Territories of water (in)security: The political economy of water governance reform for irrigation and its implications for territorial inequality

As climate change progresses and water supplies become increasingly unpredictable; world population grows; human diets change; and the bio-economy expands into new business spheres, competition for water intensifies both within the agricultural sector and among sectors.
In response to – and sometimes in anticipation of – such competition, countries around the world have embarked upon water governance reform in order to ensure the attainment of social, economic and environmental goals. To varying degrees, these goals include achieving water security for all and in some cases also preventing the accumulation and unequal distribution of water rights; ensuring food security and in some cases also food sovereignty; stimulating economic growth; contributing to energy security; and guaranteeing environmental integrity and ground water quality. Key reform features include the establishment of a unified legal and administrative framework for water allocation through a statutory water rights registry, administered by a water administration agency, and water allocation to take place based on a set of pre-defined social, environmental and economic criteria.
Drawing upon research conducted in Nicaragua, this paper examines the extent to which these sets of societal goals are pursued in the implementation of water governance reform in the case of water governance for irrigation. The paper suggests that rather than assuming their envisaged water allocation role, the newly created national water agencies are increasingly called upon by strong economic actors whose access to finance and to commodity markets is conditioned on their ability to demonstrate legally sanctioned water-use rights for irrigation.
While the provision of this legal service may be societally beneficial – at least in the short run – the paper concludes that it risks cementing and perhaps even amplifying territorial inequalities in terms of legally sanctioned access to water due to not taking the territorial dimension of irrigation into account and due to being only partially implemented. Over time and with increasing competition for water, this may contribute to also deepen inequality in terms of de-facto water security and access to water for agricultural production among different segments of agricultural producers and among different parts of the country.