Towards a more flexible water concession system in Spain: public water banks in Andalusia

Abstract

The traditional management paradigm that has governed water policy in Spain during the last century is currently undergoing a critical process of change. Recently, regional Andalusian and national legislation have developed a new framework, where novel strategies, based on the reallocation of concessional rights, can be adopted to respond to water shortage conditions. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that could potentially affect the legal reform in Andalusia, which is targeted at developing a market-based redistribution system of water rights in the various river basins within the region.

Keywords::

• Andalusia
• Spain
• water banks
• water markets

Acknowledgements

We thank Joan Corominas for his comments and ideas, which he related in an interview carried out on 13 July 2012.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Junta de Andalucía [grant no. HUM07922]; the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación [grant no. CSO2011-29425]; and the European Commission [Marie Curie Actions, Initial Training Networks, FP7, PEOPLE, 2011; contract no. 289374, ENTITLE, European Network of Political Ecology].