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Governing the commons: History and evaluation of local democratic groundwater management in the Nebraska Upper Republican Natural Resource District
Abstract
In many areas of the western United States groundwater is being withdrawn at rates far beyond the recharge capacity of the aquifer. The resulting depletion of groundwater supplies is expected to result in a number of adverse social, economic, and environmental consequences. The growing problem of groundwater depletion has intensified the debate over the most appropriate institutional forms needed to manage a common-pool or shared resource like groundwater. In several western states including Nebraska, some resource management authority has been vested with local democratic organizations. Locally controlled resource management systems is a type of common property arrangement that grants a group of users or residents authority to determine who is granted access to the resource and how, when, and where the resource can be used. The overall objective of this study is to gain a greater understanding of how local, democratic, self-regulation works in the management of a common-pool resource. A conceptual framework is developed from an institutionalist perspective to analyze in a holistic way the causes of the groundwater mining problem, the legal structure authorizing groundwater use and access, the response of a local community to that groundwater depletion problem, and the impact of the local regulatory program on groundwater withdrawals. This framework is then used to analyze and evaluate the groundwater management history of one local resource organization in Nebraska, the Upper Republican Natural Resource District (URNRD). In the case of the URNRD, the groundwater control program has been devised, implemented, financed, and enforced at the local level. The causes and consequences of the rapid development of pump irrigation in the URNRD during the late 1960s through the 1970s are explored. The local response to the groundwater depletion problem is then examined. Finally, the impacts of the groundwater control rules on irrigator behavior, per acre groundwater use rates, and total groundwater withdrawals are investigated.
Subject Area
Economics|Agricultural economics
Recommended Citation
Stephenson, Stephen Kurt, "Governing the commons: History and evaluation of local democratic groundwater management in the Nebraska Upper Republican Natural Resource District" (1994). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9510982.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9510982