Whither collective action? Upscaling collective actions, politics and basin management in the process of ‘legitimizing’ an informal groundwater economy

Abstract

This article examines different forms and levels of collective action by aquifer users in securing access to over-allocated groundwater resources using a case study of La Loma, Úbeda (Jaén, Spain), one of the largest olive-growing areas in the world. It shows how opportunities for collective water management increase at the basin level as bargaining spaces increase but also how political rent influences the institutional designs that emerge. The article identifies an opportunity to redesign the organizational and institutional configurations by both securing access to water and strengthening collaborative spaces at the basin level.

Keywords:

• groundwater use
• collective action
• politics
• water rights

Notes

1. The numbers correspond to the nomenclature officially used by the Spanish Hydrological Plans, adapted to the European Water Framework Directive.

2. Spanish Water Act, 29/1985 (1985).

3. It was not well advertised: the only publication was in the official bulletin of the Andalusian region.

4. This was the result of the claim by the Andalusian government that the special clause of the Spanish constitution covering any river basin entirely within the borders of an autonomous community (a Spanish region) should apply in the case of Guadalquivir, because more than 90% of the river basin is located in Andalusia. However, this was challenged in courts by other autonomous communities and management was returned to an agency depending on the central state at the end of 2011.