What role can information play in improved equity in Pakistan’s irrigation system? Evidence from an experimental game in Punjab

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The Indus Basin Irrigation System suffers significant inequity in access to surface water across its millions of users. Information, i.e., monitoring and reporting of water availability, may be of value in improving conditions across the basin, and we investigated this via an experimental game of water distribution in Punjab, Pakistan. We found evidence that flow information allowed players to take more effective action to target overuse, and that overall activities that might bring social disapproval were reduced with information. However, we did not find any overall improvement in equity across the system, suggesting that information on its own might not be sufficient to lead to better water distribution among irrigators.

Characterizing Heterogeneous Behavior of Non-Point-Source Polluters in a Spatial Game under Alternate Sensing and Incentive Designs

“…1). The spatially explicit positioning of the agents has parallels to lab and field experiments that have explored the differences in water-use decisions of upstream and downstream irrigators (D'Exelle et al 2012;Bell et al 2015).…”

“…Similarly, provision of information that the level of pollution in a water body is low could encourage some farmers to forgo expensive pollution-abatement activities. In irrigation games, Bell et al (2015) found that upstream players in the Indus Basin, whose water supply was unaffected by scarcity, did not change their competitive behavior in response to information that downstream players were not receiving adequate water. In contrast, D'Exelle et al (2012) found that upstream irrigation players in Tanzania played cooperatively for enabling equitable sharing of water resources between upstream and downstream players.…”

An in-silico analysis of information sharing systems for adaptable resources management: a case study of oyster farmers

“…But more information sharing does not necessarily lead to the sustainable or fair use of a resource. Li (2014) provides an example of information improving the sustainable management of a groundwater resource, while Bell (2015) presents an example of the monitoring of a water resource in Pakistan leading to a decrease in water use but no improvement in equitable water distribution.…”

Environmental information sharing: a means to support the legitimization of oyster farmers’ stewardship over water quality management in NSW, Australia

“…Research on global common goods has pointed out the fact that information can be considered to be a common good, emphasizing the difference between information, artifacts and facilities (Hess and Ostrom, 2003). Other research on information in the context of commons management has shown its importance, for instance through studies of the effects of information availability and granularity for conditional cooperation (Villena and Zecchetto, 2010;Janssen, 2013;Bell et al, 2015). Information can be shared one-to-one (Bodin and Crona, 2009) or with groups of people during meetings or through information sharing artifacts (Allen and Kilvington, 2005;Pahl-Wostl, 2005).…”