Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Land Use Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Outsourcing governance in Peru’s integrated water resources management
Ruxandra Popovici a, Anna Erwin a, Zhao Ma a, *, Linda S. Prokopy a, Laura Zanotti b,
Edwin Fredy Bocardo Delgado c, José Porfirio Pinto Cáceres d, Eliseo Zeballos Zeballos e, Emma
Patricia Salas O’Brien e, Laura C. Bowling f, Glenn Roberto Arce Larrea g
a
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller Street, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907-2033, USA
Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, 700W. State Street, Suite 219, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2059, USA
Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Av. Alcides Carrión s/n. Pabellón de Biología 3º Piso, Área de Biomédicas UNSA, Arequipa, Peru
d
Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Urb. Aurora s/n Costado Estadio UNSA, Arequipa, Peru
e
Facultad de Sociología, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Av. Venezuela s/n Pabellón de Sociales 2º Piso, UNSA, Peru
f
Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907-2053, USA
g
Facultad de Economía, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Av. Venezuela s/n Pabellón de Economía 3º Piso, UNSA, Arequipa, Peru
b
c
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Environmental governance
Institutions
Community-based natural resource
management
Decentralization
Peru
Latin America
Participatory water governance has become highly influential around the world as a means for managing water
resources. Scholars and practitioners advocate for the inclusion of previously marginalized communities in water
resources management through the devolution of power, responsibility, and participation. Where community
institutions are weak or missing, experts recommend strengthening or re-building them to enable inclusive
decision-making over water resources. Our study looks at devolution in a government-initiated integrated water
resources management approach in the Caylloma Province, located in the department of Arequipa, Peru. We used
process tracing to analyze 97 qualitative interview transcripts with crop farmers and pastoralists managing water
for irrigation, interview transcripts with personnel in water management agencies, and field notes from
participant observation in water-related meetings. We found that farmers had limited ability to participate in
local institutions for water management due to market integration and labor migration, among other socio­
economic and political stressors. For this reason, transferring more water management responsibilities and
decision-making power to community-level institutions without considering the factors that limit their sus­
tainability over time is not necessarily feasible or even desirable by local communities. Instead, strengthening
and streamlining intermediary and government institutions at regional scales may be more effective at
addressing local needs in watershed management.
1. Introduction
Natural resources around the world are increasingly threatened by
climate, socioeconomic, and political stressors (Bergstrom and Randall,
2016). To conserve them, scholars and practitioners have been advo­
cating for participatory forms of environmental governance, which are
defined as the sharing of power between government, the private sector,
and civil society (Sabatier et al., 2005; Lemos and Agrawal, 2006; Reed
and Bruyneel, 2010; Holley et al., 2012). Participatory mechanisms aim
to achieve both equity and effectiveness in natural resource manage­
ment by including a wide range of stakeholders in the decision-making
process (Berkes, 2010; Turnhout et al., 2010; Holley et al., 2012; Speer,
2012). Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a highly
influential participatory approach that has been implemented around
the world (Engle et al., 2011). A key element in IWRM and other
participatory governance initiatives is the devolution of power and re­
sources to the local communities most affected by decisions (Berkes,
2010).
Devolution, however, comes with a challenge. The very communities
that must be included in IWRM often do not have the local institutions
necessary for participating in a meaningful way (Bardhan, 2002; Dahal,
2003; Ribot et al., 2010; Adhikari et al., 2016). In this paper, we define
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: rpopovi@purdue.edu (R. Popovici), erwin9@purdue.edu (A. Erwin), zhaoma@purdue.edu (Z. Ma), lprokopy@purdue.edu (L.S. Prokopy),
lzanotti@purdue.edu (L. Zanotti), ebocardo@unsa.edu.pe (E.F. Bocardo Delgado), jpinto2@unsa.edu.pe (J.P. Pinto Cáceres), ezeballosz@unsa.edu.pe (E. Zeballos
Zeballos), psalaso@unsa.edu.pe (E.P. Salas O’Brien), bowling@purdue.edu (L.C. Bowling), glenn@unsa.edu.pe (G.R. Arce Larrea).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105105
Received 1 April 2020; Received in revised form 26 August 2020; Accepted 17 September 2020
Available online 23 October 2020
0264-8377/© 2020 The Authors.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
access
article
under
the
CC
BY-NC-ND
license
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
Scholars have also documented that decision-makers in central gov­
ernment offices often have ulterior motives and use participatory ap­
proaches to extend government control over local communities (Hickey
and Mohan, 2004; Ribot et al., 2006; Nelson and Agrawal, 2008). At the
local level, participatory approaches can be captured by local elites
(Shackleton et al., 2002; Ribot et al., 2006; Berkes, 2010; Adhikari et al.,
2016) and reinforce existing inequalities (Sikor and Nguyen, 2007;
Vyamana, 2009). A related point that has been raised in the decentral­
ization literature is that successful devolution in natural resource man­
agement cannot happen without a “demand from below” (Larson and
Soto, 2008, p. 216). That is, local communities must have institutions
well-developed enough to take advantage of participation opportunities
in decision-making (Neef, 2009; Larson and Lewis-Mendoza, 2012;
Speer, 2012).
In response to these obstacles, scholars have suggested that decisionmakers charged with implementing participatory forms of governance
should focus on building local institutions that give communities more
direct control over their natural resources (Ostrom, 1990; Bawa et al.,
2004; Goldin et al., 2008; Tesfaye et al., 2018). Some ways to build local
capacity include: strengthening human and social capital (Bawa et al.,
2004), promoting social cohesion to overcome class differences within
the community (Adhikari et al., 2016), allowing community members to
design their own rules for managing their resources locally (Ostrom,
1990; Bawa et al., 2004), including community members in the design of
participatory approaches (Dahal, 2003; Butler and Adamowski, 2015),
and re-building traditional institutions and local knowledge that have
been weakened over time (Postigo, 2014). Such local institution build­
ing would help keep decision-makers at higher levels of governance
accountable while at the same time create demand from below through
well-developed local institutions (Berkes, 2010).
Other studies, however, question the feasibility of local institutionbuilding altogether. Scholars have documented how globalization and
increased mobility have put a strain on local institutions and have
caused them to decline over time. For example, market integration and
the transition from bartering to monetary economies had negative ef­
fects on local institutions for natural resource management (Agrawal
et al., 2002; Aggarwal, 2006; Diez and Oritz, 2013). Economic oppor­
tunities outside the community create “exit options” for individuals by
reducing their dependence on local resources and the institutions that
manage them (Aggarwal, 2006, p. 1414). Migration also weakens local
institutions. The departure of old resource users and the arrival of
newcomers can make it harder to know and respect local rules for nat­
ural resource management (Agrawal et al., 2002). Finally, the intro­
duction of government policies can undermine previously existing local
institutions (Aggarwal, 2006). In Peru, the decentralization policies
adopted by governments in the 1990s strengthened municipalities to the
detriment of local institutions in indigenous and peasant communities
that operated independently from government (Diez, 1999). When
municipal governments became the main service providers and orga­
nizers of economic activities in villages, it reduced community mem­
bers’ reliance on their traditional institutions (Chávez Carhuamaca,
2012). In the context of these irreversible stressors, building new local
institutions or reviving old ones is not likely to be sustainable over time
(Balooni et al., 2007).
Moreover, local communities are not passive victims of globalization
and government policies but are able to deal with problems in creative
ways by engaging in institutional bricolage (Cleaver, 2012). That is,
community members often adopt and modify some IWRM components
but reject others in a way that specifically suits their local needs and
realities. Therefore, focusing on the need to build new local institutions
that fit into IWRM or other participatory governance models is likely to
ignore alternative institutional arrangements that communities may
have already developed to cope with the decline of traditional local
institutions. Our study seeks to address this limitation by examining
local community responses to two factors happening simultaneously: (1)
the ongoing transformation of local institutions for water management
institutions as the formal and informal rules, norms, and practices that
govern individual and collective behavior (Ostrom, 1990). In many parts
of the world, local institutional capacity has been weakened by previous
top-down policies, local corruption, migration, market integration, and
other social, economic, and political stressors (Vedeld, 1992; Bardhan,
2002; Aggarwal, 2006; Balooni et al., 2007; Uker and Fanany, 2011). If a
community is not ready to receive increased responsibility, devolution
could result in co-optation by local elites, reinforcement of existing in­
equalities, and undermining of local institutions, among other possible
negative consequences (Ribot, 2002; Edmunds and Wollenberg, 2003;
Larson and Lewis-Mendoza, 2012; Kamoto et al., 2013). For this reason,
scholars advocate that IWRM and other environmental governance ini­
tiatives must build local capacity by strengthening local institutions to
enable community members to participate as key decision makers
(Berkes, 2010; Huntjens et al., 2012; Postigo, 2014).
Our study asks: What are the challenges associated with institutionbuilding for participatory governance? When local institutions are weak
or missing, how do community members respond to participatory ap­
proaches? We investigate these questions in the context of a
government-initiated IWRM approach within the Caylloma Province,
located in the Department of Arequipa, Peru. Using a process tracing
method, we analyzed 97 interview transcripts with farmers and agency
personnel managing irrigation water in four local districts, as well as
field notes from participant observation in water-related meetings. The
four districts vary in terms of income sources, water availability, and
local institutions for water management. This allowed us to compare the
challenges with institution-building in different communities that
participate in the same IWRM approach. In doing so, we aim to better
understand the differential effects of IWRM as well as the different
possibilities for institution-building.
Below we first introduce the devolution challenge in the environ­
mental governance literature, followed by our study background and
site selection. We then present the research methods, results, and dis­
cussion. We conclude with implications for participatory governance
policy.
2. The devolution challenge in natural resource management
Over the past decades, environmental governance has taken a turn
toward participatory democracy, which emphasizes collaboration,
devolution of power, and participation among multiple stakeholders
(Bäckstrand, 2006; Newig and Fritsch, 2009; Holley et al., 2012; Rask
et al., 2013). One important participatory governance strategy is IWRM,
defined as the coordinated development of water management to
maximize socioeconomic benefits without compromising environmental
sustainability (GWP, 2019). Many IWRM approaches involve multi-level
governance that integrate community members and external actors such
as NGOs, government, and businesses (Berkes, 2010). However, they
emphasize the need to devolve responsibilities and decision-making
power to community members whose livelihoods depend on resource
use (Bates et al., 1993; Johnson et al., 2002; Young et al., 2002; German
et al., 2007). For example, proponents advocate not only collaboration
among different stakeholders but also that management should happen
“at the lowest appropriate level possible” (Neef, 2009, p. 55). For this
reason, many IWRM approaches seek to delegate responsibilities and
decision-making power to local communities in watershed management
(Bates et al., 1993; Johnson et al., 2002; Young et al., 2002; German
et al., 2007).
Devolving authority to local communities and ensuring their
participation in important decisions is not easily achieved in practice. A
central criticism is that many approaches claiming to devolve power and
to foster local participation only do so on paper and not on the ground
(Ribot, 2002; Batterbury and Fernando, 2006; Ribot et al., 2006; Larson
and Soto, 2008; Ribot et al., 2010). Sometimes local actors are given
resource management authority but not the economic resources that
would enable them to act on their new rights (Ribot et al., 2006).
2
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
under Peru’s IWRM approach. Irrigation commissions are traditional
community-level institutions with water management practices dating
back to pre-Inca times (Guillet, 1992). They have been officially
recognized by the Peruvian government as a formal community orga­
nization in 1969 (Veeravalli et al., 2018). Irrigation commissions regu­
late the irrigation practices of crop farmers and, in some cases,
pastoralists (Guillet, 1992). They represent all irrigators within a
determined geographic area, referred to as water users (usuarios de
agua), whose number can range from a few households to several hun­
dred users. The main functions of irrigation commissions include con­
trolling water quantity, setting irrigation schedules, maintaining
irrigation infrastructure, and resolving disputes (Guillet, 1992; Gelles,
2000). Irrigation commissions through the vote of their members can
approve water regulation proposals from ANA that affect agricultural
communities (MINAGRI. M. de A. y R., 2015). Members can also propose
new regulations or suggest changes to existing ANA regulations. More­
over, they can request meetings with representatives from the nearest
ANA office that usually travel to local communities to present or explain
new regulations and answer questions.
Another component of Peru’s IWRM approach is the strengthening of
Water Users’ Associations (WUAs, Juntas de Usuarios de Agua), inter­
mediary organizations that represent all irrigation commissions and
individual water users in determined irrigation districts (Hodgson,
2003). WUAs operate with funding collected from annual fees paid by
each water user (i.e., crop farmers and, in some cases, pastoralists) and
this funding is independent from the government. Nevertheless, WUAs
are regulated by ANA through the 2009 Water Resources Law. In
particular, ANA seeks to help WUAs enforce the collection of water fees,
and any user that fails to pay can be reported and sanctioned by ANA.
ANA also mandates that UWAs use water fees to hire nine full-time staff
that assist local water users. The staff are asked to collect irrigation
management plans from each local irrigation commission, where water
users specify their current water use, infrastructure needs, and future
plans. Users pay a water fee that is proportionate to their identified
infrastructure needs and proposed agricultural activities, which are then
addressed by their WUA. For example, WUAs will channel funds to
irrigation commissions for building or repairing irrigation infrastructure
or other projects that were written in each commission’s irrigation
within pastoralist and agricultural communities within Peru’s Caylloma
Province, and (2) Peru’s government-initiated IWRM approach that
emphasizes community participation through local institutions for irri­
gation management. We explore the devolution dilemma by examining
how these two processes unfold in the Caylloma Province and by looking
at how community members navigate the various tensions.
3. Study background and site selection
3.1. Integrated water resources management in Peru
The Peruvian government formally adopted an IWRM approach with
the implementation of the 2009 Water Resources Law (Ley de Recursos
Hídricos). This law incorporates the principles of the 1992 Dublin
Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, which emphasize
participatory and multi-stakeholder water management and planning
(Pérez, 2016). A key feature of this IWRM approach is the creation of the
National Water Authority (ANA, Autoridad Nacional del Agua), whose
board of directors includes representatives from diverse government
agencies as well as local actors such as agrarian water users (ANA,
2019). The inclusion of these multiple stakeholders under one platform
differentiates the new 2009 Water Resources Law from Peru’s former
General Water Law (enacted from 1969 to 2009), where water man­
agement fell largely under the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture,
with little unified effort to integrate a wide range of stakeholders (Filippi
et al., 2014). ANA also has regional branches, namely the Administrative
Water Authority (AAA, Autoridad Administrativa del Agua) that operates
on a department level and the Local Water Authority (ALA, Autoridad
Local del Agua) that operates at a provincial level (see Fig. 1). All three
organizations – ANA, AAA, ALA – function as one entity, with AAA and
ALA acting as extensions of ANA, and many of our interviewees referred
to them all as simply “ANA.” For this reason, and in order to simplify the
terminology, we use ANA to refer to any one of these government
organizations.
At the community level, irrigation commissions (referred to by
community members as comisiones de regantes and by agency officials as
comisiones de usuarios de agua) are the main institutions through which
devolution of decision-making to crop farmers and pastoralists happens
Fig. 1. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) structure in the Caylloma Province. Source: Adapted from Filippi et al. (2014) and Pérez (2016).
3
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
management plan. The non-governmental WUAs and irrigation com­
missions are represented in Fig. 1.
lifestyle is not as economically profitable as agriculture. The majority of
pastoralists in the Caylloma District are not organized in irrigation
commissions because irrigation needs for pastures are minimal
compared to agriculture. Pastoralists that have access to streams are able
to create rustic canals that run through their pastures to irrigate them
and also to provide drinking water for animals. Pastoralists without
stream access must rely on their neighbors for water.
3.2. Study site selection in the Caylloma Province
We conducted research in four districts in the Caylloma Province,
which is located in the Department of Arequipa, Peru (see Fig. 2). The
districts of Caylloma, Lari, Yanque, and Majes were selected based on
their main source of income, water availability, and local water man­
agement institutions, which vary within the province. More information
on the four districts is included in Table 1.
3.2.2. Lari and Yanque Districts
The districts of Lari (3,358 m above sea level) and Yanque (3,420 m
above sea level) are located in the Colca Valley, an area characterized by
small-scale agricultural terraces. Agriculture is a main source of income
for most of its inhabitants, who grow crops for subsistence and
commercially for markets in the nearby cities of Chivay and Arequipa.
Crop farmers generally grow corn, alfalfa, barley, fava beans, quinoa,
garlic, and other crops that vary based on market demand. Plots of land
are small (they average one hectare) and scattered in different areas of
the same district (Guillet, 1992). Altitude and weather conditions in the
Colca Valley allow farmers to harvest most crops only once per year. Lari
and Yanque are culturally similar but they each receive different
amounts of water. Lari is located on the north side of the Colca Canyon, a
3,270 m-deep river canyon that splits the Colca Valley in half, and
farmers’ only sources of water are small streams and natural springs fed
3.2.1. Caylloma District
At an altitude of 4,332 m above sea level, the Caylloma District is the
highest and most remote village in the Caylloma Province. Crops do not
grow at such high altitude and most of its inhabitants raise alpacas,
llamas, and other livestock. Villagers earn their livelihood by selling
alpaca meat and wool in local markets, and by occasional labor in
nearby mines. Compared to the agricultural regions of the Caylloma
Province, the Caylloma District is characterized by higher poverty
levels, as well as by social and political marginalization (Valdivia Cor­
rales et al., 2013). Although inhabitants graze their livestock on large
land extensions averaging 100 hectares per household, their pastoralist
Fig. 2. Map of the study districts in the Caylloma Province. Source: Daneshvar et al. (2018).
Note: 1. The WUA and ALA in the Majes District are very close to each other. For visual purposes, the points that represent them on this map have been separated to
make it possible for the reader to see both organizations. If the points were represented according to scale, they would appear superposed. 2. Water is withdrawn from
the Northern region and dumped into a river downstream (hence the disappearance of the Majes Channel in Fig. 1). Later, the water is withdrawn again further
downstream (Majes Channel reappears).
4
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
Table 1
Characteristics of the Caylloma, Lari, Yanque, and Majes District.
Study
Districts
Elevation
(m)
Population
Water source
Amount of water available for
irrigation per day
Average # hectares
per household
Main sources of
income
# of irrigation
commissions
Caylloma
District
4,310
3,697
Glacier melt;
Natural springs
100
Pastoralism
No formal irrigation
commissions
Lari District
3,330
904
Glacier melt;
Natural springs
Not known because water in rustic
canals is not regulated and highly
variable
90 L/sec
1
1
Yanque
District
3,417
2,117
Glacier melt;
Natural springs;
Majes Channel
110 L/sec
1
Majes
District
1,410
60,108
Majes Channel
30,000 L/sec
5
Agriculture;
Some
pastoralism
Agriculture;
Some
pastoralism;
Tourism
Agriculture
2
26
Source of data: The elevation and population information was obtained from the Censo Nacional Agropecuario (Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática, 2019)
and information for the remaining categories was provided by our interviewees.
by snow and glacier melt. Yanque is located on the South side of the
canyon and receives water from the Majes Channel in addition to water
from streams and springs. The Majes Channel is a pipe that diverts water
from the Tuti District in the higher reach of the Colca Canyon to the
coastal Majes District to irrigate a government-sponsored agriculture
project (more on this in the Majes District section below). Part of Yan­
que’s territory is located on the North side of the Colca Canyon, but
water from the Majes Channel is extended to them through a pipe.
Therefore, they enjoy similar water availability to all other communities
on the South side of the Colca Canyon, which receive water from the
Majes Channel. Crop farmers in Lari and Yanque are organized into
irrigation commissions, which are represented by one WUA located in
the city of Chivay. Lari has one irrigation commission due to its smaller
population (904 versus 2,117 inhabitants), while Yanque has two irri­
gation commissions. In addition to agricultural activity, the Yanque
district has emerged as a boutique tourism destination. The Yanque
municipality and the district’s residents derive economic benefits from
national and international travelers that stay in local hotels and eat in
local restaurants. Conversely, the main economic activity in Lari re­
mains agriculture.
members that did not occupy leadership positions. We also conducted
interviews with ANA officials that were at a central office in the city of
Arequipa. In total, we completed 97 interviews with a total of 75 hours
of recording. Information on the number of interviews and interviewee
characteristics can be found in Table 2. Interview transcripts were
analyzed in their original Spanish language and quotes in this article
were translated to English by the authors. Five interviews were con­
ducted in the Quechua language with the assistance of an interpreter,
who then translated the transcripts into Spanish. Qualitative methods
are appropriate for our study because the purpose is to obtain nuanced
information about community members’ experience with the
government-led IWRM approach in their districts. Qualitative methods
are useful for identifying potential problems, gaining insights into
people’s experiences, and understanding people’s own thinking and
rationale (Hammarberg et al., 2016). These elements often require an
analysis of the context in which they occur that cannot be easily
captured by asking isolated questions (Hammarberg et al., 2016).
We employed a purposive sampling strategy to recruit interviewees
(Ritchie et al., 2014). First, we identified an initial set of key organiza­
tions and individuals that were involved in watershed management in
the four districts, the Caylloma Province, and the department of Are­
quipa. These individuals were publicly identifiable on government
websites and in newspapers. After our initial contact with them, we used
snowball sampling for identifying additional people and organizations
based on new information gathered from the initial set of interviewees.
We stopped seeking out new interviewees when we had reached data
saturation (Fusch and Ness, 2015). In each of the local districts, we
asked community members about their experience with the 2009 Water
Resources Law, ANA, and IWRM. At the agency level, we asked about
the goals of this new law, changes in government-level water manage­
ment institutions since the new law was implemented, and their expe­
rience with the IWRM approach. For questions about changes in
institutions or socioeconomic conditions, we gave our interviewees a
ten-year reference period and asked how their current situation
compared to ten years ago.
In addition to conducting semi-structured interviews, we collected
relevant legal and policy documents describing past and present water
management institutions in Peru. These included legal descriptions of
3.2.3. Majes District
Majes (1,410 m above sea level) is located in the coastal region of the
Caylloma Province. It was an unpopulated desert until the 1970s, when
the creation of the Majes Channel enabled agricultural activity on the
coast (Stensrud, 2016). The goal of this government-sponsored water
diversion project was to encourage larger-scale commercial agriculture.
The Majes District was officially founded in 1999 and is home to a small
city, El Pedregal, founded by migrants from all parts of Peru (Munici­
palidad Distrital de Majes, 2020). Plots in the Majes District are blocks of
five hectares, which is very different from the scattered plots amounting
to around one hectare in the Colca Valley. Not only do crop farmers in
Majes have more land, but warmer weather enables them to harvest
crops year-round. Crops in the Majes District are sold in both national
and international markets and include corn, chili peppers, alfalfa,
quinoa, fava beans, and fruits such as avocado, pomegranate, and
strawberries. At the time of the study, crop farmers in Majes were
organized in 26 irrigation commissions, which were represented by their
own WUA located in El Pedregal, the district’s capital.
Table 2
Number of interviews and interviewee characteristics in each study site.
4. Data collection and analysis
We conducted our study in three stages: between October –
December of 2018, in March of 2019, and in July of 2019. Our study was
approved by the Institutional Review Board. In each of the four districts
in the Caylloma Province of Arequipa, Peru, we collected qualitative
data using semi-structured interviews with organizational representa­
tives, community leaders, community elders, and other community
5
Study
district
Number of
interviews
Number of
interviews with
local leaders
Number of
interviews
with women
Number of
interviews
with men
Caylloma
Lari
Yanque
Majes
20
20
27
30
5
7
6
10
6
8
5
8
14
12
22
22
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
the 2009 Water Resources Law and its reforms, policy documents such as
the irrigation management plan form that is required from irrigation
commissions, and official websites describing the roles of water man­
agement agencies in Peru. Finally, we engaged in participant observa­
tion at several water-related events. We observed irrigation practices in
each of the four districts and attended meetings held by irrigation
commissions, WUAs, ANA, and municipalities.
Our data analysis was focused on assessing the effects of Peru’s 2009
IWRM approach in local communities, its interaction with the preexisting local institutions for watershed management, and community
responses to the IWRM approach. We used a process tracing method
(George and Bennett, 2005) to identify the chain of events that led to
particular outcomes and particular ways in which communities partic­
ipated or did not participate in IWRM. This method also helped us
identify the main characteristics of formal and informal institutions for
water management and whether they have changed over time. Specif­
ically, we coded and analyzed all the interview transcripts, policy doc­
uments, and field notes using NVivo, a software for qualitative data
analysis. Our codebook primarily contained two types of codes. First, we
used descriptive codes that outlined the main characteristics of the
water management institutions at the government and community
levels, as well as the socioeconomic characteristics in each of the four
study sites. Second, we used process codes (Saldaña, 2009) to organize
information according to the particular actions that were taken or not
taken, the chain of events that led to particular outcomes, and to denote
any changes in institutions for water management and socioeconomic
conditions. To obtain intercoder agreement, the first and second author
convened to code interview transcripts according to the same codebook,
note any coding discrepancies, and clarify the terms and strategy until
congruence was obtained (Campbell et al., 2013).
goodwill. Interviewees attributed this decline in neighborly cooperation
to the fact that many of the original landowners have migrated to Are­
quipa or other cities and the current occupants were temporary renters
of land. One landowner said the following: “If I had neighbors, I could rely
on them for help […] But I don’t have anyone. Here [points to neighboring
land] lives only a renter, that’s all.” Statements such as these suggest that
renters and landowners do not share strong social bonds and that renters
are seen as temporary dwellers that are not fully part of the community.
In the Yanque, Lari, and Majes Districts, interviewees reported a
decline in the frequency of and participation in faenas, which are
mandatory, non-remunerated groupwork days organized by local irri­
gation commission. During faenas, community members get together to
repair or build canals and other irrigation infrastructure. Irrigation
commission leaders reported that, compared to ten years ago, water
users are less willing to contribute their labor for infrastructure repair.
Interviewees associated the decline in water users’ willingness to
participate in faenas with the transition to a monetary economy. They
said that people now expect a payment in exchange for their labor and
this has negatively affected the irrigation commissions’ ability to com­
plete tasks. An irrigation commission president explained that:
This is why we are the way we are [less functional], because there is no
interest in groupwork. […] When there was groupwork people maintained
their [agricultural] terraces and their roads. The canals were in much better
condition – the water was clean and reached its destination smoothly. [Now]
people no longer want to do [group] work, nothing is free anymore.
An additional reason for declining local institutions for water man­
agement was the pressure for community members to travel out of their
districts for employment opportunities. Interviewees reported that
people who traveled outside of their district in search of employment
were less likely to attend meetings and groupwork activities. An irri­
gation commission leader said: “Not everyone participates in faenas and
meetings [organized by the irrigation commission], it is that there are also
people who keep their farmlands and do not live here. They rent out the land
and they live in Arequipa, out of necessity.” It is common practice for
community members to own a house both in their home district and in
the city of Arequipa and to commute between the two places for
employment opportunities. As one interviewee put it:
I come and go, come and go. […] 15 days I stay here, one week I’m over
there, that’s how I live. […] My husband works in construction and he works
over here but also has a job over there [in Arequipa]. I go work in other places
because the council [she worked in her district’s council] pays a pittance, 30
soles per day.
Interviewees in Lari, Yanque, and Majes told us that market inte­
gration and out-migration also affected the functionality of their irri­
gation commissions. Interviewees mentioned that fewer water users
attended meetings organized by irrigation commissions compared to ten
years ago. A local leader said the following:
Before, people were more dependent on agriculture, so they gave them­
selves time and responsibility to attend meetings. […] But not anymore, now
there are a few that go [to meetings] and their number has diminished
significantly. Just yesterday there was an assembly with the [irrigation]
commission. Before, about 150-160 [people] attended, now only about 6070 people attend.
In Majes, some irrigation commissions have stopped having meetings
altogether due to low attendance. Other irrigation commissions imposed
a fine for non-attendance; however, some leaders no longer enforced it.
A local leader said that: “There are fines but regrettably [the irrigation
commission presidents] do not collect them or [irrigation commission mem­
bers] refuse to pay. […] There is not the same sense of responsibility as
before.”
These examples demonstrate that existing water management rules
and practices that rely on community-level groupwork and cooperation
are under strain from market pressures and labor migration. In a glob­
alized economy where community members work multiple jobs and
commute between different places, individuals have limited time, in­
terest, and ability to participate in meetings and group work, which
5. Results and discussion
This section is divided into four parts. Section 5.1 documents and
discusses existing institutions for water management at the district level,
explaining how they have changed in the past decade or more due to
external stressors. In Section 5.2, we show how declining local in­
stitutions make it difficult for community members to participate in
Peru’s IWRM approach. We then document and discuss how some
communities overcame local institutional constraints by outsourcing
some responsibilities upward to ANA and the WUA (Section 5.3) and
outward to consultants (Section 5.4).
5.1. Local institutions for water management are declining
In all four districts, interviewees reported a decline in their local
institutions for water management. They also discussed how their ca­
pacity to participate in and sustain local water management institutions
has been affected by various cascading changes in their livelihood, many
of which were brought about by market integration and out-migration
for labor. In the Caylloma District, pastoralists graze their alpacas and
llamas on vast land extensions that average 100 hectares per household.
On pastoral land, bofedales (peat bog areas) that are vital water sources
for animals are not evenly distributed. At the time of the study, most
pastoralists in the Caylloma District were not organized into irrigation
commissions that regulated access to bofedales. Instead, access to them
was regulated by informal reciprocity and goodwill practices. A number
of interviewees told us that they had seen a decline in neighborly
cooperation in accessing bofedales. They said that, over ten years ago,
pastoralists whose land had bofedales allowed their neighbors to cross
onto their land to use their water source. Now, pastoralists are more
reluctant to share, as explained to us by an interviewee: “People have
become very selfish. Many do not let us cross onto their land for water, so we
have to walk larger distances to find water.” Some interviewees further
explained that now they paid their neighbors a yearly fee in exchange for
accessing their water sources, while previously this was done through
6
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
were an integral part of community life over a decade earlier. These
findings are supported by previous studies, which have documented that
local institutions for natural resource management that were once
strong are declining due to multiple stressors (Agrawal et al., 2002;
Aggarwal, 2006; Balooni et al., 2007; Diez Hurtado, 2012). In line with
Aggarwal (2006), we found that pressure to seek employment outside
the community makes individuals less dependent on local water man­
agement institutions, which in turn weakens them. This is largely
because community members have diverse sources of income and many
are no longer able to earn a living through agriculture or pastoralism
alone. As Diez Hurtado (2012) put it, community members are
increasingly becoming integrated in multiple markets as suppliers,
workers, and consumers. According to him, market integration and
migration might contribute to weakening community self-governance
(Diez Hurtado, 2012). Indeed, we noted a transformation in the local
institutions for water management, as community members became less
reliant on the traditional community-based institutions that controlled
labor and water access (Agrawal et al., 2002). As farmers and pasto­
ralists increasingly relied on market-based mechanisms to sustain their
livelihoods, the traditional community-based institutions were no longer
sufficient for fulfilling their increasingly diversified needs.
regulations. During interviews, ANA representatives told us that,
ideally, all members of the irrigation commission would gather to
discuss ANA’s proposed regulations and then vote whether they accept
or reject them, in a participatory democracy style. However, as
mentioned in Section 5.1, irrigation commission members did not al­
ways have time to attend meetings. As a result, they were not always
aware of the decisions made by local water management institutions on
their behalf. When we asked irrigation commission members that did
not hold leadership positions whether they remembered voting or dis­
cussing new regulations proposed by ANA, most interviewees replied
that they had not. When asked what issues were commonly discussed
during irrigation commission meetings, several interviewees made
comments such as “I don’t know, I have stopped attending” or “I don’t have
time to go.”
As we can see, IWRM expectations are not aligned with the shifting
needs of community members. The IWRM approach does not recognize
the declining local institutional capacities and is not accommodating
toward farmers and pastoralists that have limited ability to participate in
watershed management. The decline of pastoralist and other agricul­
tural institutions is not specific to Peru but has been documented on a
global scale (Aggarwal, 2006; Dong et al., 2011; Mowo et al., 2013).
Furthermore, the mismatch between IWRM and changing local in­
stitutions has been documented by several scholars, many of whom
attribute this disconnect to unequal input from all stakeholders in
problem definition, design, and implementation (German et al., 2007;
Merrey and Cook, 2012; Butler and Adamowski, 2015; Wang et al.,
2016; Mancilla García and Bodin, 2019). For example, Butler and Ada­
mowski (2015) argue that many IWRM approaches encourage the
participation of local communities after these initiatives have already
been conceptualized and designed by outside experts. This can result in
mis-defining some of the key issues and stakeholders. The Peruvian
IWRM approach was heavily influenced by IWRM design principles
promoted by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank
(Paerregaard et al., 2016; Mancilla García and Bodin, 2019). General
IWRM principles, however, are not necessarily a good fit for all local
communities because they do not account for the different ways in­
stitutions develop and evolve locally (Merrey and Cook, 2012). Our
results suggest that approaches promoting devolution of responsibility
to local communities might overlook situations where community
members are not able to participate or might prefer the central gov­
ernment to deliver services to them (Bardhan, 2002). This last point is
illustrated in the remainder of this section, where we shift our attention
to how community members in the Caylloma Province are responding to
the Peruvian government’s IWRM approach.
5.2. Local institutional decline makes it difficult for community members
to participate in integrated water resources management
In the context of declining local institutions, the Peruvian govern­
ment implemented its IWRM approach in 2009. We found that the
institutional stressors mentioned above complicated local participation
in IWRM because community members did not always have the time and
ability to attend the necessary meetings, become informed of ANA’s
proposed regulations, and deliberate over them. In the Caylloma Dis­
trict, the community leaders we interviewed told us that ANA repre­
sentatives were encouraging them to form local irrigation commissions
in order to foster participation in water-related decision-making. How­
ever, these interviewees told us they had experienced difficulties when
trying to organize into irrigation commissions. For example, a municipal
official from the Caylloma District told us that ANA representatives held
meetings with community members where they provided information
and training for forming irrigation commissions, but that few had
attended the meetings: “We organized capacity-building workshops with
ANA, they came [to the Caylloma District] twice. You know how many
people attended? We promoted the event in all the neighborhoods, every­
where. 15 to 20 people came to the meeting.” To put in context, the Cayl­
loma District has about 3,697 inhabitants.
Travelling to the municipality was challenging for many pastoralists
that live in relative isolation and that do not own vehicles. For this
reason, local leaders told us they also attempted to discuss the formation
of irrigation commissions in the more remote areas populated by small
groups of pastoralist households. Nevertheless, these meetings had not
been successful at raising awareness about Peru’s IWRM and promoting
the formation of local irrigation commissions. The pastoralists we
interviewed told us they were too busy commuting between their mul­
tiple jobs to attend community meetings, even if they were held in close
proximity to their residence. Moreover, many pastoralist interviewees
did not know who were the elected community leaders charged with
representing them. For example, when we asked an interviewee about
who were the local community representatives, he replied:
The truth is that I don’t know. I never go to meetings, they elect the leaders
every two years. [I don’t go] because, one, I don’t work here and, two, I don’t
have time. I live in Arequipa and on my days off I come here because I have
my animals and I come see them and relax.
In places where irrigation commissions were fully formed, ANA
sought to encourage community participation in watershed manage­
ment through existing irrigation commissions. In Lari, Yanque, and
Majes, crop farmers had established irrigation commissions and were
partaking in decision-making by accepting or rejecting ANA’s proposed
5.3. Some community members delegate responsibilities “upward” to
ANA and the WUA
Peru’s 2009 IWRM approach attempted to devolve responsibilities
locally by directly including local irrigation commissions in decisions
over watershed management. However, interviewees who were local
leaders indicated that they were reluctant to take on new re­
sponsibilities. They saw ANA and the WUAs as entities that should
intervene to perform some of the functions that local irrigation com­
missions and other local water management institutions failed to
perform. In the Caylloma District, local leaders said they were in favor of
forming irrigation commissions because ANA could help achieve equity
among pastoralists with unequal access to water sources. For example,
an interviewee said: “Landowners that consume the majority of the water
would pay one amount, and those who do not have much water would pay a
lesser amount.” Additionally, they said that forming irrigation commis­
sions would enable pastoralists to receive funding and assistance from
ANA and the WUA for water infrastructure such as the construction of
reservoirs.
In Lari, Yanque, and Majes, we found that irrigation commission
leaders had accepted ANA proposals for increased regulation of local
7
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
activities. What used to be irrigation commission responsibilities were
now being delegated to ANA and the WUA. These included regulations
on water quantity, sanctioning procedures, and fundraising for infra­
structure repair. For example, local irrigation commissions could call a
representative from the WUA located in Chivay or the provincial-level
ANA branch to solve water theft problems or other water conflicts that
cannot be addressed through locally-driven mediation processes. In
addition, local irrigation commissions accepted to pay higher water fees
in exchange for WUA assistance with building and repairing irrigation
infrastructure. The delegation of responsibility from community to this
intermediary organization helped relieve some of the pressures faced by
irrigation commission leaders, who were not paid for having leadership
positions. One leader expressed: “This job for us is not an honor. It is a
burden.” In Lari and Yanque, interviewees said that, in the past, being
elected as irrigation commission leaders was very honorable, and that it
is not customary for leaders to be remunerated. However, they said it is
increasingly challenging for leaders to perform their traditional volun­
tary community duties because their busy lifestyles leave them with very
little free time.
Community members that were not irrigation commission leaders
also saw benefits in delegating responsibilities to ANA, even though they
did not have much input in this decision. Some interviewees mentioned
that government regulation of their local irrigation commissions has led
to less waste in irrigation water. One crop farmer expressed that: “[The
rules] are stricter now. […] Now we try not to waste water. Before, people
watered their fields too long, and the water was wasted. Now this almost
doesn’t happen anymore. We try to save water.” Others mentioned that it
has led to greater equality among water users. In the Colca Valley, before
community members started to pay for water, the more powerful fam­
ilies were given more water. Delegating water regulation and enforce­
ment to government was perceived as a way to get around this
unequitable practice. A crop farmer in the Colca Valley expressed that:
“Before, people would take advantage of those with low income and no ed­
ucation. Now it’s better for everyone. We have equality.” In Majes, in­
terviewees expressed the desire for more ANA presence to guarantee
equitable distribution of water and to help with conflict resolution. In
Majes, water users could cheat by filing down their metal water regu­
lator to enlarge the opening. Their WUA assisted in installing special
water regulators that made it more difficult for individuals to do this.
While interviewees in Lari, Yanque, and Majes seemed to appreciate
the services provided by ANA and by their WUA, the services enjoyed by
the different districts were unequal. Because the Caylloma District did
not have fully formed irrigation commissions, pastoralists were not
eligible to receive water management support from ANA and the WUA.
Due to high levels of poverty and marginalization (Valdivia Corrales
et al., 2013), in addition to institutional stressors, pastoralists likely have
the least capacity for local water management.
Lari and Yanque benefitted from ANA and UWA support, but to a
limited extent given their remote location and the budget and staff
constraints on the WUA in the Colca Valley. At the time of this study,
ANA only had a local branch in the Majes District but not in the Colca
Valley. This meant that, to make an in-person request or inquiry, resi­
dents from Lari and Yanque would need to travel for a whole day to
Majes. Furthermore, the WUA in the Colca Valley only had three tech­
nical staff members, which was below the legal requirement that WUAs
must have nine technicians on staff. During interviews, crop farmers in
Lari and Yanque told us that some tasks that were supposed to be un­
dertaken by WUAs were still left to local irrigation commissions. Illus­
trating a common concern, one farmer told us:
We maintain all the canals ourselves […] but the Water Users’ Associa­
tion should be the one doing it. Because in the law it says maintenance of
canals, reservoirs, etcetera, are the Water Users’ Association’s responsibility.
But we do not receive this [benefit]. We have complained but they don’t
[assist us] because they don’t have enough personnel and budget.
While not perfect, the assistance received in the Majes District far
exceeded the assistance received in Lari and Yanque. Because Majes is a
more prosperous and populated area, both the WUA and the local ANA
branch (referred to as “ALA” in Fig. 1) were located in El Pedregal, the
district’s capital. Therefore, both crop farmers and organization staff
traveled shorter distances when seeking or providing assistance. In
addition, at the time of the study the WUA in Majes had a total of 24
technical staff, some of whom performed specialized procedures such as
soil testing, crop classification using drones, and research on more
efficient irrigation infrastructure.
Our results indicate that, in the context of declining local in­
stitutions, interviewees in the four districts shared a similar preference,
which was to have water management organizations outside the com­
munity step in and provide equitable and reliable water for irrigation.
Local irrigation commission leaders were seeking to delegate some of
their water management responsibilities upward to ANA and to inter­
mediary WUAs. These results support the point made by Larson and Soto
(2008) that devolving responsibilities may not be beneficial to local
communities unless there is “demand from below” for increased re­
sponsibility and participation (Larson and Soto, 2008). Such changes in
the composition of communities and their local needs are not specific to
our study area but have been observed on a global scale. In Latin
America, scholars have used the term “new rurality” to refer to the
processes of urbanization, migration, and integration into the capitalist
economy that affect rural communities (Kay, 2008; Hecht, 2010; Ram­
írez-Miranda, 2014). In sub-Saharan Africa, Chimhowu (2019) docu­
mented how “spontaneous adaptations to changing local and global
opportunities,” in combination with neo-liberal policies, created “an
almost irreversible” shift from customary land tenure to private land
tenure articulated to capitalist markets (p. 897). In case studies from
Central America, Asia, and Oceania, Ojha et al. (2016) argued that
communities are becoming “delocalized” due to migration, technolog­
ical changes, market integration, and changes in climate, among other
factors (p. 275).
5.4. Some community members delegate participation “outward” to
experts
Delegating some of their responsibilities to ANA and WUAs does not
mean that community members completely gave up their decisionmaking power over water management. Even though they engaged in
less in-person participation, community members in Lari, Yanque, and
Majes continually monitored ANA to ensure that government activities
and proposals for new regulations worked in their favor. For example, in
Majes and Yanque, community members did not advocate for them­
selves through face-to-face meetings between ANA officials and irriga­
tion commission members, as was originally envisioned by ANA policy
makers. Instead, community members hired lawyers and water pro­
fessionals who advocated on their behalf in the legal arena to help them
achieve a particular outcome. In Majes, for example, the 26 irrigation
commissions disagreed with a proposed ANA regulation that sought to
implement a “universal voting” procedure. This procedure would allow
all water users within any irrigation commission to directly elect WUA
representatives instead of the current procedure of having irrigation
commissions pre-select representatives. The majority of irrigation
commissions in the Caylloma Province voted in favor of this new pro­
cedure, so ANA passed the regulation. However, the irrigation com­
missions in Majes did not support this new regulation and went as far as
taking ANA to court over their disagreement. Irrigation commissions in
Majes received significant support from their WUA, who used funds
from water fees to hire a lawyer to represent them in court. At the time of
this study, the case had yet to be settled.
In the Colca Valley, hiring an expert was only an option for irrigation
commissions in wealthier districts because the Colca Valley WUA did not
have sufficient funds to hire professionals on behalf of community
members. One irrigation commission in the wealthier Yanque District
hired a hydrologist to evaluate their water supply and to file the
paperwork necessary for expanding agricultural land. This expert also
8
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
conducted the studies necessary for building a small-scale dam that
would increase their water allowance. In Lari, irrigation commission
leaders did not have sufficient funds to hire an expert that would
advocate on their behalf, and leaders relied on in-person meetings to
pressure ANA officials. Leaders traveled to ANA branches in Majes as
well as the Lima headquarters and asked ANA officials to expedite a
regulation to make it illegal for mining corporations to conduct activities
near natural springs. Not only did leaders miss multiple days of work,
but they expressed a strong sense of frustration because they came back
from Lima with even more questions and uncertainties. Had they been
able to afford a lawyer, they would have been able to outsource this
challenge to an expert, who they believed would have been able to get
clearer answers from ANA and might have helped clarify what to expect
with respect to this regulation concerning mining companies. However,
because Lari faces many challenges to maintain their agricultural pro­
ductivity and population level due to limited water resources, commu­
nity members were not always able to pay water fees to their irrigation
commission. As one crop farmer put it, “We have to pay the same water fee
amount even if we have a bad harvest. Sometimes we cannot pay.” As a
result, the irrigation commission has fewer financial resources to acquire
external expertise.
The community that was not able to advocate for itself at all was the
Caylloma District. Even though they were much closer to mining ac­
tivities than Lari residents, pastoralists did not have irrigation com­
missions nor sufficient collective action ability to advocate for their
water rights. Many interviewees in the Caylloma District reported that
their pastures have been heavily contaminated from mining activity. At
the time of this study, they had not been able to self-organize or to hire
an external consultant to pressure the government to protect their water
from mining-related contaminations. One local leader told us:
Almost no one here monitors mining contamination. Sometimes the mu­
nicipality does some studies. This is not enough because the municipality does
not have sufficient funds, we cannot hire professionals that could tell us
whether the water is truly contaminated and to what extent.
These results show that, instead of advocating for themselves
through in-person participation, community members preferred to
delegate this responsibility outward to experts that advocated on their
behalf when possible. In some districts, we see a transformation of local
institutions, where community members are becoming less reliant on
their traditional community-based institutions such as meetings, col­
lective voting, and other forms of face-to-face interactions. Rather, they
are adopting market-based mechanisms to hire specialists that delib­
erate with ANA officials on their behalf. Nevertheless, only the wealthier
districts were able to execute this institutional transformation. Specif­
ically, irrigation commission leaders in Yanque and Majes relied on
specialized solutions in the form of legal and technical expertise to
secure water rights for their community. This is different from the more
conventional understanding of participation that involves face-to-face
deliberation and applying pressure from below in the form of
community-level collective action (Fischer, 2006; German et al., 2007).
In fact, the Lari District in our study had fewer economic resources and
used face-to-face discussion to pressure leaders, but this strategy did not
yield expedient or reliable results. This finding is in line with the point
made by Chávez Carhuamaca (2012), who argued that the emergence of
specialized services has rendered community-level institutions less
effective at making claims and seeking resources.
institutions make it difficult for community members to participate in
IWRM approaches though conventional means such as face-to-face in­
teractions, negotiation, and deliberation. Instead, community members
are finding creative solutions to watershed management through insti­
tutional bricolage (Cleaver, 2012). In the Caylloma Province, irrigation
commission leaders continued to oversee some local water practices
(such as irrigation schedules), but they also delegated some re­
sponsibilities (such as sanctioning and infrastructure repair) to govern­
ment and intermediary institutions, and hired experts to advocate on
their behalf. Such patchwork, however, was only possible in districts
with sufficient access to ANA and the UWA, as well as the resources
necessary to hire experts.
Scholars have addressed the issue of inequality in IWRM by looking
at which stakeholders are included or excluded from participating in its
design and implementation (Lynch, 2012; Filippi et al., 2014; Butler and
Adamowski, 2015; Assefa et al., 2018; Mancilla García and Bodin,
2019). To promote the participation of previously marginalized stake­
holders, scholars have proposed building or strengthening
community-level institutions (Ostrom, 1990; Bawa et al., 2004; Fischer,
2006; Boelens and Vos, 2014; Postigo, 2014; Assefa et al., 2018; Tesfaye
et al., 2018). In our study we found that, on the one hand, the Peruvian
IWRM approach increased equality among water users within the same
district because it set unanimous rules for all water users, including
traditionally powerful families. But on the other hand, the Peruvian
IWRM approach created inequality between different districts. Not only
were some districts not able to participate in IWRM (i.e., pastoralists in
the Caylloma District) but also irrigation commissions in wealthy dis­
tricts were able to opt out of in-person participation by delegating re­
sponsibilities to external actors (i.e., crop farmers in Majes and Yanque).
While we recognize that local institution-building for democratic
participation in local resource management is still an important pursuit,
we highlight the importance of considering participation methods that
are compatible with local community dynamics and livelihoods
(Cleaver, 2001; Merrey et al., 2005; Medvey, 2010). It is also worth
noting that our interviewees placed a high value on affordable, reliable,
and fair water provision, even if it was administered by external orga­
nizations. Reliable service provision by government and intermediary
organizations in turn freed up farmers’ time to pursue multiple eco­
nomic activities and removed some local participation burdens. These
insights support the notion that IWRM approaches should also seek to
generate sustainable local economic opportunities (Merrey et al., 2005),
which would enable people to remain in their communities. We would
argue that local economic opportunities that cover the opportunity cost
of commuting for employment in different cities is a prerequisite for
participation in IWRM through local in-person deliberation and
negotiation.
A final insight from our study relates to the need to strengthen and
streamline regional ANA branches and WUAs so that they can provide
reliable service and assistance in all districts. Our study has shown that,
under Peru’s current IWRM approach, devolving responsibilities to local
communities is not necessarily empowering for them. Rather, we have
shown that in a globalized economy where people work multiple jobs
and commute between multiple places, power means having the re­
sources to delegate responsibility to government and professionals, and
to keep them accountable. It does not necessarily mean transferring
more water management responsibilities to community-level
institutions.
6. Conclusion
CRediT authorship contribution statement
We have shown that communities in the Caylloma Province, Peru are
rapidly changing and local water management institutions that were
once strong are no longer as effective as they might have been in earlier
decades. In our four study communities, we found that market inte­
gration and labor migration complicated local institution-building and
should therefore be taken seriously when implementing IWRM or other
participatory governance approaches. Specifically, declining local
Ruxandra Popovici: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Project administration. Anna
Erwin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Data curation, Writing - review & editing, Visualization,
Project administration. Zhao Ma: Conceptualization, Methodology,
9
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
Validation, Data curation, Writing - review & editing, Visualization,
Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Linda S.
Prokopy: Validation, Writing - review & editing. Laura Zanotti:
Methodology, Validation, Writing - review & editing. Edwin Fredy
Bocardo Delgado: Writing - review & editing, Project administration.
José Porfirio Pinto Cáceres: Writing - review & editing, Project
administration. Eliseo Zeballos Zeballos: Writing - review & editing,
Project administration. Emma Patricia Salas O’Brien: Writing - review
& editing, Project administration. Laura C. Bowling: Writing - review &
editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Glenn Roberto
Arce Larrea: Writing - review & editing, Project administration.
Cochas Chico y San Jerónimo de Tunán. In: Diez, A.H. (Ed.), Tensiones Y
Transformaciones En Comunidades Campesinas. Pontificia Universidad Católica del
Perú, Lima, Perú, pp. 97–117.
Cleaver, F., 2001. Institutions, agency and the limitations of participatory approaches to
development. In: Cooke, B., Kothari, U. (Eds.), Participation: The New Tyranny? Zed
Books, London, UK, pp. 36–55.
Cleaver, F., 2012. Development Through Bricolage: Rethinking Institutions for Natural
Resource Management. Earthscan; London, UK.
Dahal, G.R., 2003. Devolution in the context of poor governance: some learning from
community forestry in Nepal. J. For. Livelihood 2 (2), 17–22.
Daneshvar, F., Chaubey, I., Bowling, L., Cherkauer, K., de Lima Moraes, A.G., Herrera
Quispe, J.A., 2018. Assessment of climate change impacts on semi-arid watersheds in
Peru. In: Poster Presented at the American Geophysical Union 2018 Fall Meeting.
Washington D.C.. https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10500885.1 (10–14 December
2018).
Diez, A., 1999. Organizaciones de base y gobiernos locales rurales; Mundos de vida,
ciudadanía yl clientelismo. In: Bardales, E., Tanaka, M., Zapata, A. (Eds.),
Repensando La Política En El Perú. Red para las CCSS, Lima, Perú, pp. 17–57.
Diez, A., Oritz, S., 2013. Comunidades campesinas: nuevos contextos, nuevos procesos.
Anthropologica 31 (31), 5–14.
Diez Hurtado, A., 2012. Nuevos retos y nuevos recursos para las comunidades
campesinas. In: Diez Hurtado, A. (Ed.), Tensiones Y Transformaciones En
Comunidades Campesinas. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú,
pp. 14–39.
Dong, S.K., et al., 2011. Vulnerability of worldwide pastoralism to global changes and
interdisciplinary strategies for sustainable pastoralism. Ecol. Soc. 16 (2).
Edmunds, D., Wollenberg, E., 2003. Local Forest Management the Impacts of Devolution
Policies. Earthscan; New York, NY.
Engle, N.L., et al., 2011. Integrated and adaptive management of water resources:
tensions, legacies, and the next best thing. Ecol. Soc. 16 (1) https://doi.org/
10.5751/ES-03934-160119.
Filippi, M.E., et al., 2014. Knowledge integration: a step forward? Continuities and
changes in Arequipa’s water governance system. Environ. Urban. 26 (2), 525–546.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247814539233.
Fischer, F., 2006. The cultural politics of discursive space. Am. Rev. Public Adm. 36 (1),
19–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074005282582.
Fusch, P.I., Ness, L.R., 2015. Are we there yet? Data saturation in qualitative research.
Qualitative Report 20 (9), 1408–1416.
Gelles, P.H., 2000. Water and Power in Highland Peru:The Cultural Politics of Irrigation and
Development. Water and Power in Highland Peru:The Cultural Politics of Irrigation and
Development. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J.
George, A.L., Bennett, A., 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences.
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
German, L., et al., 2007. Participatory integrated watershed management: evolution of
concepts and methods in an ecoregional program of the eastern African highlands.
Agric. Syst. 94 (2), 189–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2006.08.008.
Goldin, J., Rutherford, R., Schoch, D., 2008. The place where the sun rises: an application
of IWRM at the village level. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev. 24 (3), 345–356. https://doi.
org/10.1080/07900620802127283.
Guillet, D., 1992. Covering Ground: Communal Water Management and the State in the
Peruvian Highlands. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
GWP, 2019. Vision, Mission and Values. Available at https://www.gwp.org/ (Accessed: 7
September 2019).
Hammarberg, K., Kirkman, M., De Lacey, S., 2016. Qualitative research methods: when
to use them and how to judge them. Hum. Reprod. 31 (3), 498–501. https://doi.org/
10.1093/humrep/dev334.
Hecht, S., 2010. The new rurality: globalization, peasants and the paradoxes of
landscapes. Land Use Policy 27 (2), 161–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
landusepol.2009.08.010.
Hickey, S., Mohan, G., 2004. Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New
Approaches to Participation in Development. Zed Books, New York, NY.
Hodgson, S., 2003. Legislation on Water Users’ Organizations: A Comparative Study. FAO
Legislative Study 79, Rome, Italy.
Holley, C., Gunningham, N., Shearing, C., 2012. The New Environmental Governance.
Earthscan, Abingdon, Oxon.
Huntjens, P., et al., 2012. Institutional design propositions for the governance of
adaptation to climate change in the water sector. Global Environ. Change. 22 (1),
67–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.09.015.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática, 2019. Censo Nacional Agropecuario.
MINAGRI.
Johnson, N., et al., 2002. User participation in watershed management and research.
Water Policy 3 (6), 507–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1366-7017(02)00014-4.
Kamoto, J., et al., 2013. Doing more harm than good? Community based natural resource
management and the neglect of local institutions in policy development. Land Use
Policy 35, 293–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.06.002.
Kay, C., 2008. Reflections on Latin American rural studies in the neoliberal globalization
period: a new rurality? Dev. Change 39 (6), 915–943,. https://doi.org/10.1111/
j.1467-7660.2008.00518.x.
Larson, A.M., Lewis-Mendoza, J., 2012. Decentralisation and devolution in Nicaragua’s
North Atlantic Autonomous Region natural resources and indigenous peoples’ rights.
Int. J. Commons 6 (2), 179–199.
Larson, A.M., Soto, F., 2008. Decentralization of natural resource governance regimes.
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 33 (1), 213–239. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.
environ.33.020607.095522.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted as part of the Arequipa Nexus Institute
for Food, Energy, Water and the Environment, a partnership between
the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA) in Arequipa, Peru and
Purdue University in Indiana, USA. Funds to support research in the
Arequipa Nexus Institute for Food, Energy, Water, and the Environment
were provided by the UNSA. We thank our research participants at the
National Water Authority and the Water Users’ Associations in Majes
and the Colca Valley, and community members in the districts of Cayl­
loma, Lari, Yanque, and Majes. We also thank Dr. Fariborz Daneshvar,
who created Fig. 2 for this publication.
References
Adhikari, S., Kingi, T., Ganesh, S., 2016. Incentives and community participation in the
governance of community forests in Nepal. Small-scale For. 15 (2), 179–197.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-015-9316-8.
Aggarwal, R.M., 2006. Globalization, local ecosystems, and the rural poor. World Dev. 34
(8), 1405–1418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.10.011.
Agrawal, A., et al., 2002. Common resources and institutional sustainability. In:
Ostrom, E. (Ed.), The Drama of the Commons. National Academy Press, Washington,
DC, pp. 41–86.
ANA (Autoridad Nacional del Agua), 2019. ¿Qué Es El Consejo Directivo? Available at htt
p://www.ana.gob.pe/consejo-directivo/que-es (Accessed: 10 May 2019).
Assefa, S., Kessler, A., Fleskens, L., 2018. Assessing farmers’willingness to participate in
campaign-based watershed management: experiences from Boset District, Ethiopia.
Sustainability 10 (12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124460.
Bäckstrand, K., 2006. Democratizing global environmental governance? Stakeholder
democracy after the world summit on sustainable development. Eur. J. Int. Relat. 12
(4), 467–498. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106069321.
Balooni, K., Ballabh, V., Inoue, M., 2007. Declining instituted collective management
practices and forest quality in the central Himalayas. Econ. Polit. 42 (16),
1443–1452.
Bardhan, P., 2002. Decentralization of governance and development. J. Econ. Perspect.
16 (4), 185–205. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533002320951037.
Bates, S., et al., 1993. Searching Out the Headwaters: Change and Rediscovery in Western
Water Policy. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Batterbury, S.P.J., Fernando, J.L., 2006. Rescaling governance and the impacts of
political and environmental decentralization: an introduction. World Dev. 34 (11),
1851–1863. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.11.019.
Bawa, K.S., Seidler, R., Raven, P.H., 2004. Reconciling conservation paradigms. Conserv.
Biol. 18 (4), 859–860. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.01838.x.
Bergstrom, J.C., Randall, A., 2016. Resource Economics: An Economic Approach to Natural
Resource and Environmental Policy, 4th edn. Edward Elgar, Northampton, MA.
Berkes, F., 2010. Devolution of environment and resources governance: trends and
future. Environ. Conserv. 37 (4), 489–500. https://doi.org/10.1017/
S037689291000072X.
Boelens, R., Vos, J., 2014. Legal pluralism, hydraulic property creation and
sustainability: the materialized nature of water rights in user-managed systems.
Current Opinion Environ. Sustainability 11, 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
cosust.2014.10.001.
Butler, C., Adamowski, J., 2015. Empowering marginalized communities in water
resources management: addressing inequitable practices in participatory model
building. J. Environ. Manage. 153, , 153–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jenvman.2015.02.010.
Campbell, J.L., et al., (3), 2013, 294-320. Coding in-depth semistructured interviews:
problems of unitization and intercoder reliability and agreement. Sociol. Methods
Res. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124113500475.
Chávez Carhuamaca, C., 2012. Realidades en contraste: apuntes sobre el dinamismo o
debilitamiento político-institucional de la organización comunal; Los casos de
10
R. Popovici et al.
Land Use Policy 101 (2021) 105105
Lemos, M.C., Agrawal, A., 2006. Environmental governance. Annu. Rev. Environ.
Resour. 31 (1), 297–325. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.
energy.31.042605.135621.
Lynch, B.D., 2012. Vulnerabilities, competition and rights in a context of climate change
toward equitable water governance in Peru’s Rio Santa Valley. Glob. Environ.
Chang. 22 (2), 364–373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.02.002.
Mancilla García, M., Bodin, Ö., 2019. Participatory water basin councils in Peru and
Brazil: expert discourses as means and barriers to inclusion. Global Environ. Change
55, 139–148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.02.005.
Medvey, J., 2010. Benefits or Burden? Community Participation in Natural Resource
Management in the Greater Kruger Park Area. IVM, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Merrey, D.J., Cook, S., 2012. Fostering institutional creativity at multiple levels: towards
facilitated institutional Bricolage. Water Alternatives 5 (1), 1–19.
Merrey, D.J., et al., 2005. Integrating “livelihoods” into integrated water resources
management: taking the integration paradigm to its logical next step for developing
countries. Reg. Environ. Change 5 (4), 197–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113004-0088-5.
MINAGRI. M. de A. y R, 2015. Decreto Supremo Que Aprueba El Reglamento De La Ley
N◦30157. Ley De Las Organizaciones De Usuarios De Agua, Peru.
Mowo, J., et al., 2013. The importance of local traditional institutions in the
management of natural resources in the highlands of East Africa. Hum. Organ. 72
(2), 154–163. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.72.2.e1x3101741127x35.
Municipalidad Distrital de Majes , Distrito de Majes Villa el Pedregal ,2020; Accessed
from https://munimajes.gob.pe/majes/distrito-majes-villa-pedregal.
Neef, A., 2009. Transforming rural water governance: towards deliberative and
polycentric models? Water Alternatives 2 (1), 53–60.
Nelson, F., Agrawal, A., 2008. Patronage or participation? Community-based natural
resource management reform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dev. Change 39 (4), 557–585.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00496.x.
Newig, J., Fritsch, O., 2009. Environmental governance: participatory, multi-level - and
effective? Environ. Policy Gov. 19 (3), 197–214. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.509.
Ojha, H.R., et al., 2016. Delocalizing communities: changing forms of community
engagement in natural resources governance. World Dev. 87, 274–290. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.06.017.
Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK.
Paerregaard, K., Stensrud, A.B., Andersen, A.O., 2016. Water citizenship: negotiating
water rights and contesting water culture in the peruvian andes. Lat. Am. Res. Rev.
51 (1), 198–217. https://doi.org/10.1353/lar.2016.0012.
Pérez, E.G., 2016. Evolución histórica de la gestión de los recursos hídricos en el Perú.
Revista Iberoamericana del Agua 2, 9–12.
Postigo, J.C., 2014. Perception and resilience of andean populations facing climate
change. J. Ethnobiol. 34 (3), 383–400. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-077134.3.383.
Ramírez-Miranda, C., 2014. Critical reflections on the new rurality and the rural
territorial development approaches in Latin America. Agron. Colomb. 32 (1),
122–129. https://doi.org/10.15446/agron.colomb.v32n1.41218.
Rask, M., Worthington, R., Lammi, M., 2013. Citizen Participation in Global Environmental
Governance. Earthscan, Abingdon, Oxon.
Reed, M.G., Bruyneel, S., 2010. Rescaling environmental governance, rethinking the
state: a three-dimensional review. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 34 (5), 646–653. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0309132509354836.
Ribot, J.C., 2002. Democratic Decentralisation of Natural Resources: Institutionalising
Popular Participation. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/
10.1093/forestry/77.2.174-a.
Ribot, J.C., Agrawal, A., Larson, A.M., 2006. Recentralizing while decentralizing: how
national governments reappropriate forest resources. World Dev. 34 (11),
1864–1886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.11.020.
Ribot, J.C., Lund, J.F., Treue, T., 2010. Democratic decentralization in sub-Saharan
Africa: its contribution to forest management, livelihoods, and enfranchisement.
Environ. Conserv. 37 (1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892910000329.
Ritchie, J., et al., 2014. Qualitative Research Practice:A Guide for Social Science Students
and Researchers. Sage Publications, Los Angeles, California.
Swimming Upstream: Collaborative Approaches to Watershed Management. In:
Sabatier, P.A., et al. (Eds.), 2005. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Saldaña, J., 2009. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage Publications;
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Shackleton, S., et al., 2002. Devolution and community-based natural resource
management: creating space for local people to participate and benefit? Nat. Res.
Perspectives 76 (76), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.09.001.
Sikor, T., Nguyen, T.Q., 2007. Why may forest devolution not benefit the rural poor?
Forest entitlements in Vietnam’s central highlands. World Dev. 35 (11), 2010–2025.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2006.11.011.
Speer, J., 2012. Participatory governance reform: a good strategy for increasing
government responsiveness and improving public services? World Development 40
(12), 2379–2398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.034.
Stensrud, A.B., 2016. Dreams of growth and fear of water crisis: the ambivalence of
“progress” in the Majes-Siguas Irrigation Project, Peru. History Anthropology 27 (5),
569–584. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2016.1222526.
Tesfaye, G., et al., 2018. Institutional functionality in participatory integrated watershed
development of Tana sub-basin, Ethiopia. Land 7 (4). https://doi.org/10.3390/
land7040130.
Turnhout, E., Van Bommel, S., Aarts, N., 2010. How participation creates citizens:
participatory governance as performative practice. Ecol. Soc. 15 (4) https://doi.org/
10.5751/ES-03701-150426.
Uker, D., Fanany, R., 2011. The traditional decision-making process of berkaul in
Tanjung Emas, West Sumatra: its nature and significance. Sojourn 26 (1), 1–15.
https://doi.org/10.1355/sj26-1a.
Valdivia Corrales, G., et al., 2013. El neoliberalismo y las sociedades pastoriles del Sur
andino: Un caso de extrema exclusión y pobreza en los Andes peruanos. In: Aguirre
Salas, A. (Ed.), La Construcción Social De La Pobreza En América LaTina Y El Caribe:
Perspectivas Y Críticas. CLASCO, Buenos Aires, pp. 283–316.
Vedeld, T., 1992. Local institution-building and resource management in the West
African Sahel. Forum Dev. Stud. 19 (1), 23–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/
08039410.1992.9665904.
Veeravalli, S., et al., 2018. The case of Peruvian asparagus: water governance trade-offs
under climate change. In: Pereira, L.M. (Ed.), Food, Energy and Water Sustainability:
Emergent Governance Strategies. Routledge, New York, NY.
Vyamana, V., 2009. Participatory forest management in the Eastern Arc Mountains of
Tanzania: who benefits? Int. For. Rev. 11 (2), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1505/
ifor.11.2.239.
Wang, G., et al., 2016. Integrated watershed management: evolution, development and
emerging trends. J. Forestry Res. 27 (5), 967–994. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676016-0293-3.
Young, O., et al., 2002. Institutional interplay: the environmental consequences of crossscale interactions. In: Ostrom, E. (Ed.), The Drama of the Commons. National
Academy Press, Washington, DC, pp. 263–291.
11