyzes the case of Massamagrell and Puçol, which reused the treated waste-water of the closest waste-water treatment plant (WWTP). The study focused from a circular economy perspective on the technological, agronomical, and social implications of this decision. Results show that there are clear benefits for both farmers and WWTP managers. On the one hand, additional nutrients and regularity in their water supply benefit farmers. On the other, WWTP managers can reuse the treated effluent in the system, contributing to the closure of the water cycle and avoiding pumping the treated water into the sea. However, more detailed information and coordination is needed among the different stakeholders. Questions regarding the illegal connection of waste pipes with the traditional irrigation or the payment of pumping costs for reuse have gone unanswered, and there is a need for better reflection from all stakeholders.

The aim of this article is to analyze the strategies developed by water users' associations in Spain to overcome drought in a context of structural scarcity due to geographical conditions and from the development of expansionary irrigation policies. This analysis is based on interviews with farmers and representatives of water user's associations in four selected irrigation districts placed in the Valencia Region. The work demonstrates that in a relatively small area of the Mediterranean there are very different levels of vulnerability, generally related to the origin and diversity of water resources. Diversification of resources and hydraulic interconnection of districts, which allows for water management flexibility, appear to be the best way to improve drought resilience in the area. However, some institutional and environmental risks of these strategies are also outlined.

Resumen: El artículo comienza con un debate sobre el concepto de “contracción” y sus orígenes, fuera del ámbito del desarrollo rural. A partir de ahí, se muestra la distribución de las zonas rurales en contracción en toda Europa. A continuación, se describen los procesos socioeconómicos que impulsan el declive demográfico en las zonas rurales, utilizando tanto la revisión bibliográfica del proyecto ESCAPE como los resultados de sus ocho estudios de caso. Seguidamente, se describe de forma breve la evolución de las intervenciones de la UE para paliar los efectos del declive demográfico, y se hacen algunas observaciones sobre el panorama político/de gobernanza actual. Concluimos considerando cómo una mejor comprensión del problema y del proceso de reducción puede conducir a intervenciones más eficaces, en el contexto de una visión renovada a largo plazo para el medio rural europeo. Este último debe reconocer plenamente el creciente abanico de oportunidades a las que se enfrentan las zonas rurales, a medida que la COVID-19 cambia estas y se aceleran las transformaciones en el comportamiento laboral y en la geografía de la actividad económica, y se cumplen los anteriores cambios graduales en la tecnología y los mercados.   Palabras clave: Espacios rurales, declive demográfico, enfoque neo-endógeno, crecimiento inclusivo. Abstract: The paper begins with a discussion of the concept of “shrinking”, and its origins, outside the realm of rural development. Building on this, the paper shows the distribution of shrinking rural areas across Europe. Using both the project’s literature review and findings from its eight case studies the socio-economic processes which drive demographic decline in rural areas are then described. A brief account of the evolution of EU interventions to alleviate the effects of shrinking, and some remarks about the current policy/governance landscape follow. We conclude by considering how a better understanding of the problem and process of shrinking may lead to more effective interventions, within the context of a refreshed long-term vision for Rural Europe. The latter needs to fully acknowledge the expanding repertoire of opportunities confronting rural areas as COVID-19 changes in working behaviour, and the geography of economic activity, accelerate, and fulfil, previously incremental shifts in technology and markets.   Key words: Rural areas, demographic decline, neo-endogenous approach, inclusive growth.