Local Water Governance in Iran: Issues, Challenges and approaches

Many River basins in Iran show classic examples of common pool resources conflict which has resulted in overexploitation of water and land resources and subsequently created environmental degradation. Even strong political commitments to Flagship Public polices such as restoration of Lake Urmia has not resulted in delivering water to the Lake (e.g. Hashemi, 2102; ULRP, 2017). In Lake Urmia Basin, the establishment of multitier participatory decision-making governance system acted at a slow pace. Decisions could not be made on time due to the influence of lobbying groups and hidden actors. For example, despite fostering evidence-based decision-making, the empirical scientific evidences were ignored in the water allocation process during. Three factors may have attributed to such public policy failures including (1) continuation of the hydraulic mission (Allan, 2005) i.e. business as usual ; land and water development plans, e.g. the irrigated land has increased from 480, 000 ha to 560,000 ha for the period 2012-2016 (ULRP, 2017) despite a formal rule forbidding any increase in irrigated area, (2) lack of water demand management, an increase in surface and groundwater resources has been noted and (3) lack of dealing with so called illegal or informal water abstractions. The key to a successful implementation of sustainable water and land (agricultural) policies is to appreciate the role of influential local actors or informal institutions which have a large bearing on policy outcomes. Many scholars have called for participatory governance where a bottom-up approach to water and land management is considered. One of the reasons for inadequacy of the participation process is that the real actors (local communities such as farmers) have been overlooked: informal and unauthorised water users who made an informal rule of abstraction for generations. Regulatory frameworks to water and land resources management should cater for local jurisdictions. Bearing in mind that there is a great of deal empirical evidence that community based approach to water and land resources management has been effective in dealing with common pool resources such as water and forests (Hashemi, 2012). For example the Nobel Laureate, Professor Elinor Ostrom (2005, 2011) make a summary of tens of case studies that self-organising nested enterprises have been able to monitor resource use. Therefore, one of the main presumptions is that cultural and ethical values together with respect for informal institutions can bring about change in attitudes and cultures (Hashemi et al, 2012).