environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124

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Intensive groundwater use and (in)equity:

Processes and governance challenges

Jaime Hoogesteger a,1,*, Philippus Wester a,b,1

a
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
b
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), GPO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal

article info abstract

Article history: Groundwater forms the basis for millions of rural and urban livelihoods around the world.
Available online 25 April 2015 Building on insights from the theory of access, in this article we present how groundwater
development has brought much well-fare in many parts of the world; and how resulting
Keywords: intensive groundwater use is leading to ill-fare through aquifer overexploitation and
Groundwater processes of water accumulation and dispossession. We show the difficulty of state
Equity regulation and the modest achievements of other governance approaches that aim to solve
Governance existing groundwater problems. To study these processes we propose a framework of
Water policies analysis that is based on the study of hydrosocial-networks, the political economy of
Theory of access groundwater and the domains and discourses that define groundwater access. Such analy-
Environmental justice sis highlights the challenges of devising policies and modes of governance that contribute to
social and environmental sustainability in intensively used aquifers. These we argue should
build on an analysis of equity that scrutinizes the discourses, actors, powers and procedures
that define groundwater access. By inciting debates on equity a first and fundamental step
can be made toward advancing more inclusive groundwater governance that crucially
engages the marginalized and addresses their groundwater problems, concerns and needs.
# 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We do so based on insights from political ecology (cf. Mukherji,

1. Introduction
Land and water grabs have received increasing attention in the
media and research (Mehta et al., 2012; Edelman et al., 2013;
Franco et al., 2013; Bridge, 2014; Joy et al., 2014). With this
article we contribute to this field of research by analyzing how
intensive groundwater use can lead to different forms of
concentration of access to groundwater and related processes
of dispossession (see Blomquist, 1992; Knegt and Vincent,
2001; Prakash, 2005; Ahlers, 2010; Venot and Molle, 2008).
2006) and a focus on ‘groundwater access’. These inform our
analysis of groundwater development trajectories and related
processes of environmental injustice. Based on Ribot and
Peluso (2003) we define access as ‘the ability to benefit from
things’ (p. 153). In doing so we shift the focus from property
relations (rights) to the ability (and related social webs of power)
that enable or constrain people to benefit from groundwater.
As such, our analysis aims at better understanding the
structural and relational mechanisms that determine legal
and illegal access to groundwater through technologies,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 317485783.

E-mail address: jaime.hoogesteger@wur.nl (J. Hoogesteger).
1
Both authors contributed equally to this paper.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.04.004
1462-9011/# 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
118 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
capital, markets, authority, capabilities and other social
relationships (Ribot and Peluso, 2003).
Groundwater forms the invisible, subsurface part of the
hydrological cycle and is crucial for the maintenance of
wetlands and the base flow of rivers (Kløve et al., 2011).
Although there is uncertainty about the data, ice caps and
glaciers store around 86% of the world’s freshwater, while
groundwater stores 13.5%. The remaining 0.5% of the world’s
freshwater is contained in lakes, soil moisture, rivers, reservoirs
and the atmosphere (Jones, 1997). Although the stock of
groundwater is nearly 25 times the stock of surface water,
annual groundwater recharge is estimated to be only 10% of
total river discharge globally (Oki and Kanae, 2006). As aquifers
contain large quantities of water, when aquifers become
intensively used their recharge capacity is quickly surpassed
by extractions (Aeschbach-Hertig and Gleeson, 2012). As water
tables drop wetlands and springs dry up, and rivers flip from
gaining rivers (receiving base flow from groundwater) to
draining rivers (losing water to the underground).
Groundwater access is largely determined by dispersed
technology. It is a ‘‘horizontal’’ resource, meaning that
‘‘farmers [and other users] located above an aquifer can sink
wells independently of each other over a significant areal
extension’’ (Kemper, 2007: 156). Groundwater is a very reliable
source of high quality water, and – as explored in Section 2 – it
has developed into a cornerstone of both rural and urban
socio-economies around the world; becoming the primary
source of water for domestic, urban and industrial uses in
many countries (Burke and Moench, 2000; Shah et al., 2003).
Groundwater’s role in irrigated agriculture has become central
as producers adopted its use on a massive scale in South Asia,
the Middle East and the Mediterranean, China, North America
and to a lesser extent sub-Saharan Africa and South America
(Scott and Shah, 2004; Aeschbach-Hertig and Gleeson, 2012).
Its use has transformed rural economies through improved
crop productivity and diversification and at present ground-
water covers about one third of the total 300 million hectares
of irrigated land worldwide (Shah et al., 2007). As such, it has
significantly improved the livelihoods and household food
security of millions of farmers and pastoralists worldwide
(Kemper, 2007). However, in many areas the ‘groundwater
boom’ is starting to go bust.
As analyzed in Section 3, the much needed regulation of
groundwater pumping in intensively used aquifers is proving
very difficult. This is alarming, as the medium and long-term
effects of water overexploitation are more significant for
groundwater than for surface water. A condition of low
surface water supply can be reversed in just 1 year of high
rainfall and runoff, whereas aquifer depletion may be
permanent or take years to reverse (Gleeson et al., 2010;
Aeschbach-Hertig and Gleeson, 2012).
The situation of virtual open access to groundwater has
serious implications in terms of equity as is explored in
Section 4. Whoever has the strongest and deepest pumps can
pump the most, to the detriment of others and with impunity.
Consequently intensive groundwater use easily leads to
outright as well as diffuse and invisible forms of groundwater
access accumulation and related dispossession and overex-
ploitation. As a result, groundwater injustice is rife and
increasing.
To better understand and tackle these injustices in Section
5 we propose a framework to explore the processes leading to
overexploitation, accumulation of – and inequity in –
groundwater access. In the conclusions we suggest that to
tackle the existing groundwater challenges first a grounded
understanding of groundwater access and accumulation
processes in socio-ecologies is required. Based on these
insights and a related equity analysis, a first and fundamental
step can be made toward advancing more inclusive ground-
water governance that crucially engages the marginalized.
2. Till the wells run dry: from groundwater
well-fare to ill-fare
Since the 1950s there has been a ten-fold increase in
groundwater irrigation world-wide, as groundwater is a
reliable and often easily accessible water source. Especially
since the 1970s a groundwater boom has occurred in many
countries due to advances in drilling technology and sharp
drops in the cost of pumps and the fuel or electricity to run
them. The boom in groundwater pumping in many countries
created much well-fare and positive effects on poverty
reduction and emancipation. For South Asia, Shah (2009: 92)
argues that ‘‘[a]s the world’s largest non-government irriga-
tion initiative, complete with its own specialized economic
institutions, South Asia’s pump irrigation economy has been a
boon that for long dwarfed the collateral damage it produced.
Rapid expansion in this form of irrigation has had a powerful
equalizing, stabilizing, and income-enhancing impact on a
subcontinental scale’’. He argues that groundwater pumping
in South Asia since the 1970s has benefited half a billion
people, through the following mechanisms:
 Some for all rather than all for some, as in surface irrigation
schemes;
 Regional balance in irrigation development, with dry-land
areas also receiving irrigation;
 Drought-proof monsoon agriculture;
 More work for the landless, by increasing demand for year-
round labor;
 Access to water for marginal farmers, with pump irrigation
having a strong bias toward the poor due to its land-
augmenting and labor-absorbing impact;
 Intensive diversification of agriculture, with higher-value
production (Shah, 2009: 92).
The initial increase in groundwater irrigation leads to
spectacular agricultural growth and real impacts on poverty
reduction (Burke and Moench, 2000; Shah, 2009). Treadle
pumps, shallow tubewells and cheap diesel pumps, combined
with inexpensive drilling techniques, bring groundwater in
reach for poor farmers, male and female, and can quickly lead to
a doubling or tripling of their annual income. As groundwater is
a distributed and horizontal resource, this makes it accessible to
a wide range of individuals with relatively modest means, as
opposed to the ‘lumpy’ and capital-intensive investments in
canal irrigation. Shah et al. (2007: 411) conclude that ‘‘especially
in Asia the evidence is overwhelming that the groundwater
boom has demonstrated greater interpersonal, interclass, and
 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
interregional equity in access to irrigation – and thereby to
benefits of intensive agriculture – than large canal irrigation
projects that have created pockets of prosperity in command
areas’’.
Besides being easily accessible, groundwater has several
other characteristics that initially make it a much more
powerful resource for poverty alleviation and more equitable
development than surface water. Paraphrasing Shah et al.
(2007: 409), it is available on site leading to decentralized
management and atomistic development; it provides an
important interannual storage buffer that is highly reliable at
a fraction of the cost of conventional surface water storage;
and it is highly flexible, providing farmers with on-demand,
just-in-time water. However, these benefits rapidly evaporate
once aquifer levels start to fall due to overexploitation which is
becoming increasingly serious in areas such as India, the
North China Plain, Iran, the Middle East, Northern Africa,
Spain, the Western USA, Mexico and the Peruvian and Chilean
Coast amongst others (Shah et al., 2007; Aeschbach-Hertig and
Gleeson, 2012). In many of these places groundwater well-fare
has become ill-fare whereby an increasing number of people
(mostly the poor farmers) are losing their access to ground-
water and related livelihoods (Shah, 2009)(see also Sections 4.1
and 4.4).
Tushaar Shah and colleagues identify four stages in the
transition from groundwater well-fare to ill-fare: (1) rise of
green revolution and tubewell technology, (2) groundwater-
based agrarian economy (3) early symptoms of groundwater
overdraft, and (4) decline of the groundwater socioecology
with mesmerizing impacts for the poor (Shah et al., 2003;
Shah, 2009). In stages 3 and 4 groundwater injustice increases,
as those unable to deepen their wells or defend their water
against powerful actors lose access to groundwater and
related production, leading to social differentiation and
increased poverty (see also Prakash, 2005; Ahlers, 2010; Faysse
et al., 2011). This has spurred renewed and invigorated calls for
‘taming the anarchy’ (Shah, 2009).
3. The challenges of taming the anarchy
The characteristics of groundwater and the apparent anar-
chy surrounding groundwater access seem to suggest that
effective groundwater management requires centralized
control through a government agency. The alternative, it
is assumed, would be chaos. Nevertheless, it is well
established that groundwater regulation is very difficult
and that very few examples of sustainable management
regimes exist in areas of intensive groundwater use (Shah
et al., 2007; Theesfeld, 2010). Research has shown that it
is difficult to regulate groundwater for various reasons
(cf. Blomquist, 1992):
 It is a fugitive and invisible resource, making it difficult or
very costly to monitor who is pumping how much and to
arrive at collective agreements on reductions in extractions.
 Groundwater is extracted by widely dispersed and numer-
ous pumps controlled by many individuals, who have a
strong incentive to maximize withdrawals to recover high
capital investments.
119
 Worldwide experience shows that permit systems to
regulate groundwater use are very prone to corruption
and that establishing groundwater rights is difficult.
 Reducing extractions is difficult as its outcomes (at least in
the short term) run against one of the central objectives of
most states which is to stimulate economic growth.
Politically it is also hard, as curtailing the economic benefits
of existing use(res) (some of which are also important
political actors) usually meets with staunch resistance and
the loss of political support.
 Many of the policy efforts to curtail extractions (such as
groundwater markets, subsidies, electricity pricing, regular-
ization efforts, irrigation modernization programs) are
easily twisted by pumpers (and especially the powerful) to
protect and enhance their groundwater access and related
production.
A complicating factor is that it is difficult to organize
aquifer users and develop social control over pumping. In
contrast to surface irrigation systems, where water users must
collaborate to ensure water deliveries (Hoogesteger, 2013),
pumpers operate relatively independently from each other. It
is only after prolonged periods of pumping that their
combined actions result in overexploitation and the need
for aquifer regulation becomes germane. But even if a strong
aquifer management structure is constituted and reductions
in extractions are agreed on, it takes a long time before an
aquifer stabilizes and the pumpers see any reward for their
restraint. In sum, the individualized hydraulic mission
(Wester, 2009) characteristic of groundwater use, namely
‘‘pump every drop you can now and worry about the
consequences later’’, combined with the strong economic
clout of pumpers militate against sustainable management
(Faysse and Petit, 2012).
Despite the urgency to craft governance mechanisms that
promote equitable groundwater access and sustainable
extraction levels, groundwater management has received
relatively little attention (when compared to surface water) in
international funding agencies’ programs, government policy
agendas, and civil society struggles (but see Pandey et al., 2011;
Wester et al., 2009; Aarnoudse et al., 2012; Foster et al., 2012).
Most policy, research and advocacy focuses on surface water
as drying-up and polluted rivers and lakes, wastewater flows
and the construction of dams and inter-basin transfers are
both more visible and easier to rally protest around. Also, the
rights and the regulation of access to surface water have a long
history, are more clearly defined and easier to implement
(Roth et al., 2005).
In most countries, despite some attempts to regulate
groundwater use through state control, no significant reduc-
tions in groundwater extractions have been achieved. Com-
mon mechanisms include drilling bans, regulatory control
through rights systems with assigned volumes, electricity
pricing, and the regulation of drilling companies. Yet, in nearly
all areas of intensive groundwater use, water users continue to
have nearly unfettered control over their pumps; governments
continue to provide cheap electricity to agriculture; bureau-
cracies actively seek rents through the legalization of illegal
pumps; and next to nothing is being done to enforce existing
regulations and halt new wells being drilled (Shah, 2009;
120 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
Hepworth, 2010; Wester et al., 2011; De Stefano and Lopez-
Gunn, 2012; Frija et al., 2014). This suggests that these
strategies remain in place and are stronger than attempts to
reduce groundwater use as they strengthen two central
concerns of the State and the lobby and practices of powerful
pumpers, namely accumulation (increasing earnings through
export agriculture and industrialization) and legitimacy
(providing production subsidies to potentially unruly farmers
and domestic water to powerful voting constituencies). Thus,
the state attempts to reduce groundwater overexploitation in
most countries are impeded by the political economy of
groundwater use.
The collective management of groundwater by water users
– self-regulation or local-level governance – is increasingly
advocated as an alternative or a complement to state
regulation (Schlager, 2007). While the Mexican experience
with aquifer management councils strongly informed the
World Bank’s recommendations on groundwater governance
(Foster et al., 2004), an in-depth analysis of the political and
institutional questions and struggles experienced shows the
difficulties and challenges that exist both for the state as well
as the users in forming strong groundwater users organiza-
tions (Wester et al., 2011). While it is clear that at some point
stakeholders will need to face the fact that groundwater
extractions need to come down, the preferred option to date
has been continued groundwater overexploitation.
As a result, aquifers in many countries remain over-
exploited as the majority of the actors involved in groundwa-
ter management have a stake in the situation remaining as it
is. As long as there is no pressure from powerful pumpers or
other strong interest groups to restrict groundwater extrac-
tions, it is unlikely that the state will undertake initiatives that
lead to structural and durable reductions in groundwater
pumping (cf. Blomquist, 1992; see for a notable exception
Aarnoudse et al., 2012).
Some examples of expedient governance approaches have
been reported. In Morocco the new catchment management
agencies have engaged in different coalitions to address
groundwater problems with local actors (Faysse et al., 2012,
2014). In France after a long negotiation process with farmers
volumetric management instruments were implemented in
the Beauce area (Lejars et al., 2012); and there are various
experiences of user based aquifer management (with very
mixed results) (cf. Lopez-Gunn and Cortina, 2006; Steenber-
gen, 2006; Wester et al., 2011; Aarnoudse et al., 2012). Several
schemes to (a) augment groundwater recharge or develop
alternative water sources (increasingly through desaliniza-
tion) and (b) reduce withdrawals through precision irrigation,
crop conversions, groundwater tariffs/electricity pricing and
drilling bans have also been reported in India (Shah, 2012),
Spain (Mukherji and Shah, 2005), Tunis, Morocco, Algeria
(Faysse et al., 2011) and Mexico (Wester et al., 2011). However
the recharged and saved volumes are often fairly low in
relation to aquifer deficits. Thus, although some of these
initiatives have been able to reduce increases in withdrawals,
no real progress has been made in restoring the resource use
balance; nor in addressing the pressing issue of groundwater
injustice which results from the ongoing and widespread
processes of groundwater accumulation and dispossession
which are analyzed in the next section.
4. Processes of groundwater accumulation
and dispossession
4.1. The race to the bottom: when richer farmers out-
pump the poor
Once groundwater levels start to drop, wells need to be
deepened and pumping costs increase. The first impacts of
dropping aquifer levels (between 3 and 10 m below the surface)
are the drying up of dugwells, hand pumps, treadle pumps,
shallow tubewells, springs and local wetlands. This negatively
impacts the livelihoods of those that cannot make the transition
to deep tubewells, forcing the ‘groundwater-less’ to return to
rainfed agriculture, or forcing them to out-migrate into the rural
and/or urban labor markets. Besides the impacts on livelihoods,
aquifer depletion generally impoverishes the ecosystem ser-
vices provided by the landscape (Kløve et al., 2011).
When levels fall below 30–40 m, many small farmers start
to lose in the pumping race and drop out. This becomes more
marked when aquifer levels drop below 100 m and only richer
farmers can afford the pumping costs and the deepening or
repositioning of their wells. In countries with smallholder
farming systems depending on groundwater, richer farmers
pumping out poorer farmers is common, but mostly uninten-
tional and related to the dynamics of a common pool resource.
Examples can be found in California (Blomquist, 1992), Mexico
(Wester, 2008), Spain (Lopez-Gunn and Cortina, 2006), China
(Kendy et al., 2003), Gujarat (Prakash, 2005) and North Africa
(Faysse et al., 2011).
4.2. Water vampires: commercial agriculture, commodity
chains and mining
In areas with industrial agriculture the dynamics are different,
and groundwater grabs are more blatant and intentional.
Where lucrative agricultural commodity chains and the
production and marketing of high-value crops such as fruits
and vegetables are increasingly under the control of agro-
industrial companies, the incentive to establish firm control
over groundwater by playing the legislative system, accessing
groundwater illegally and sinking ever deeper wells is strong.
This leads to a much more intense race to the pump-house,
with independent farmers being pushed out of production and
the agro-industrial companies moving on once aquifer levels
have dropped to such an extent that pumping is economically
unattractive for small-holders.
Such grabs often go hand in hand with changes in land
tenure in which large companies and commercial farmers
accumulate land that overlies aquifers by buying- or renting-
out the smaller producers. This is currently occurring in the
state of Guanajuato, Mexico, with people referring to the agro-
industrial networks as ‘water vampires’ (Hoogesteger, 2004).
Similar processes have played out in California over the past
40 years, with voluntary pumping restrictions and groundwa-
ter basin adjudications being arrived at after most of the
smaller pumpers had been crowded out (Blomquist, 1992).
Other reported examples of blatant groundwater grabs by
agro-industrial companies are: the ‘‘accumulation by dispos-
session’’ of dairy companies in the Torreón aquifer in northern
 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
Mexico (Ahlers, 2010), the ‘‘accumulation by land possession’’
of banana and sugar-cane production companies in the
coastal provinces of Ecuador (Gaybor, 2010), and ‘‘accumula-
tion by land development’’ by fruit and vegetable agro-export
enterprises along the Peruvian coast (Hepworth, 2010).
In many regions such as the Bolivian Altiplano (Perreault,
2013), the Peruvian Andes (Sosa and Zwarteveen, 2012) and
Australia (Tan et al., 2015) amongst others, cases of land and
(ground)water accumulation, pollution and dispossession by
mining operations have been reported and follow similar
strategies as those identified above.
4.3. Cities versus agriculture: the long tentacles of
megacities and industry
The concentration of access to groundwater in Shah’s stages 3
and 4 of groundwater socio-ecologies mainly occurs in
agriculture. However, groundwater grabs by megacities and
their industries such as Mexico City, Bangkok and Los Angeles,
frequently with the full support of governments (Molle and
Berkoff, 2009), is leading to marked declines in aquifer levels.
More generally, pumping by cities, towns and industries in
already stressed aquifers is leading to increasing conflicts
between agriculture and urban and industrial water use, as the
latter generally sink much deeper wells and have the financial
means to transport groundwater over long distances. Also, as
domestic water use frequently has legal priority over other
uses, cities can easily formalize their rights to large amounts
of groundwater without compensation to other aquifer users.
With the growth in urban populations, groundwater grabs by
cities and industries are likely to increase in the future.
4.4. Diffuse groundwater injustice: land subsidence,
salinity intrusion and groundwater quality
Besides the concentration of access to groundwater and
increasingly blatant groundwater grabs, declines in aquifer
levels also have diffuse justice effects. In coastal aquifers, over-
pumping can lead to salinity intrusion, rendering aquifers
useless. Land subsidence is a common occurrence in areas of
intensive groundwater use, and leads to high social costs due to
breaks in drainage pipelines, damages to houses and infra-
structure and increased risk of flooding. Over-pumping can also
have very serious groundwater quality impacts, as the cases of
arsenic contamination in Bangladesh, West Bengal and the
Torreon and Irapuato aquifers in Mexico show. These impacts
are very diffuse and affect wide segments of a population.
Pointing the finger to a single culprit is very difficult, and the
damages are largely irreversible in the short to medium term.
5. A framework for analyzing groundwater
access and accumulation
Access to groundwater is primarily a question of individualized
hydraulic property (pumps), access to electricity or diesel and
land ownership. This makes a focus on (the accumulation of)
groundwater rights misleading. Therefore the accumulation of
groundwater and the underlying mechanisms of both subtle
and blatant groundwater grabs can better be analyzed through
121
an exploration of the structural and relational mechanisms
that determine legal and illegal access to groundwater (cf. Ribot
and Peluso, 2003). For this we suggest the following layered
conceptual framework. The inner core consists of concepts to
study the hydrosocial-networks (Wester, 2008) that constitute
groundwater socio-ecologies; that is the configurations of
technologies, humans, groundwater and other productive
and material resources. The layer surrounding this inner core
consists of the political economy of groundwater dependent
commodity chains and the policies that influence/shape these.
The outer layer consists of the domains and discourses in
which groundwater accumulation is played out. While we
present a multi-layered representation, these layers are
deeply enmeshed in each other and serve as a referent to
study the multiple dimensions of groundwater socio-ecologies.
5.1. Hydrosocial-networks and groundwater control
To study access to – and concentration of – groundwater a
strong focus on groundwater technologies is needed. We
propose to use the sociotechnical approach to interdisciplin-
ary water management studies (cf. Mollinga, 1998). In this
approach, water technologies are seen as a form of mediation
between society and natural resources, in which the social, the
technical and the material are analyzed simultaneously as
different but internally related dimensions of the same object.
As technologies are heterogeneous networks of human and
non-human elements, also the linkages between these
elements are objects of study.
The sociotechnical networks of relations constituting an
irrigation scheme or the aggregate sociotechnical hydraulic
networks on an aquifer or river can be termed hydrosocial-
networks (Bolding, 2004; Wester, 2008). These networks are
intentionally and recursively shaped around water and its use.
Bolding (2004) defines two critical characteristics of hydro-
social-networks, namely span and durability. Span refers to
the spatial, social, material and institutional reach or extent of
a hydrosocial-network and can run from a single groundwater
pump to a whole aquifer. This depends on the scale of analysis
and the associations that are being traced. Durability refers to
the strength of a hydrosocial-network, to how strong and
stabilized the associations between the heterogeneous ele-
ments are. It also refers to the time dimension of the network;
to how long the network sticks together before it falls apart.
The critical actor in hydrosocial-networks is water, as without
water the network literally falls dry.
5.2. Political economy analysis of commodity chains and
policies
Access to technology, inputs and land ownership that enable
groundwater use in hydrosocial-networks takes place in a
specific political economy context of agricultural production,
commodity chains and related water and agrarian policies.
This requires analyzing the market and policy configurations
around groundwater use. The following areas of analysis
stand out:
1) The political economy of commodity chains (defined as the
relations of power and production that structure society):
122 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
The links between producers, markets and consumers have
a strong impact on by whom, where and for what
groundwater is extracted and used. Agricultural producers
(from small farmers to international food companies) are
linked to consumers through markets. The interplay of
these sectors and the policies that influence their relations
greatly determine what crops are produced and with which
profit margins for the producers. These margins of profit
(the incomes derived from production) are critical for
ensuring continued access to groundwater (well deepening/
replacement and covering pumping costs) especially for
small farmers. The international commodity chains that
spur and supply the rising worldwide demand for fresh
fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy and bio-fuels are
noteworthy (Amarasinghe et al., 2012; Levidow, 2013).
2) Agrarian and water policies: Water policies such as
regulatory instruments and rules that define who, how
and why can legally access groundwater; as well as energy
and technology subsidies influence who has (and who is
denied) access to groundwater and at which cost (Scott,
2011; Kumar et al., 2013; Scott, 2013). Agricultural policies
such as subsidies, fixed prices, and regulated or ‘‘free’’
markets for agricultural products are also important in
determining who (and how) benefit from – and are able to
maintain – access to groundwater for agricultural produc-
tion. With the liberalization of global trade markets, the
dismantling of agricultural subsidy schemes and changing
consumption patterns (which accompany present day –
almost world wide – neoliberal capitalism) many small
producers of basic grains have been hit hard. On the other
hand international commodity chains of high-value agro-
export crops which are dominated by large companies that
because of quality standards and economies of scale often
exclude small producers, have greatly benefitted from open
international trade and have caused a spike in groundwater
use in many areas (Wester, 2008; Hepworth, 2010; Cheshire
and Woods, 2013).
5.3. Groundwater domains and discourses
Based on Wester (2008) this paper defines a groundwater
domain as encompassing an issue-area and the range of
stakeholders and institutions joined by – or linked to – that
issue-area. The combination of the words ‘‘issue’’ and ‘‘area’’
is used both to connote the spatial dimensions of a domain
and to indicate that something is at stake.
Discourses strongly influence what is considered fair and
acceptable. For instance water grabs of mega-cities are usually
legitimized through discourses based on utilitarism that
defends the greatest good for the greatest number, while
the other processes of accumulation described in Sections 4.1
and 4.2 have been spurred and legitimized in the last two
decades by discourses of libertarianism and the premise of
individual agency and the free exercise of equal rights
(see Konow, 2003). The latter considers all distributional
allocations that result from ‘freely chosen’ transfers, even if
resulting in extreme inequalities in outcome, fair. Therefore,
for research on access to and concentration of groundwater
this raises questions about the discourses and narratives
that differently positioned actors use regarding issues of
governance, access and equity (see Molle, 2008). These specific
political and ideological convictions inform decision-makers
at different scales (farm to international policy) toward actions
that have bearings on who has access to groundwater; how
and in which quantities. The divergent discourses and related
actions also underpin (and lead to) struggles and negotiations
concerning the rules of groundwater governance and the forms
of regulation (legitimacy of authorities) or the lack of it (cf.
Boelens and Vos, 2012).
6. Conclusions: challenges for groundwater
governance and equity
The environmental justice dimensions of groundwater over-
exploitation pose serious challenges, both for research and
interventions. There are no straightforward recipes to
improve groundwater justice and sustainability; especially
in an international context in which private property and the
commodification of land and water resources is still fiercely
promoted. In addition, little hope comes from the fact that to
date, efforts around the world to reduce groundwater
pumping have largely failed. Alarmingly, to date, the individ-
ual and collective interests for capital accumulation and
development (at different scales) prevail over sustainable
groundwater use. Within a context of a dominant neoliberal
capitalist system and related libertarianism, none of the
examined governance initiatives address the political econo-
my of commodity chains and the discourses, policies and
political processes that feed and legitimize groundwater
accumulation by powerful farmers, agro-export businesses,
mining, cities and industry. Accordingly the related processes
of dispossession and marginalization also remain virtually
unchallenged. As long as this remains so and pumping
continues ‘till the wells run dry’, the hope lies in the adaptive
capacity of society at large to absorb those that are losing out.
This points at the fact that readjusting hydrosocial-networks
to achieve equitable and sustainable groundwater extractions is
very difficult and might in some cases prove impossible due to
the political economy of groundwater use. In practice an
expedient approach is needed that explicitly recognizes both
the political nature of groundwater management and the
complexities of the resource. For this, groundwater needs to be
recognized as a politically contested resource around which
different actors have divergent interests, opinions, aspirations
and power positions (Bouarfa and Kuper, 2012). And though
some form of regulation is necessary to tackle resource
overexploitation and its justice dimensions, research and
interventions on conflicts over groundwater access and
environmental justice precisely need to problematize conven-
tional understandings of regulation as the establishment of
order; and question whether ‘taming the anarchy’ is even
desirable. This calls for a shift from paradigms of groundwater
management and control to new forms of governance that
explicitly address issues of equity (cf. Perreault, 2014).
Governance addresses questions of economic and political
coordination and refers to how decisions, organization, rule and
order are achieved; particularly under conditions of neoliberal
capitalism (Perreault, 2014: 236). It recognizes that decisions are
dispersed over various societal actors that operate and have
 environmental science & policy 51 (2015) 117–124
decision-making power at different spatial scales. Consequent-
ly policy making should be informed by expedient process-
oriented approaches in which government, formal (and infor-
mal) non-governmental and user based institutions and private
actors establish cooperative agreements and alliances based on
the complementarity of regulatory, incentive-based and par-
ticipatory approaches; while setting the urgent issue of
groundwater justice high on the agenda.
There are no straightforward recipes to tackle the existing
challenges, but an important first step to do so is: (1) to better
understand groundwater access through the presented frame-
work, and (2) to make equity analysis an integral part of research
and policy making. The framework presented by McDermott
et al. (2013) offers a valuable entry point. It is based on the
examination of three dimensions of equity. These are (a)
distributive equity concerned with the distribution of the resource
and its benefits; (b) procedural equity that investigates decision-
making processes and procedures; and (c) contextual equity that
addresses the pre-existing conditions and power relations that
enhance or curtail people’s access to decision-making,
resources and its benefits. Finally the focus is laid on who –
why and how – shapes the content and targets of equity in
governance interventions. Such an analysis which questions
the discourses, actors, powers and procedures that define
groundwater access can open discussions that inform policy-
makers, planners, organized water users and other actors at
different scales toward efforts to engage the marginalized in
devising governance strategies that address their groundwater
problems and related needs and concerns. Strategies that must
inevitably question existing power relations and lead to multi-
scalar re-arrangements in existing hydro-social networks.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Water Resources Manage-
ment Group, Wageningen University and The Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research division of Science for
Global Development (NWO-WOTRO); grant number W
01.70.100.007. The research design, execution and publication
are the initiative and responsibility of the authors. The usual
disclaimers apply.
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