IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/snd/wpaper/14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Participatory Watershed Management be sustained? Evidence from Southern India

Author

Listed:
  • D. Suresh Kumar

Abstract

Watershed development is a very important rural development programme in India. This paper studies 60 community groups in 12 micro-watersheds in South India to understand how villagers cooperate to manage watershed related tasks. The paper examines the factors that affect collective participation in watershed management and how cooperation changes once the State withdraws and hands control over management to panchayat raj institutions and other groups. The study finds that watershed institutions in most cases become inactive once the project period is over. The analysis of factors that influence on-going maintenance of watershed structures indicates that collective action emerges when user groups are small and homogenous and communities are dependent on a large number of wells. Wealthy user groups are likely to be more active when a project is on-going. The results suggest that watershed development should be given more emphasis where wells are the predominant source of irrigation. Further, greater success is likely where user groups have more knowledge and control over funds available for maintenance activities after the state withdraws.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Suresh Kumar, "undated". "Can Participatory Watershed Management be sustained? Evidence from Southern India," Working papers 14, The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:snd:wpaper:14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sandeeonline.org/uploads/documents/publication/762_PUB_working_paper_suresh22.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.sandeeonline.org/uploads/documents/abstract/762_ABS_abstract_22.pdfFile-FormatABS:application/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson White, T. & Ford Runge, C., 1995. "The emergence and evolution of collective action: Lessons from watershed management in Haiti," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 1683-1698, October.
    2. Bardhan, Pranab, 2000. "Irrigation and Cooperation: An Empirical Analysis of 48 Irrigation Communities in South India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(4), pages 847-865, July.
    3. Gebremedhin, Berhanu & Pender, John & Tesfay, Girmay, 2003. "Community natural resource management: the case of woodlots in Northern Ethiopia," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 129-148, February.
    4. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & DiGregorio, Monica & McCarthy, Nancy, 2004. "Methods for studying collective action in rural development," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 197-214, December.
    5. McCarthy, Nancy & Dutilly-Diane, Celine & Drabo, Boureima, 2004. "Cooperation, collective action and natural resources management in Burkina Faso," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 233-255, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Mabuza, Majola Lawrence & Ortmann, Gerald F. & Wale, Edilegnaw Zegeye, 2012. "Collective action in commercial mushroom production: the role of social capital in the management of informal farmer groups in Swaziland," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126764, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Kumar, D. Suresh & Palanisami, K., 2009. "An Economic Inquiry into Collective Action and Household Behaviour in Watershed Management," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 64(1), pages 1-15.
    3. Devarajulu, Suresh Kumar, 2008. "An economic inquiry into collective action and household behaviour in watershed management," MPRA Paper 17867, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Biggeri, Mario & Carraro, Alessandro & Ciani, Federico & Romano, Donato, 2022. "Disentangling the impact of a multiple-component project on SDG dimensions: The case of durum wheat value chain development in Oromia (Ethiopia)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Cembalo, Luigi & Pascucci, Stefano & Tagliafierro, Carolina & Caracciolo, Francesco, 2014. "Promoting Agro-Energy Supply Chain As A Collective Action," 88th Annual Conference, April 9-11, 2014, AgroParisTech, Paris, France 170481, Agricultural Economics Society.
    6. Nakano, Yuko & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2011. "Determinants of household contributions to collective irrigation management: The case of the Doho Rice Scheme in Uganda," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(5), pages 527-551, October.
    7. Nancy McCarthy & Talip Kilic, 2015. "The nexus between gender, collective action for public goods and agriculture: evidence from Malawi," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(3), pages 375-402, May.
    8. Kumar, D. Suresh, 2009. "Participation in Self-Help Group Activities and its Impacts: Evidence from South India," MPRA Paper 19943, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Aug 2009.
    9. Cembalo, Luigi & Pascucci, Stefano & Tagliafierro, Carolina & Caracciolo, Francesco, 2014. "Managing integration in bio-energy chains by promoting a collective action," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182690, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Hoogesteger, Jaime & Bolding, Alex & Sanchis-Ibor, Carles & Veldwisch, Gert Jan & Venot, Jean-Philippe & Vos, Jeroen & Boelens, Rutgerd, 2023. "Communality in farmer managed irrigation systems: Insights from Spain, Ecuador, Cambodia and Mozambique," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    11. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & DiGregorio, Monica & McCarthy, Nancy, 2004. "Methods for studying collective action in rural development," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 197-214, December.
    12. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2003. "Economics of common property management regimes," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 127-190, Elsevier.
    13. Doss, Cheryl R. & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth, 2015. "Collective Action within the Household: Insights from Natural Resource Management," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 171-183.
    14. Nobuyoshi Yasunaga, 2020. "Classification of collective actions for rural community vitalization in Chugoku Mountainous region, Japan: applying multiple correspondence analysis," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 553-592, June.
    15. Litina, Anastasia, 2012. "Unfavorable land endowment, cooperation, and reversal of fortune," MPRA Paper 39702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Astrid Dannenberg & Carlo Gallier, 2020. "The choice of institutions to solve cooperation problems: a survey of experimental research," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(3), pages 716-749, September.
    17. Crespo, Joan & Réquier-Desjardins, Denis & Vicente, Jérôme, 2014. "Why can collective action fail in Local Agri-food Systems? A social network analysis of cheese producers in Aculco, Mexico," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 165-177.
    18. Hanan G. Jacoby & Ghazala Mansuri, 2018. "Governing the Commons? Water and Power in Pakistan’s Indus Basin," Working Papers id:12933, eSocialSciences.
    19. Kahsay, Goytom Abraha & Medhin, Haileselassie, 2020. "Leader turnover and forest management outcomes: Micro-level evidence from Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Takeshi Aida, 2019. "Social capital as an instrument for common pool resource management: a case study of irrigation management in Sri Lanka," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 952-978.

    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:snd:wpaper:14. 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: Anuradhak (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.