Abstract
The commons are natural or man-made resources that due to non-excludability and subtractability face serious risks of overexploitation, mismanagement, or even destruction, the so-called “tragedy of the commons”. Groundwater is a typical example of such a resource. Drawing on the framework developed by the 2009 Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, this research explores issues of collective management of groundwater using Larissa area, one of the most important agricultural areas of Greece, as a case study. More specifically, the paper assesses empirically the possibility of user-based management of groundwater used for irrigation purposes. This is done through a survey which explores, inter alia, the views of local stakeholders on the intensity of the water problem, the irrigation practices, and the existence of trust-based social relations between the farmers, which are seen as essential for the development of successful, long-enduring, user-based governance solutions. The research finds that farmers are rather reserved toward the possibility of groundwater self-management, which may be due to lack of trust both among them and toward the other players in the field. On these grounds, it seems that the most appropriate solution would be to create an independent coordinative body with multiple responsibilities and powers.
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Notes
- 1.
In its modern conception, stewardship ethic refers to the “responsible use (including conservation) of natural resources in a way that takes full and balanced account of the interests of society, future generations, and other species, as well as of private needs, and accepts significant answerability to society” (Worrell and Appleby 2000: 269).
- 2.
That is a network of strong personal relationships and social interactions between members of a community (individuals, groups, or organizations).
- 3.
In response to the water supply threat posed by an Ethiopian dam, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared in a television speech to his people on June 10, 2013: “Egypt’s water security cannot be violated at all. As president of the state, I confirm to you that all options are open” (BBC News 2013).
- 4.
In practice, there were no restrictions in the abstraction of groundwater to both private and public users (Kampa 2007).
- 5.
Such as the Civil Code of 1940, the Law 481/1943 on the management and administration of waters used for irrigation (complemented with further acts in 1948, 1949, 1952, 1957), the Law 1988/1952 on wells, the Decree 3881/1958 on land reclamation works, the Code 420/1970 for the protection of the aquatic ecosystem, and the New Constitution of 1975 (which introduced environmental protection as an obligation).
- 6.
As a result of their weak implementation, water management continued in a piecemeal and opportunistic manner throughout the 1990s (Kampa 2007). In practice, this meant that water users could abstract, at their will, uncontrolled, large amounts of water with the tolerance of the local authorities (Delithanasi 2004).
- 7.
The 3199/2003 Framework Law adopted the existing division of Greece into 14 WDs (already defined by the 1739/1987). A WD is considered to be the entity of all runoff basins of as similar as possible hydrological–hydrogeological conditions, which constitute the regional level in the field of water management (NTUA 2008).
- 8.
This part was included only in the questionnaire distributed to the farmers.
- 9.
It should be noted that due to difficulties in defining with precision the statistical population, the choice of the sample was made by simple random sampling.
- 10.
These figures indicate that farmers were generally skeptical of the success of such an endeavor, especially given the acute economic conditions of the country and its population.
- 11.
Although further investigation is required, we could argue at this point that such a stance might be due to lack of confidence toward farmers’ capacity for self-organization, fueled by relevant previous experience (e.g., the limited success of agricultural cooperatives in Greece—see, inter alia, Iliopoulos and Valentinov 2012).
- 12.
Correlations were also checked with the Sommer’s d coefficient, giving the same results. For reasons of space efficiency, these have not been included in the paper.
- 13.
Several other pieces of research report similar findings, that is, low and declining levels of social trust in Greece (see inter alia Paraskevopoulos 2006; Jones et al. 2008; Roumeliotou and Rontos 2009), offering a number of possible explanations: increasing levels of individualistic mentality and utilitarian political culture, increasing income disparities, strong clientelistic relations, increasing disappointment and distrust to political institutions, and a long tradition of authoritarian statism along with a problematic transition to democracy during the first post-dictatorship period (1974–mid-1990s).
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Arvanitidis, P.A., Nasioka, F., Dimogianni, S. (2015). Water Resource Management in Larisa: A “Tragedy of the Commons?”. In: Leal Filho, W., Sümer, V. (eds) Sustainable Water Use and Management. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12394-3_4
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