Whitewater: Decentralization of river basin water resource management

This paper focuses on empirically assessing determinants of river basin management decentralization, which is growing in popularity among water resource managers world wide. Measuring decentralization as a shift of decision-making responsibility to water users or governments at the river basin level or below, the analysis sheds light on the decentralization reform process and its success, using primary data from 83 river basins world wide. Contrary to common perception that primarily emergency situations trigger reform, persistent water scarcity is found to be a major stimulus to reform. Similarly, financially well-endowed or -developed basins do not necessarily outperform poor and underdeveloped basins. Conditions improving decentralization performance include: existence of dispute resolution mechanisms; greater financial responsibility of users; and as opposed to traditional thinking, government financial support to basin budget.