Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de

géographie alpine
96-3 | 2008
Mélanges 2008

Irrigation systems as common-pool resources

Examples from Northern Italy

Giangiacomo Bravo and Beatrice Marelli

Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rga/536
DOI: 10.4000/rga.536
ISSN: 1760-7426

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Association pour la diffusion de la recherche alpine

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Date of publication: 15 September 2008
Number of pages: 15-26
ISBN: 978-2-200-92502-4
ISSN: 0035-1121

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 1

Irrigation systems as common-pool

resources
Examples from Northern Italy

Giangiacomo Bravo and Beatrice Marelli

1 Common-pool resources (CPRs) are natural or man-made resources shared among

different users, a condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often
(although not necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. A vast
number of valuable natural resources falls in this category and shows today “chronic”
problems of overuse. Examples are the world forests, fisheries, water basins, biodiversity
and even the atmosphere. Nevertheless, in contrast with previous theoretical predictions
including Hardin (1968) influential work on the “tragedy of the commons”, a vast number
of empirical researches, and especially Ostrom (1990) seminal work, have shown the
possibility of a successful endogenous management of CPRs and explained theoretically
how this achievement is possible.
2 This paper shortly discusses the “theory of the commons” as developed in the last 20
years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues (e.g Ostrom, 1990, 2005; Ostrom et al., 1994,
2002) and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems
in Northern Italy (Lombardy and Vallée d’Aoste). Our main goal is to present the role that
different social mechanisms play in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes
for the commons management. The paper is organized as follows: section 2 introduces
the theoretical background underlying CPR research; section 3 presents the empirical
research; section 4 discusses our findings and draws the conclusions.

Theoretical background
3 Formally, the expression common-pool resource refers to a class of goods defined by two
characteristics: a difficult exclusion of potential beneficiaries and a high degree of
subtractability (i.e. rivalry of consumption) (Ostrom et al., 1994, 6–8). Thus, the CPRs
share characters with both the private and the public goods, namely a high
subtractability with the former ones and a low possibility of exclusion with the latter

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 2

ones (Figure 1). This makes the management of CPRs especially complex: as in the private
good case, the subtraction of resource units from the commons (e.g. timber from a forest,
water from a basin, etc.) done by one user reduces the total quantity of units available for
the other users; as in the public good case, it is difficult to prevent any user from
continue to subtract units from an endangered resource (e.g. the ocean fisheries). This led
Hardin (1968) to depict the commons problem by means of a model akin to a Public-good
game, i.e. a n players version of the well known Prisoner’s dilemma. What is especially
important is that, being the CPR problem a Public-good game, there are no rational
incentives for any user to limit his/her consumption and, hence, the possibility to avoid
the resource degradation or destruction is extremely low.

Figure 1. A general classification of goods

Ostrom et al., 1994, 7.

4 Hardin’s model applies to a vast number of situations, especially in the case of open-
access resources, and it represents a valid explanation of the reason beneath the overuse
of common resources done by rational individuals, even when this leads to a significant
harm in the long term. Hardin argued consequently for the public management of natural
resources. However, subsequent studies showed that, while adequate in some cases, this
solution is not always applicable, mainly because of management cost and of information
asymmetries. Similarly, the “classic” alternative of dividing and privatizing the resource
may help in some cases, but also be inapplicable or suffer of significant shortcomings in
other situations (see Ostrom, 1990, 8–13). Moreover, one of the basic findings of Ostrom’s
work is that many communities across the world actually succeed in solving the Hardin’s
dilemma and sustainably manage their common resources by building small scale
institutions, well adapted to the local conditions. This does not imply that the
endogenous management represents the solution for CPR problems. The main insight of
Ostrom’s work is indeed that there is no “only way” to solve commons dilemmas.
Endogenous institutions can work well in many situations, but in case of failure it is
essential to look for different solutions — e.g. centralized management, private rights, co-
management or a combination of different regimes — in order to avoid Hardin’s tragedy
(Marshall, 2005; Ostrom, 1990, 2005; Ostrom et al., 1994). All those schemes have,
however, one point in common: the presence of an institution that defines clear
exploitation rights and creates the right incentives in order to avoid overuse. In other
words, the tragedy of the commons is the tragedy of open-access resources, not
necessarily the one for well managed CPRs.
5 Subsequent works expanded Ostrom’s insights. Being impossible to explore the details of
the overwhelming vast literature on the commons, we will focus here on three important
developments: (I) the study of institutional dynamics and the interplay between
institutions and shared values; (II) the linking of CPR literature with ecological analysis;
(III) the analysis of resource management on wider scales, including the global one.
6 I) The study of institutional dynamics investigates how institutional change is affected by
a number of factors including collaborative environmental management, i.e. based on the

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 3

attributes of the community called to solve collective action situations (e.g. Connors and
Dovers 2004; Marshall, 2005; Young, 2002). Since our paper basically adopt this approach,
will be discuss it in details later.
7 II) CPR management literature has recently developed in the direction of an increasing
relationship with ecological studies. This happened mainly through to the concept of
social-ecological system, an expression that emphasizes the linkages existing between
humans and the natural systems where they live. Social-ecological system literature
resulted in a wide number of theoretical an empirical works that studied a vast variety of
management practice cases from the point of view of their effects on ecosystem dynamics
and their capacity to learn from and to adapt to the feedback coming from the natural
environment. Particular attention is devoted to the application of concepts as
adaptability, resilience and robustness, first defined by the ecological science and pivotal
in explaining the evolution of complex systems (Berkes and Folke, 1998; Berkes et al.
2003; Gunderson and Holling, 2001). This field of inquiry currently represents one of the
most interesting new fields in the study of human-environment relationship.
8 III) Most of the theoretical work on large scale resources started only in the middle
Nineties as direct extension of small-scale CPR research, an approach that led to
emphasize the common aspects of the different levels of analysis (e.g. Buck, 1998;
Keohane and Levy, 1994). While this approach led to some immediate significant results,
it probably under-recognized the important differences linked with the scale increase
(especially when considering the global commons) in terms of heterogeneity of the
stakeholders, governance capabilities, and constitutional-choice institutional rules (e.g.
Paavola, 2008).
9 Especially significant for CPR research is the fact that, in the last 15 years, most studies
were conducted under a unified scientific scheme: the Institutional Analysis and
Development (IAD) framework (Ostrom et al., 1994, Chap. 2). The IAD framework is an
important research tool that highlights the basic elements to consider in a CPR study,
along with the relations among them (Fig. 2). The framework core is a conceptual unit,
the action arena, that includes actors interacting in a social space called action situation.
The characters of the actors and of the action situation define the arena, while the
interactions among individuals inside the arena produce the outcomes of the institutional
arrangement. Three classes of external factors affect the structure and the functioning of
action arenas: the states of physical world where actions are undertaken; the rules in use
by participants to order their interactions; the structure of the community where
participants act.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 4

Figure 2. The IAD framework

Ostrom et al., 1994, 37.

10 The irrigation systems represent a nice example of CPRs that were widely studied using
the IAD framework (e.g. Lam, 1998; Ostrom, 1992; Tang, 1992; Uphoff, 1986). An irrigation
system is actually composed by two different common resources: the channel(s) and the
water. Both resources cause (different) collective action problems to their users. The
channels pose mainly a provision problem since they need an adequate maintenance
whose cost are shared by the users. The water use triggers instead appropriation
problems, mainly linked to the division of water among the users and to the techniques
employed in order to monitor the respect of the water rights. Despite the difficult task of
managing two CPRs at the same time, many communities across the world actually
achieved this result. In most cases, this was done by building credible institutions, well
adapted to local physical and social conditions and able to create the right incentives in
order to push the users to respect the allocation rights and to contribute to the
maintenance of the common infrastructure (Ostrom, 1992; Tang, 1992). Without entering
the details, it is worth noting that the functioning of the CPR governing institutions are
indeed not only dependent from the physical attributes of the resource — e.g. the total
amount of water available, the construction material of the channels, etc. — but also from
the social characters of the community of users, i.e. the shared values and wordviews and
the existing network of social relations (Auer, 2006). The next section will explore the
interplay among those different elements by presenting different case studies of
irrigation systems located in Northern Italy. First, a comparative research on nine
irrigation systems of the Vallée d’Aoste will delineate the relationship existing between
the characters of the community of users, the rules employed in order to manage the
resource and the outcomes in terms of sustainable water use. Then, a study of a single
irrigation system located in the province of Brescia (Lombardy) will deepen the analysis
of the interplay between values, trust and institutional performance.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 5

Case studies
The Vallée d’Aoste cases

11 Notwithstanding the relative water abundance of the northern part of Italy, the Vallée
d’Aoste has an insufficient rainfall regime, with an average of 100 mm per year less than
the surrounding area. Furthermore, the rainfalls are mainly concentrated during the
Spring and the Autumn, with a very dry summer. Other meteorological and geological
characteristics of the territory, like the dry winds and the strong insolation of the
mountain southern sides, contribute to the relative aridity of the fields that need
intensive artificial irrigation in order to enhance their productivity. Lacking of natural
abundant rainfall, the inhabitants of the region have developed since the Middle Age a
widespread system of channels capting the water from the glaciers or from other sources
and distributing it in the fields. Notwithstanding the economic and technological
developments, most of the systems are still governed by users’ associations (consorzi).
The associations manage and maintain the centuries-old channels and often make
substantial improvements regarding the transportation and distribution techniques.
12 The research, conducted a few years ago using the IAD framework as underlying scheme,
covered nine irrigation systems located in different areas of the region. Its results will be
here only shortly presented since the reader interested in a deeper discussion of the cases
can find further data in Bravo (2002). The nine associations presented major differences
in terms of both the factors affecting the action arena and the outcomes of the
interaction process. Regarding the physical attributes of the resource, the associations
differed in terms of dimensions, water availability at the source and channel
characteristics (pipelines vs. open-air channels). The associations differed also with
respect to both the rules in use for managing water withdrawals and channel
maintenance and to the monitoring arrangements. Finally, the association presented
marked differences in community characters. With the expression “community
characters” we mainly refer to the interplay of two elements: the relationships (especially
mutual help relations) existing between users, and the presence of shared values, shared
knowledge and shared meanings regarding the different aspects of everyday life and
work.
13 The external context played also a significant role in influencing the association
performances. In the areas where the importance of agricultural practices strongly
declined due to the rise of tourism as main economic activity, most of the association
members have a main job outside agriculture and give little weight to irrigation
problems. On the other hand, in areas enjoying lower tourism development, agriculture
and especially animal husbandry maintain a significant economic significance.
Nevertheless, those areas often suffer from out-migration and from a consequent
increase of the average age of the population. Despite the significant weight that the
associations maintain in those areas, they often experience a reduction in membership
and, consequently, an increasing difficulty in paying the channel maintenance costs.
14 The main result of the research is that, besides the obvious fact that larger water
availability at the source helps in reaching an adequate level of irrigation of the plots, the
community represents a major factor that influences the outcomes of interaction in the
different action arenas and, consequently, the overall performance of the associations.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 6

Stronger communities have higher probabilities to solve the collective action problems
linked with water allocation and channel maintenance. This leads to better functioning
channels with lower water dispersion, to a greater respect of allocation rules and of water
rights, and to a consequent reduction of monitoring costs. On the other hand, having a
strong community represents a double-edge sword when the necessity of institutional
innovation arises, e.g. because of changes of some resource attributes and/or in the
external socio-economic con-test. A strong community can indeed help in overcoming
the collective action problems linked with the institutional change, a fact that actually
happened in some of the most successful among of the studied cases. Nevertheless,
excessively closed communities, with fundamentally backward looking values and
worldviews, tend instead to respond negatively to any innovation hypothesis. In this case,
the strength of the community represents a factor that goes against the association
interest. A similar situation was actually recorded in, at least, one of the analyzed
associations.

The Farfenga case

15 Farfenga is the name of a small-scale, self-governed irrigation association located in the

Brescia province. Brescia is the most extended province of Lombardy, an Italian region
that encompasses the Retican Alps. Although the relative abundance of the rainfall
regime of this zone (an average of 1050 mm per year), assurance about constant
availability of water is of primary importance for local farmers. At present, the Farfenga
association includes about 40 households who grow cereals for the food market and/or
for the livestock feeding needs. The majority of these farmers are over 50 years old, since
younger members are departing the community in large numbers, so the social reality as
a whole is aging. Most of the members are males who hold the land property or who rent
it.
16 The research found no substantial differences among the Farfenga community members
with respect to the main worldviews that frames social daily-life, according with a
common culture that comes from the rural tradition of Northern Italy. This implies the
respect of an implicit moral code, related to work relationships and mutual respect of a
hierarchy in the community, that privileges breadwinners as mouth of instances for the
whole household. Ancient farming tradition is extremely important also in influencing
irrigation practices, that in turn affect power relationships that transcend the irrigation
association itself, e.g. by reaching the local political level.
17 The decision-making process of the association presents no differences between the
members cultivating their own land and the tenants. Every three years, all the regular
members elect a formal board of representatives, which is responsible for the
management of the whole commons. The main goal for the association is the provision of
water for all the crop needs, along with the maintaining and the improvement of
transportation and distribution facilities. The association draws its water from natural
spring fountains that, at least in the past, were usually adequate to satisfy the irrigation
needs.
18 Due to the overuse of the groundwater sources and to the end of the traditional crop
rotation practices in favor of corn monoculture, the farmers have recently experienced a
significant reduction of water availability. Similarly to the Vallée d’Aoste cases, a number
of changes in the external context played a significant role in producing this outcome.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 7

The association was created at the beginning of the twentieth century, when crops were
combined and planted in rotation in order to maximize both soil fertility and yields.
Farmers traditionally paid consistent attention to the water channels, that were cleaned
monthly, and to the water patterns that were constantly monitored to make sure that
excess water flowed into underground cisterns for future use. However, a shift occurred
in the group’s vision of their commons when, about two decades ago, the European Union
started to subsidize corn. Following the resulting economic incentives, the association
ended rotation practices and turned to monoculture. Whereas natural springs and
streams had previously been sufficient for the irrigation needs, this new intensive
farming led to a severe scarcity of water for all farmers. Moreover, the scarcity has been
exacerbated by the incapacity of the association members to modify the existing
institutional schemes (and especially the water allocation rules) in order to adapt to the
new situation.
19 In this context, we conducted a research in order to analyze how the community
attributes are involved in the process of institutional construction and institutional
change for sustainable CPR management. According to Ostrom (2005), the main
community attributes affecting the action arenas are the values shared among users, the
level of common understanding that potential participants share (or do not share) about
the structure of particular types of action arenas, and the extent of preference
homogeneity among the community members. Our focus lays in the exploration of the
relationship among reputation, trust and reciprocity, considered here individual values,
and institutions, defined as the rules-in-use governing the resource. The research has
been conducted using the IAD Framework (Fig. 2) as underlying scheme and opting for a
qualitative method of data collection, which comprised in-depth interviews and the
submission of semantic differential to a large share of the community members, including
the association board members. We found that there is a strong relationship between the
level of consciousness of the risk of overexploitation, the sensitivity for resource
preservation, and the willingness to restrict water access during the dryer season. More
generally, community members appear to be able to cope with scarcity only when they
recognized the need to limit self-interest in the name of common goals.
20 A fundamental variable in the analysis is trust, both at the individual and at the group
level. Especially important is the level of trust that the association members experiment
toward the institution, i.e. independently from personal trust shared among its individual
members. Trust develops only when the institution is preserved from the individual
attempts to exploit it for private benefit, e.g. by manipulating the rules that govern the
water rotation system and the irrigation time. In addition, we found that a widespread
level of positive reputation is needed in order to sustain the trust network, especially in
difficult times or in times of change (e.g. the shift from crop rotation to monoculture). By
conducting a cluster analysis on our data, we found that three subgroups exist inside the
community. They are mainly linked with different level of education and, more generally,
with different capability to adopt long-term view of the purpose of the irrigation practice.
The main result of the research is hence that, in order to achieve a sustainability of the
institutional performance over time, the existence of a willingness to reciprocate among
members and the subgroups is essential. However, reciprocity establishes mainly thanks
to reputation, values and practices that spread mutual trustworthiness among all
community members.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 8

Discussion
21 The main goal of the paper, besides presenting the CPR theory and its application to
irrigation systems, is to show the role that different social mechanisms play in
influencing institutional performance for commons management. In our empirical
analysis, we found a positive relationship between the achievement of sustainability of
the institutional arrangement and the presence of a widespread body of shared values
among community’s members, which allows the groups to overcome the management
limitations due to the underlying commons dilemma. Consistently with our study, a
growing body of literature (e.g. Ostrom, 1990, 1998, 1999, 2005; Ostrom and Ahn, 2008) has
recently shown that a successful CPR management implies an institutional construction
able to take adequately into account, among the community attributes, the values shared
among the resource users. Those values are indeed the vehicle of collective learning and
the foundations of social order inside the community of users, as well as instruments of
consciousness regarding the necessary institutional adaptation and flexibility.
22 Crafting institutions for governing irrigation systems is challenging and requires skills in
understanding how rules produce incentives and outcomes when combined with specific
physical, economic and cultural environments. According to Ostrom (1990) and Uphoff
(1986), there is no “one best way” to organize irrigation activities, because rules
governing the supply and use of any particular physical system must be devised, tried and
modified over time. It is hence necessary to invest considerable time and resources in
learning more about how various institutional rules affect the users’ behavior. When
institutions are well crafted, opportunism is substantially reduced. The temptations
involved in free riding, rent seeking and corruption can never be totally purged, but
institutions can be devised in order to hold those factors under control (Ostrom, 1992). In
order to decrease opportunistic behavior, coordination activities such as monitoring and
sanctioning may have to be increased. Lack of monitoring and sanctioning, unfair
monitoring cost share and expensive arrangements for conflict resolution can all
undermine the complex system of mutual expectations and commitments (Ostrom and
Walker, 2003).
23 The costs of monitoring and sanctioning activities necessary to eradicate opportunistic
behaviors are often not affordable for local communities of users, because controlling
opportunistic behaviors involves both a reduction of “free-riding temptations” and a high
likelihood of being discovered when transgressing a rule. In this process, common values
and shared norms can make the difference, thanks to the establishment of internal
commitment and punishment that push the actors to respect the rules in use and hence
reduce the monitoring and sanctioning costs. Irrigation systems should hence devise
workable procedures for the monitoring of the behavior of water suppliers and users, for
the sanctioning of non-conforming behavior and for conflict-resolution. Where
substantial temptation exists to engage in opportunistic behavior, no set of rules will be
self-enforcing (V. Ostrom, 1980). However, our research found that the existence of a
common set of values is extremely useful in increasing the institutional performance and
in controlling free-ride behaviors. It is relatively easy to include this new variable in the
IAD Framework thanks to the concept of social capital. Social capital is a concept
encompassing those cultural, social and institutional aspects of a given community that
jointly affect its capacity to deal with collective-action problems. Alternatively, it can be

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 9

viewed as an attribute of individuals that enhances their ability to solve collective action
problems (Ostrom and Ahn, 2008). Social capital is usually the product of a past history of
tight relationships and little social capital exists when large numbers of heterogeneous
individuals act in an unknown situation.
24 A final point which is important to recognize is that genuine trustworthiness, i.e. the
individual preferences consistent with conditional cooperation, is an independent and
nonreducible reason for explaining how communities achieve collective action
compliance. Among the variable involved, the one that creates the strongest links
between social capital and collective action is trust. Trust is enhanced when individuals
are trustworthy, are networked with one another and act within institutions that reward
honest behaviors (Marshall, 2005). In accordance with Ostrom (1998), our findings suggest
that in addition to learning instrumental heuristics, individuals learn how to adopt and
use norms and rules from the group. Our results give also support Ostrom (1998, 1999)
idea of a core relationship existing among trust, reputation and reciprocity. We found
indeed that those factors are dependent from the community past experiences and from
the capacity of its members to recognize a major common interest in preserving the
resource. Once in place, those factors enhance in turn the capacity of a community to
govern its commons and, especially, to foster the neverending process of institutional
adaptation necessary for a long term sustainable management of natural resources (see
Berkes et al., 2003).

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ABSTRACTS
Common-pool resources are natural or man-made resources shared among different users, a
condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often (although not
necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. This paper shortly discusses the
"theory of the commons", as developed in the last 20 years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues,
and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems in Northern
Italy (Lombardy and Aosta Valley). We show that that different social mechanisms, like the
shared values e the social network existing inside the community of users, play a significant role
in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes for the commons management.

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 Irrigation systems as common-pool resources 11

Les ressources communes sont des ressources naturelles ou artificielles partagées par différents
utilisateurs ; l’exploitation de ces ressources crée une rivalité, souvent (mais pas nécessairement)
à l’origine de leur dégradation, voire de leur destruction. Cet article présente brièvement la
théorie des ressources communes développée ces vingt dernières années par Elinor Ostrom et ses
collègues, et l’illustre par plusieurs études de cas de systèmes d’irrigation du nord de l’Italie
(Lombardie et Vallée d’Aoste). Il démontre que différents mécanismes sociaux, tels que les
valeurs partagées et le réseau social existant au sein de la communauté d’utilisateurs, influent
sensiblement sur l’efficacité des systèmes institutionnels de gestion des ressources communes.

INDEX
Geographical index: Aosta, Brescia, Italy, Lombardy
Mots-clés: irrigation, mécanismes sociaux, ressources communes, valeurs partagées
Keywords: common-pool resources, irrigation, shared values, social mechanisms

AUTHORS
GIANGIACOMO BRAVO
Dipartimento di Studi Sociali, Università degli Studi di Brescia.
[email protected]

BEATRICE MARELLI
Dipartimento di Studi Sociali, Università degli Studi di Brescia.
[email protected]

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