Groundwater as a Common Pool Resource: Modelling, Management and the Complicity Ethic in a Non-collective World

Castilla-Rho, Juan; Holley, Cameron; Castilla, Juan Carlos

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29443-4_9

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Ensemble-of-model approaches should be pursued for topics concerning groundwaterconnected systems which are characterised by less process understanding and greater uncertainty relative to physical groundwater systems. Multi-modelling does not need to take any particular form, and can be used to integrate methodologically diverse studies, each fit for a specific purpose, to identify common outcomes and areas of convergence and divergence (Castilla-Rho et al 2020). Furthermore, multi-modelling as a practice better reflects the multiple partial perspectives that characterise sustainability discourses, where a sustainability-related challenge does not possess a single optimal solution but rather a multiplicity of partial perspectives and solutions that require reconciling.…”

Section: Implications For Scientific Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simultaneously, communitybased participatory research strengthens scientific practice and output by canvassing a larger evidence base to inform studies (Tengö et al 2014). These transdisciplinary interactions between academics and stakeholders can create synergistic interactions across knowledge systems and worldviews (Castilla-Rho et al 2020). Yet, as we argue here, making such interactions fruitful demands entirely different skill sets to those used in traditional, disciplinespecific groundwater research.…”

Section: Implications For Scientific Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems

Huggins¹,

Gleeson²,

Castilla-Rho³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Groundwater is embedded in social and ecological systems but the complexity of these interactions is not well represented in conventional approaches to study and promote groundwater sustainability. We argue an important shift is necessary in groundwater sustainability thinking: towards prioritizing the functions of groundwater, and the services that make it a critical resource, and away from focussing on the resource in isolation. We articulate a new perspective for groundwater sustainability based around the concept of groundwater-connected systems—any system with dynamic relationships with groundwater, which can include ecological, social, and Earth systems. We draw from the emerging field of sustainability science and consider groundwater-connected systems to be specific forms of both social-ecological systems and complex adaptive systems. We argue this interdisciplinary systems-based perspective is necessary to connect existing research domains and paradigms, and provides additional concepts and tools from the established literatures of social-ecological systems and complex adaptive systems to improve how we study and manage groundwater-connected systems for resilience and sustainability. We provide a theoretical foundation for this perspective and discuss its practical implications which span data collection initiatives, scientific investigations, governance, and management approaches. Amidst calls for innovation in the groundwater field, we argue that embracing the groundwater-connected system perspective can underpin a methodologically pluralistic, interdisciplinary, community-wide, and bold new wave of groundwater research to better understand and promote groundwater sustainability in the complex systems groundwater is embedded within.

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Section: Implications For Scientific Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Scientific Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems

Huggins¹,

Gleeson²,

Castilla-Rho³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ensemble‐of‐model approaches should be pursued for topics concerning groundwater‐connected systems which are characterized by less process understanding and greater uncertainty relative to physical groundwater systems. This approach does not need to take any particular form and can be used to integrate methodologically diverse studies, each fit for a specific purpose, to identify common outcomes and areas of convergence and divergence (Castilla‐Rho et al 2020).…”

Section: Wide Applicability To Groundwater Science and Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater Connections and Sustainability in Social‐Ecological Systems

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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Groundwater resources are connected with social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems. We introduce the framing of groundwater-connected systems to better represent the nature and complexity of these connections in data collection, scientific investigations, governance and management approaches, and groundwater education. Groundwater-connected systems are social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems that interact with groundwater, such as irrigated agriculture, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and cultural relationships to groundwater expressions such as springs and rivers. Groundwater-connected systems form social-ecological systems with complex behaviors such as feedbacks, nonlinear processes, multiple stable system states, and path dependency. These complex behaviors are only visible through this integrated system framing and are not endogenous properties of physical groundwater systems. The framing is syncretic as it aims to provide a common conceptual foundation for the growing disciplines of socio-hydrogeology, eco-hydrogeology, groundwater governance, and hydro-social groundwater analysis. The framing also facilitates greater alignment between the groundwater sustainability discourse and emerging sustainability concepts and principles. Aligning with these concepts and principles presents groundwater sustainability as more than a physical state to be reached; and argues that place-based and multifaceted goals, values, justice, knowledge systems, governance, and management must continually be integrated to maintain groundwater's social, ecological, and Earth system functions. The groundwater-connected systems framing can underpin a broad, methodologically pluralistic, and community-driven new wave of data collection and analysis, research, governance, management, and education. These developments, together, can invigorate efforts to foster sustainable groundwater futures in the complex systems groundwater is embedded within.

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“…While they do not trust the state, neither do they trust each other: in at least five groundwater basins the water users and their agencies have asked the courts to adjudicate their water rights rather than work together to form a plan to reach sustainability. “Cap and trade” schemes, in which the government assigns use rights to a limited amount of groundwater and encourages a market for the resource, have also been frustrated by the reluctance of groundwater users to limit their pumping, and the inability of states to enforce those limits (Castilla‐Rho et al, 2019; Crase et al, 2009).…”

Section: Groundwater Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critics of the “tragedy of the commons” argument tend to attack the individualism inherent to that model of socionatural relations, rather than reframing the problem of groundwater management as a wider historical process of dispossession and enclosure. In response to the perceived issue of individualism, scholars and environmental managers distill design principles from existing examples of collective institutions and forms of property and use them to model participatory governance projects for common‐pool resources (Agrawal, 2003; Birkenholtz, 2009; Blomquist, 1992; Castilla‐Rho et al, 2019; Cleaver & de Koning, 2015; Closas & Villholth, 2020; Faysse & Petit, 2012; Langridge & Ansell, 2018; Ostrom, 1990; Schnegg et al, 2016; Trawick et al, 2014; Wagner, 2012; Wutich, 2009). As a result, governance research develops regimes of property rights for groundwater that make prior dispossessions and enclosures invisible and secure continued, sustainable access to the liquid for capitalist agriculture and urban growth.…”

Section: Groundwater Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond rules and norms: Heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility of groundwaters

Walsh

2022

WIREs Water

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Over the last 150 years or so engineers, farmers, scientists, and many others around the globe have gained access to the waters that lie underground with drilling technology, pumps and cheap energy. Since the mid-twentieth century, a massive worldwide proliferation of deep wells has redistributed groundwaters away from springs, seeps, wells, and oases, robbing them of the water that supports local sustainable socionatural relations. The idea and social fact of groundwater has emerged in this history, and has three distinguishing features: heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility. The failure to halt depletion has prompted a turn to culture in the hope of governing the liquid sustainably.However, rather than grapple with the complexities and contradictions of heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility, these efforts take a rather thin view of culture-as rules, norms, and institutions to be studied, codified and deployed to address the crisis. This instrumental understanding of culture as a set of traits to be selectively used for arresting depletion has not proven effective, however, compelling us to rethink our cultural, political, and economic engagements with groundwater.

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Groundwater as a Common Pool Resource: Modelling, Management and the Complicity Ethic in a Non-collective World

Cited by 7 publications

References 36 publications

Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems

Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems

Groundwater Connections and Sustainability in Social‐Ecological Systems

Beyond rules and norms: Heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility of groundwaters

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