What is behind water users’ satisfaction? An empirical analysis of Water Users Associations under different water availability conditions

Abstract

The level of satisfaction within a community sharing a common pool resource is essential to strengthening collective actions. In the case of irrigation water, which is becoming a critical resource due to its declining availability, the satisfaction level of the farmers that join community-based water management organizations called Water User Associations may be a relevant factor explaining individuals' cooperation and collective actions. Using a sample of 393 users we performed confirmatory factor analysis, correlational analyses, and multilevel regressions. A composite indicator of user satisfaction showed significant correlations with the positive evaluation of the association staff performance, the effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement, and the confidence that other users do not withdraw more water than they are allocated. Additionally, we found that satisfaction levels for users facing higher and lower water scarcity conditions and found that satisfaction is significantly higher in the latter case. User satisfaction is affected by several structural characteristics of the water channel, users' human and social capital variables. Our study contributes to the existing literature on common resource management in irrigated areas by identifying significant factors of user satisfaction in WUAs under different water availability conditions, which can be used as inputs to improve water governance policies because, ultimately, it is users who determine cooperation rates and willingness to participate in associations collective actions.