Institutional Analysis Of Water Rights System And Its Implications:Evidence From Rural Farmers,Faisalabad,Pakistan

The increasing world population demands more safe drinking water,better sanitation facilities and increased production of food products as a result of which water is becoming a scarce resource across the globe.Now the engineering solution of water scarcity by developing more infrastructures has nearly come to an end,demanding a better policy of reallocating the existing water resources among competing users and a proper management of exhaustible water resources using economic and policy instruments for sustained development.As long as a resource is abundant,there is little incentive to define use rights over it but with increasing demand and scarcity,there is growing pressure to establish effective rights system.This is more appealing and accepted in case of water as source.As long as the water is plentiful,it is easy to remain ignorant and unconcerned about who else is sharing the same river,lake or aquifer but once the population has risen,the demand of water for domestic,agriculture,industry and other purposes increases;each one's action about water use may affect other's action,demands some management practices.As the water use becomes more and more complex and crucial,water rights and allied institutions are socially accepted as legal and then it becomes need of the hour to reshape the rights of obtaining water similar to like that of property rights of land and other scarce resources.The slippery nature of water however makes it difficult to define specifically who can use how much water from what source,when and for what purpose?The diversity of culture,environment,economic activities and other conditions mean that there is no best way to allocate water and establish water rights.It is not possible to establish water rights once and for all;effective water rights require active monitoring and proper attention to the changing aspects of water use,quality and quantity in time and places.There is growing concern on water rights among policy makers and researchers and much attention is paid on evaluating and developing the water rights system in developing countries.Historically,all societies adopted different approaches to regulate water resources having their own water rights system.The development of formal water rights in developing countries is greatly influenced by two European concepts:Civil law and Common Law.Pakistan has adopted the second principal where rights to use water depends primarily on land ownership.All the water resources are state property as per laws and linked to land ownership and cannot be separated,bought and sold separately form land for irrigation water whereas no properly defined water rights exist for groundwater.In Pakistan,the water allocation and water rights systems date from historic times.There have been some radical changes in water use,distribution and socio-environmental conditions with the passage of time.These changes are not well equipped with new water laws and do not cater for the present day requirements of increasing population demand for domestic,agricultural and industrial use when water is becoming increasingly a competitive and scarce resource in the country under climate change scenario.A quick review on various water resources:Fresh Water,Underground Water,Flood Irrigation and Hill Torrents,their division and use at International level,National/Provincial,irrigational networks(canal and distributary level)and individual level shows that number of problems and issues have emerged as a result of changes in water resource availability and rising competitive uses.There is continuous need of monitoring the water rights system to update it according to present day environment to avoid any negative implications on the community.By signing the Indus Water Treaty in 1960,the formal water rights of Pakistan and India over common fresh water resources has been established to a greater extent.A long outstanding issue on Indus Water Resources division at Inter-Provincial after independence was resolved by signing Water Accord.1991 among four provinces of Pakistan approved by the Council of Common Interests(CCI)and implemented by Indus River System Authority(IRSA).The British Government during his rule in Indo-Pak Sub-continent devised the formal water rights laws for irrigation water allocation within canal command system,where,the Water and Power Development Authority and Provincial Irrigation Departments are now held responsible to control the Water Balance at canal level depending Lupon its Culturable Command Area(CCA).The institution of Warabandi-a rotational method of canal water distribution was established by British government under the Northern Indian Canal Drainage Act in 1873,which with some changes is now used for canal water discharge and allocation at watercourse level by Provincial Irrigation Departments.Area Water Boards and Farmer's Organization.Groundwater is considered increasingly an important source of water for domestic,agriculture and industrial uses and is considered as second best source of water covering 15 million acres in surface area with potential of the order of 55 Million Acre Feet(MAF)to supplement the irrigation water requirement in Pakistan.Historically the groundwater has been neglected for establishing water rights.It is only the recently,over the last hundreds years or so that focus has been given to the formulation of special legislation on groundwater management.Over the last three decades,Government of Pakistan has introduced certain laws such as groundwater regulatory framework in 1990s;National Groundwater Management Rules included in Canal Act,2006 under Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authority(PIDA)1999-2000 and Baluchistan Groundwater Rights Administration Ordinance.2001 to have a proper system of groundwater utilization but still there is no comprehensive legal framework which defines groundwater rights.Pakistan lies in arid and semi-arid climate zone having annual average precipitation ranging from less than 100 mm to over 750 mm.The rainfall varies from the north and northeast to south of the country and is generally used for irrigation purposes throughout the country.This form of irrigation is widely used and known as sailaba or manda sailaba,in native language of Baluchistan Province.Two systems of water rights;firstly the construction of a bund or ghanda across the river to increase the upstream water level for diversion to flood channel and secondly the construction of a spur partially across the river to divert a portion of the flood flow into the conveyance system are established.In tribal areas of the Pakistan,the Hill Torrents are major source of water where a large number of water conservation and utilization structures have been constructed to make use of flood water for irrigation purposes.This irrigation system is based on the natural flow of water from hills to the water channel and is called as Rods.The irrigation system is called rod kohi in Punjab and KPK.Sailaba in Baluchistan and nai in Sindh province.Inspite of sincere and countless efforts,establishment of well-defined water rights are more difficult due to its varying nature over time and space compared to land rights.Water is extremely valuable when scarce and of negative when in excess,mismanaged and lacking a well-defined equity allocation and proper water use rights system.The lack of recognition and establishment of an appropriate institutional set up,legal framework and prioritizing the consumptive and as non-consumptive use are considered as hurdle to a proper water rights system.There are institutional,financial,environmental and legislative issues in water resources division and water use right at all levels in Pakistan.Although the Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and India settled the shared resource division but certain violations by India such as Tulbul Navigational Project in 1985 and in 1990 and construction of Baglihar Dam on river Chenab is violation to Article 1(11)and Article ?(4)of the agreed treaty which needs a neutral mediator with certain improvements in treaty to avoid any water rights violation in future.The lack of trust,confidence,institutional cooperation at inter-provincial level and a more efficient and effective Discharge Monitoring System by Indus River System Authority(IRSA)to ensure equitable water allocation is still needed.The water rights situation is somewhat better at International and National level in Pakistan but still there is lack of clear water rights system at the lower hierarchy i.e.canal,distributary and watercourse level.The water allocation at canal and distributary level based on "water allowance" has been well institutionalized to meet irrigation requirement till now but the current socio-economic and environmental changes demand certain changes.The design and capacity of the water distribution system based on low cropping intensity(64%)as per the Canal and Drainage Act,1873 is now not compatible to the current cropping intensity ranging between 150 to 200 percent.The water inequality at canal and distributary level;lack of accurate measurement of water discharge at water distribution system due to lack of proper water flow management and institutional set up are creating water rights violation.To maintain a record on individual water rights entitlement and actual utilization in terms of quantity,timing and duration according to Culturable Command Area(CCA),a register of water rights should be maintained at each canal and distributary level;the water allowance should be re-calculated and revision in the capacity of irrigation system and a proper discharge monitoring system is also suggested.The water conflicts at individual level have both historic as well as emerging dynamic roots.In Indus Basin,geographical nature of water availability and location of land along head,middle and tail end of the irrigation system plays an important role in raising the issue of water equality and availability at individual level.The Farmers' Organizations established at watercourse level needs further strengthening and system of Warabandi should be supported by a set of physical and institutional reforms;uniform discharge at Mogha;repair,maintenance and improvement of century old outdated irrigation channels:cancellation of invalid entitlement and new allocation to reclaimed land under Soil and Reclamation Act,1952 are proposed to avoid any water rights violation and its implications on community.The lack of groundwater rights system has resulted into unchecked,non-regulated and excessive withdrawal(currently 83 percent of available aquifers)of groundwater in Pakistan.The problems of waterlogging and salinity,ground water overdraft,deterioration of groundwater quality,saline water intrusion,secondary salinization and alkalization of soils as a result of bad quality water used for irrigation,groundwater pollution from indiscriminate disposal of untreated industrial and municipal waste,excessive use of pesticide,fertilizers and insecticide in agriculture are serious threats to water resources.The serious effort from state is lacking whereas a strong implementation of laws and policies governing the groundwater is desired.A comprehensive groundwater act and establishment of groundwater institutions at national as well as regional level are suggested to overcome the future threatening problem.A complex system of shared same source of clearly violates the rights of downstream farmers by upstream water users in case of flood and hill torrents system of irrigation.This system of rights allocation is more endangered with the decline of tribal leader's powers;state interventions ignoring and weakening community based system and externally crafted rules at local level.A more diversified water rights laws and policy measures based on state as well as customary rights system is proposed for effective,efficient and acceptable water rights allocation.The Government of Pakistan has ratified all human rights treaties and obligations internationally concerning water emancipation under United Nations General Comment 15 and customary law are also fully applicable in case of water as basic human rights and its violation affect other needs and rights,for example access to irrigation water for food production.The Human Rights Approach stresses that the state has the responsibility to ensure adequate water access:availability(sufficient quantity and continuous supply),accessibility(both physical and economic access),and quality(safe,acceptable taste,odour and color with good sanitation condition)to each individual without discrimination and can be held accountable if fails to fulfill its obligations:Respect which speaks the responsibility of the state to ensure not to destroy people's access to water by state-owned companies and by force evictions.Protect further strengthen the access to safe water where state authorities has to protect community's access to water being harmed or deprived of by the private water users,besides maintaining access to adequate water.state has to ensure access to all those who lack it due to the reasons beyond their control,create and improve water supply and sanitation in rural and urban poors to comply last element-fulfill.The poor water rights system and implementation,policies and institutions combined with highly vulnerable climate change are serious challenges to Pakistan.Pakistan may not be a water-scarce country by hydrological definitions;nonetheless,water management is at the core of Pakistan's water crisis.A properly developed and managed water rights system is fundamental for an effective water management particularly to overcome the water scarcity and poverty.This is certainly the situation applying in Pakistan for both fresh and groundwater resources.Pakistan,once water-abundant,is now a water-stressed country and will be among water-scarce by 2025.The water use rights system,water resources and water allocation system currently practiced highlights certain issues at various levels among water users.The most significant and adverse situation exists at individual level in case of irrigation water as well as for drinking water supply condition at urban and rural areas of Pakistan.The water rights violation by various water users;households,agriculturalist and industrialist is creating water pollution,water shortage and negatively affecting well-being derived from water use.Properly developed and managed water institutional set up and rights system will ensure effective and efficient water resources allocation,utilization and management to overcome the resulting water poverty and lowered well-being among community.Traditional agrarian communities in rural parts of the Pakistan are facing serious water scarcity challenges due to climate change;water contamination and associated environmental degradation profoundly impacting the lives of millions of farmers.The geographical variation,changing behavioral impact on use pattern,varied household level water resource management capacity and state of the environment have substantial differences in water availability and access even found between the adjoining villages.Water poverty is no more restricted to areas having no access to clean water but many other criteria are used to evaluate how water poor an area is?The rural farmers of industrial city Faisalabad-Pakistan are facing the implications of rapid industrialization in the form of polluted landscape where their small catchment area of water resources are under threat from indiscriminate disposal of untreated industrial wastes and household sewage into unregulated drains flowing downstream into rivers away from these villages.The subsequent water contamination and its environmental degradation is a new challenge for poor water users in these villages in the form of multidimensional water poverty negatively affecting their subjective well-being.Using a household level date from ten selected villages in the same community having differential access to clean water source and located at different distances from polluted water drain,we evaluate how water poverty exist among these adjoining villages.We adopt Water Poverty Index which has been extensively used to evaluate water poverty based on evaluating the water resources endowment through its five basic components:Resource,Access,Capacity,Use and Environment.Broadly defined,'resource' looks at the types of water resources and amount of water available;'access' refers to the difficulty of appropriating water from these sources,'capacity' refers to the overall level of water resources available to the villages,'use' refers to the intensity of use by the villages and lastly 'environment' refers to the level of pollution in these villages which might contaminate such resources.Under the premise that water scarcity is multidimensional,we use Principal Component Analysis(PCA)to develop WPI for these villages.From our analysis,we found that there is considerable variation in the five component indexes of WPI across the villages.This variation is attributed to varying distances and time taken to collect water,irrigation water allocation to farmers,household capacity to manage water through installation of tube-wells or motor pumps and environmental degradation condition.The five components of WPI are helpful to conclude that households either close to clean water source(canal)or away from polluted water source(drain water)are less water poor as compared to others.These conclusions give further insight to know how the water poverty can be managed through environmental protection;management of water resources and certain adaptation measures at local level.Economists predict that the developing world will experience water scarcity not only due to climate change,water pollution and growing demand but inefficient management of available water and related infrastructure will greatly hurt the agrarian economies of Pakistan.The enormous conveyance water losses because of outdated infrastructure and downstream water shortages are serious threat to livelihood in agro-based economy while investment in water management at various irrigatiton command systems would be helpful in coping with the water scarcity and improving farmer's well-being.Although irrigated agriculture consumes more that 70 percent of the global water withdrawal where on an average,only 40%of the delivered water is used productively by the crops.The result is from inefficient,outdated and poorly maintained canal command irrigation system with less than 60%conveyance and overall water application efficiency below than 50%.In order to mitigate the effects of water shortages,investment into better irrigation infrastructure is highly desired to increase both water flows as well as to reduce conveyance losses from existing traditional agricultural irrigation system since the improvement alone may fulfill one-half of the increased demand of water through 2025.Watercourse-the tertiary canal command where Warabandi system is used for division of available canal water to be used for irrigation at farm level in Pakistan,is confronted with high conveyance losses,inequitable water distribution and efficiency at middle and tail of the water channel adversely affecting the water use benefits among farmers.The above cited various challenges and realities can lead to conclude that investment in irrigation system can result into less conveyance losses and high irrigation efficiency bettering off the downstream water users.To ensure a more efficient use of available canal water,improvement of the existing infrastructure at farm level was given priority in Pakistan through Government's Revised Action Program for irrigated agriculture(RAP)introduced in 1979.Improvement of community watercourses has been the focus of many domestic and foreign funded projects in Pakistan where the On Farm Water Management(OFWM)project was started.Under current program for the lining of watercourse,the Government of Pakistan finances up to 80%of the total costs,and requires farming communities to provide the other 20%.As a result of this,three types of watercourse infrastructure(lined,unlined and partially lined watercourse)having differently conveyance efficiency due to poorly managed century old water channels.Farmers behaving differently sets up a tradeoff for myopic farmers who might forego spending money on improving their watercourses in an effort to direct their monetary resources into other areas which may provide greater utility in the short run at the expense of better irrigation system for their crops and possibly lowering agricultural yields which is as high as 50%while moving from head to tail.Since the use of water in irrigated agriculture directly or indirectly affects the life satisfaction and over all well-being,this give us to assess how the potential benefits from water resource management and irrigation efficiency improvement affects the community well-being at regional and household level for better adaptation to water scarcity.The study was designed for rural households at village level in Faisalabad,Pakistan to evaluate how the existing three types of watercourse infrastructure affect the derived well-being.We adopted Test of Mean methodology to compare the mean happiness level among three groups of farmers having unlined,lined and partially lined watercourse.Using this methodology,we found that on average,the respondents with lined water channels are happier than those having unlined and partially lined water channels.We further studied using Multiple Regression Analysis,why and how watercourse lining creates happiness heterogeneity among water users?We found that lower conveyance efficiency due to prolonged water fetching time from water source to place of use is responsible for lowering well-being among unlined watercourse farmers as compared to lined and partially lined water channels.The results established a strong correlation between water access,improved irrigation network and WB.Thus the rational behavior of rural farmers towards lining of watercourses will improve irrigation water access generating higher level of well-being among rural water poors.To avoid any future implications on water user,an efficient system of water rights for equitable water resource division and granting water use rights at various level with more focus on individual level;environmental legislation to avoid water pollution and fulfilling state's obligation in meeting the basic human right provision and rational decision for water resources management,a policy formulation and implementation by the beheld responsible institution in Pakistan is proposed.