Browsing by Author "Dinar, Ariel"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Comparison of Institutional Arrangements for River Basin Management in Eight Basins
    (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2005) Blomquist, William; Dinar, Ariel; Kemper, Karin
    This study represents an effort toward understanding conditions that affect successful or unsuccessful efforts to devolve water resource management to the river basin level and secure active stakeholder involvement. A theoretical framework is used to identify potentially important variables related to the likelihood of success. Using a comparative case-study approach, the study examined river basins where organizations have been developed at the basin scale and where organizations perform management functions such as planning, allocation, and pricing of water supplies, flood prevention and response, and water quality monitoring and improvement. This paper compares the alternative approaches to basin governance and management adopted in the following river basins: the Alto-Tiete and Jaguaribe River Basins, Brazil; the Brantas River Basin, East Java, Indonesia; the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, Canada; the Guadalquivir Basin, Spain; the Murray-Darling River Basin, Australia; the Tarcoles River Basin, Costa Rica; and the Warta River Basin, Poland. The analysis focuses on how management has been organized and pursued in each case in light of its specific geographical, historical, and organizational contexts and the evolution of institutional arrangements. The cases are also compared and assessed for their observed degrees of success in achieving improved stakeholder participation and integrated water resources management.
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    Decentralization of River Basin Management: A Global Analysis
    (World Bank Group, 2005) Dinar, Ariel; Kemper, Karin; Blomquist, William; Diez, Michele; Sine, Gisele; Fru, William
    Decentralization and increased stakeholder involvement have been major elements of water sector reform as ways to promote sustainable and integrated resource management particularly of river basins. Based on an analytical framework for relating decentralization and stakeholder involvement to improved river basin management, this paper infers several hypotheses about factors associated with greater or lesser likelihood of success of the decentralization process using data from 83 river basins worldwide. The results suggest that physical, political, economic, financial, and institutional characteristics of the basin do affect the process and the level of performance of the decentralization. In particular, the presence of water scarcity may be a stimulus to reform, uniting the stakeholders in the basin and leading to better performance; organized user groups push for the initiation of decentralization reforms but may be associated with costs to the process and difficulty of achieving decentralization; the existence of dispute resolution mechanisms supports stakeholder involvement and improves decentralization performance; where stakeholders accepted greater financial responsibility, complying with tariffs and contributing to the budget for basin management, the decentralization process and performance measures increased; basins with higher percentages of their budgets from external governmental sources benefited from better stability and support and it shows in the performance of the decentralization process.
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    Institutional and Policy Analysis of River Basin Management: The Warta River Basin, Poland
    (World Bank Group, 2005) Blomquist, William; Dinar, Ariel; Tonderski, Andrzej
    The authors describe and analyze the emergence of river basin management in the Warta River Basin of Poland. The Warta basin’s 55,193 km2 cover approximately one-sixth of Poland, and the Warta is a principal tributary to the Oder. Water management issues include pollution of the Warta and its main tributaries, prompting cities to rely on groundwater supplies that are beginning to show signs of overdraft, and growing problems of water allocation and scarcity as the basin urbanizes and industrializes. Since the end of the 1980s, the Polish government has been promoting decentralization, constructing a federal system that includes provinces, counties, and municipalities with authority over land use, water use permits, and environmental protection. Polish authorities have also established river basin management authorities corresponding to basin boundaries throughout the nation, including one for the Warta basin. The efforts toward decentralization and integrated water resource management in Poland have been earnest, but the dispersion of water policy authority across several levels of government, the establishment of basin authorities lacking power and funding to implement resource management programs, few arrangements for stakeholder participation, and delays in Polish water law reform have complicated the development and implementation of integrated management at the basin level. This paper—a product of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department—is part of a larger effort in the department to approach water policy issues in an integrated way. The study was funded by the Bank’s Research Support Budget under the research project “Integrated River Basin Management and the Principle of Managing Water Resources at the Lowest Appropriate Level: When and Why Does It (Not) Work in Practice?”