A tragedy of the commons or a tragedy of management?

In the first blog, Introduction, we looked at Hardin's (1968) theory, the Tragedy of the commons. As a scope for hydro politics, this is an interesting theory for looking at water crisis as an example of overuse by the commons. In this blog, we'll look at this theory, and its potential applications and criticisms on the case studies of the previous blogs.

However, there are schools of academic thought which disagree with this, arguing both for water crises being a matter of poor 'top down' governmental management or poor interaction of regulation with population use, rather than simply a communal ownership of water supply. So, in this blog, we will be looking at whether the tragedy of the commons can be used as an accurate scope for water crises, as well as which other factors may impact hydro politics.

What is the tragedy of the commons? 

This is listed in greater depth in the Introduction blog, but the Tragedy of the commons essentially argues that all individuals within a population are trying to reap the greatest reward from a communal resource, which eventually leads to depletion of the source, as the average usage and population size increase (Hardin 1968).

Where is this true in African water management? 

Water sources are commonly communal resources, so the tragedy of the commons can be widely applied to many of the African water crises, ranging from the Nile through to Lake Chad. The most suitable application however is on a topic discussed in the previous blog series about the drought crisis in Cape Town. The comparison was first made by a Prindle article (2018), but we further developed this idea through examining how it was partially excessive commons water use (920 million litres per day) which led to the drought crisis in Cape Town, but also commons action in the form of water saving, which saved the city from the crisis. The mass action of the population to reduce water consumption to 480 million litres per day demonstrated the power of commons action, in depleting sources through excessive use, but also cutting usage when supply was low.

A poster on a Cape Town subway during the 2018 drought. (Credit: Responsible Cape Town 2018)

One could also point to the Nile as an example of riparian states acting as a 'commons' by aiming to maximise their use of a shared resource to their nation's benefit (Johnston 2009). In short, the theory is highly applicable to water politics as often water sources are communal in usage, and in topics such as 

riparian state conflict, disproportionate use as part of a tragedy of the commons type scenario, is often used as a comparison. However, some academics disagree with this, arguing that this over simplifies political water management.

The counter argument

The academic counter to this argument, such as by Mehta (2014) is that water crises have less to do with the commons and more to do with political management and distribution networks. Given as it is human nature to try and maximise productivity, there should be a greater emphasis on management to provide the supply for increasing use under population growth and development, rather than putting responsibility upon populations for using excessive amounts of water. As described in Besada and Werner's (2013) paper, the UNDP and UNEP, as well as the New Partnership for African Development, are working together to provide mitigatory infrastructure against water crises. By removing emphasis on population (or commons) use and instead increasing supply and protection of resources, water crises can be averted and political management can control water supply through infrastructure and preventative policy. 

This example can be applied to the case studies of the commons in Africa. For example, if we look at the Cape Town water crisis, one could argue that if municipal governments had better improved water infrastructure (along with the recommendations of local hydrologists), the crisis which ended up being a matter of the commons could have been drastically reduced in severity. 

So, the counter to the Tragedy of the commons argument for African water crises is that issues of excessive communal water use could better be prevented by political management, through increasing supply, protecting infrastructure and implementing policy. 

How about both!

Frustratingly as ever within academic arguments, the answer lies somewhere in between the two sides. Particularly within Africa, hydropolitics is an intricate mix of changing populations and complex political systems. This is what Anabo (2013) argued, in accepting that the Tragedy of the commons is very often a valid application in part, yet to attribute water crises to being matters of communal use would be to imply a lack of coercive population policy and an unregulated commons were the root cause of water crises, which is not true. In reality, it is often a combination of inadequate regulatory and infrastructural development alongside excessive use which leads to water insecurity in a region, and then tightened coercive policy and communal action which averts the crises.

 If you have read the second blog on Cape Town, Navigating a drought crisis, you will know that it was a combination of commons action (hose pipe bans, toilet flush reductions, personal use restrictions) alongside government action such as extensive drilling and tightened water policy which averted the crisis. The Commons and political management are inextricably linked - policy changes the way the commons interacts with water sources, and the commons influences the levels of usage and demands for policy makers to meet. So, in the event of a water crisis, it is more often than not a tragedy of interaction between the two than one cause. 

Thanks for reading The Politics of Water, next blog we will be examining the hydro political crisis in Lake Chad, see you then!