IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v18y2023i2p265-294.html

Groundwater Markets in South Asia: A Bibliometric Assessment of Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Irrigation Development

Author

Listed:
  • Dishant Parakh
  • Sriroop Chaudhuri

Abstract

Uninhibited drafting and plummeting groundwater levels have entailed a slew of eco-environmental and socio-economic crises across vast swathes of South Asia, leading to social turmoil over the demand-supply gap in the irrigation sector. We adopted a mixed-method approach, combining systematic bibliometric assessment with contextual analysis, to highlight to the regional water authorities (RWAs) the core tenets of groundwater markets (GWMs), already operating in various capacities and forms in different parts of South Asia, as a potential option to address the crisis. GWMs, occurring along a farmer-water-irrigation continuum, have mixed impacts on groundwater-dependent socio-ecologies, ranging from beneficial to counter-productive. Given the dire projections of groundwater depletion in the near future and the inadequacy of the state machineries to meet surging irrigation demand, a critical policy question that we approached in this narrative was: Can GWMs be institutionalized as a regulatory tool for ‘supply-side’ management of irrigation resources? To that end, we helped RWAs grow a deeper understanding of the complexity and interdisciplinarity associated with the vast network of actors and agencies interlocked within GWMs. By the same token, we urged the RWAs to consider a collective space—potentially in the form of a groundwater users’ association (GWUA)—as a prerequisite to imagining GWMs in an institutional mould. We present a critique of current world experiences with GWUAs and reflect on the socio-environmental barriers to establishing a functional GWUA. We outline tentative means for RWAs to build credibility and increase acceptability of GUWAs at the grassroots, including capacity building, value-based standard operating procedures and harnessing solidarity and social responsibility. In conclusion, we offer RWAs a simple system of a ‘reality’ check, to evaluate the ground conditions and feasibility of contemplating GWMs in the first place.

Suggested Citation

  • Dishant Parakh & Sriroop Chaudhuri, 2023. "Groundwater Markets in South Asia: A Bibliometric Assessment of Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Irrigation Development," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 18(2), pages 265-294, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:18:y:2023:i:2:p:265-294
    DOI: 10.1177/09731741231151298
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09731741231151298
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09731741231151298?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Palazzo, Amanda & Brozović, Nicholas, 2014. "The role of groundwater trading in spatial water management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 50-60.
    2. Easter, K William & Rosegrant, Mark W & Dinar, Ariel, 1999. "Formal and Informal Markets for Water: Institutions, Performance, and Constraints," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 14(1), pages 99-116, February.
    3. Agrawal, Arun & Gibson, Clark C., 1999. "Enchantment and Disenchantment: The Role of Community in Natural Resource Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 629-649, April.
    4. Stahn, Hubert & Tomini, Agnes, 2021. "Externality and common-pool resources: The case of artesian aquifers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. Jayanath Ananda & Mohamed Aheeyar, 2020. "An evaluation of groundwater institutions in India: a property rights perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 5731-5749, August.
    6. Srivastava, S.K. & Kumar, Ranjit & Singh, R.P., 2009. "Extent of Groundwater Extraction and Irrigation Efficiency on Farms under Different Water-market Regimes in Central Uttar Pradesh," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 22(01), January.
    7. Kieran M. Findlater & Terre Satterfield & Milind Kandlikar & Simon D. Donner, 2018. "Six languages for a risky climate: how farmers react to weather and climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(4), pages 451-465, June.
    8. Zuo, Alec & Nauges, Celine & Wheeler, Sarah, 2012. "Water trading as a risk-management tool for farmers: new empirical evidence from the Australian water market," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 149885, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    9. Singh, D.R. & Singh, R.P., 2003. "Groundwater Markets and the Issues of Equty and Reliability to Water Access: A Case of Western Uttar Pradesh," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 58(01), March.
    10. Sharma, Purushottam & Sharma, R.C., 2004. "Groundwater Markets Across Climatic Zones: A Comparative Study of Arid and Semi-Arid Zones of Rajasthan," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 59(01), pages 1-13.
    11. Bock, Bettina B., 2012. "Social innovation and sustainability; how to disentangle the buzzword and its application in the field of agriculture and rural development," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 114(2), pages 1-7, October.
    12. Muhammad Salam & Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema & Wanchang Zhang & Saddam Hussain & Azeem Khan & Muhammad Bilal & Arfan Arshad & Sikandar Ali & Muhammad Awais Zaman, 2020. "Groundwater Storage Change Estimation Using Grace Satellite Data In Indus Basin," Big Data In Water Resources Engineering (BDWRE), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 13-18, February.
    13. Bhandari, Humnath & Pandey, Sushil, 2006. "Economics of Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal: Some Farm-Level Evidences," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 185-199, April.
    14. Bonnie G. Colby, 2000. "Cap-and-Trade Policy Challenges: A Tale of Three Markets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 76(4), pages 638-658.
    15. Matthew Rodell & Isabella Velicogna & James S. Famiglietti, 2009. "Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India," Nature, Nature, vol. 460(7258), pages 999-1002, August.
    16. Khair, Syed M. & Mushtaq, Shahbaz & Culas, Richard J. & Hafeez, Mohsin, 2012. "Groundwater markets under the water scarcity and declining watertable conditions: The upland Balochistan Region of Pakistan," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 21-32.
    17. Vikas Kumar, 2020. "Social Innovation for Agricultural Development: A Study of System of Rice Intensification in Bihar, India," Millennial Asia, , vol. 11(1), pages 99-118, April.
    18. R. Maria Saleth, 1994. "Groundwater Markets in India: A Legal and Institutional Perspective," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 157-176, July.
    19. David Moher & Alessandro Liberati & Jennifer Tetzlaff & Douglas G Altman & The PRISMA Group, 2009. "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(7), pages 1-6, July.
    20. Sriroop Chaudhuri & Mimi Roy & Louis M. McDonald & Yves Emendack, 2021. "Coping Behaviours and the concept of Time Poverty: a review of perceived social and health outcomes of food insecurity on women and children," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 1049-1068, August.
    21. R. Quentin Grafton & Gary Libecap & Samuel McGlennon & Clay Landry & Bob O'Brien, 2011. "An Integrated Assessment of Water Markets: A Cross-Country Comparison," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(2), pages 219-239, Summer.
    22. Bhandari, Humnath & Pandey, Sushil, 2006. "Economics of Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal: Some Farm-Level Evidences," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(01), pages 1-15, April.
    23. Philippus Wester & Jaime Hoogesteger & Linden Vincent, 2009. "Local IWRM organizations for groundwater regulation: The experiences of the Aquifer Management Councils (COTAS) in Guanajuato, Mexico," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(1), pages 29-38, February.
    24. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Marielle Montginoul & Marta Varanda & Sofia Bento, 2012. "Envisioning innovative groundwater regulation policies through scenario workshops in France and Portugal," Post-Print hal-00658994, HAL.
    25. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela, 1996. "Groundwater markets in Pakistan: participation and productivity," Research reports 105, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    26. James H. Skurray & Ram Pandit & David J. Pannell, 2013. "Institutional impediments to groundwater trading: the case of the Gnangara groundwater system of Western Australia," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(7), pages 1046-1072, September.
    27. Shah, Tushaar, 2007. "The groundwater economy of South Asia: an assessment of size, significance and socio-ecological impacts," IWMI Books, Reports H039669, International Water Management Institute.
    28. Thobani, Mateen, 1997. "Formal Water Markets: Why, When, and How to Introduce Tradable Water Rights," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 12(2), pages 161-179, August.
    29. Cécile Hérivaux & Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Marielle Montginoul, 2019. "Exploring the Potential of Groundwater Markets in Agriculture: Results of a Participatory Evaluation in Five French Case Studies," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-28, September.
    30. Muhammad Salam & Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema & Wanchang Zhang & Saddam Hussain & Azeem Khan & Muhammad Bilal & Arfan Arshad & Sikandar Ali & Muhammad Awais Zaman, 2020. "Groundwater Storage Change Estimation Using Grace Satellite Data In Indus Basin," Big Data In Water Resources Engineering (BDWRE), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 10-15, February.
    31. Sriroop Chaudhuri & Mimi Roy & Louis M. McDonald & Yves Emendack, 2023. "Land Degradation–Desertification in Relation to Farming Practices in India: An Overview of Current Practices and Agro-Policy Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-27, April.
    32. Banerji, A. & Meenakshi, J.V. & Khanna, Gauri, 2012. "Social contracts, markets and efficiency: Groundwater irrigation in North India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 228-237.
    33. Shah, Tushaar, 2007. "The groundwater economy of South Asia: an assessment of size, significance and socio-ecological impacts," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.
    34. Singh, Dalbir, 2007. "Who Gains and Who Loses in the Game of Groundwater Markets in Water-scarce Regions," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 20(2).
    35. Frank Van Steenbergen & Muhammad Basharat & Bakhshal Khan Lashari, 2015. "Key Challenges and Opportunities for Conjunctive Management of Surface and Groundwater in Mega-Irrigation Systems: Lower Indus, Pakistan," Resources, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-26, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. da-Silva-Branco, Carla & de Brito, António Guerreiro & Seixas, Paulo Castro, 2026. "A comprehensive review of traditional irrigation systems: Sustainability and future prospects," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cécile Hérivaux & Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Marielle Montginoul, 2019. "Exploring the Potential of Groundwater Markets in Agriculture: Results of a Participatory Evaluation in Five French Case Studies," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-28, September.
    2. Foster, Timothy & Adhikari, Roshan & Adhikari, Subash & Justice, Scott & Tiwari, Baburam & Urfels, Anton & Krupnik, Timothy J., 2021. "Improving pumpset selection to support intensification of groundwater irrigation in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    3. Muhammad Salam & Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema & Wanchang Zhang & Saddam Hussain & Azeem Khan & Muhammad Bilal & Arfan Arshad & Sikandar Ali & Muhammad Awais Zaman, 2020. "Groundwater Storage Change Estimation Using Grace Satellite Data In Indus Basin," Big Data In Water Resources Engineering (BDWRE), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 10-15, February.
    4. Muhammad Salam & Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema & Wanchang Zhang & Saddam Hussain & Azeem Khan & Muhammad Bilal & Arfan Arshad & Sikandar Ali & Muhammad Awais Zaman, 2020. "Groundwater Storage Change Estimation Using Grace Satellite Data In Indus Basin," Big Data In Water Resources Engineering (BDWRE), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 13-18, February.
    5. de Bonviller, Simon & Wheeler, Sarah Ann & Zuo, Alec, 2020. "The dynamics of groundwater markets: Price leadership and groundwater demand elasticity in the Murrumbidgee, Australia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    6. Ravinder Gautam, 2024. "Groundwater Markets structure and its evolution: a study of Karnal District, Haryana, India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(8), pages 1-36, August.
    7. Zeyu Wang & Juqin Shen & Fuhua Sun & Zhaofang Zhang & Dandan Zhang & Yizhen Jia & Kaize Zhang, 2019. "A Pricing Model for Groundwater Rights in Ningxia, China Based on the Fuzzy Mathematical Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-20, June.
    8. Ram Fishman & Upmanu Lall & Vijay Modi & Nikunj Parekh, 2016. "Can Electricity Pricing Save India’s Groundwater? Field Evidence from a Novel Policy Mechanism in Gujarat," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(4), pages 819-855.
    9. World Bank, 2010. "Deep Wells and Prudence : Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India," World Bank Publications - Reports 2835, The World Bank Group.
    10. Banerji, A. & Meenakshi, J.V. & Khanna, Gauri, 2012. "Social contracts, markets and efficiency: Groundwater irrigation in North India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 228-237.
    11. Glendenning, C.J. & van Ogtrop, F.F. & Mishra, A.K. & Vervoort, R.W., 2012. "Balancing watershed and local scale impacts of rain water harvesting in India—A review," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-13.
    12. Hanemann, Michael, 2014. "Property rights and sustainable irrigation—A developed world perspective," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 5-22.
    13. Glendenning, C.J. & Vervoort, R.W., 2010. "Hydrological impacts of rainwater harvesting (RWH) in a case study catchment: The Arvari River, Rajasthan, India. Part 1: Field-scale impacts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 331-342, December.
    14. Jayanath Ananda & Mohamed Aheeyar, 2020. "An evaluation of groundwater institutions in India: a property rights perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 5731-5749, August.
    15. Sheng, Jichuan & Cheng, Qian & Yang, Hongqiang, 2024. "Water markets and water inequality: China's water rights trading pilot," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    16. Watto, Muhammad, 2013. "Measuring Groundwater Irrigation Efficiency in Pakistan: A DEA Approach Using the Sub-vector and Slack-based Models," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152204, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Watto, Muhammad Arif & Mugera, Amin William, "undated". "Measuring Groundwater Irrigation Efficiency in Pakistan: A DEA Approach Using the Sub-vector and Slack-based Models," Working Papers 144943, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    18. Pandey, Rita, 2014. "Groundwater Irrigation in Punjab: Some Issues and Way Forward," Working Papers 14/140, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    19. Siwa Msangi & Sarah Ann Cline, 2016. "Improving Groundwater Management for Indian Agriculture: Assessing Tradeoffs Across Policy Instruments," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(03), pages 1-33, September.
    20. Mohammad Alauddin & Upali A. Amarasinghe & Bharat R. Sharma, 2014. "Four decades of rice water productivity in Bangladesh: A spatio-temporal analysis of district level panel data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 51-64.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:18:y:2023:i:2:p:265-294. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.