Escaping the trap of short-termism to take the Nexus approach:

Exiting from the water crisis in Iran

S. Jalaleddin MirnezamiPhD Researcher at Tarbiat Modares University

j.mirnezami@outlook.com

Workshop A2: Unsustainable Pathways and Leverage Points

Understanding the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

https://www.wef.uni-osnabrueck.de/

OSNABRÜCK, Germany

15/06/2016 1

Groundwater depletion in Iran

2(Source: National report)

Groundwater crisis in Iran

• Population growth

• National policies

• Oil-economy

• Technology

Driver

• Overexploitation of water resources

• Land use change

Pressure• Degradation and

depletion of water resources

State

• Dried regions

• Forced migration

• Land subsidence

Impact

3

Question:Why the critical trend is still going on while the users and the government are aware of the crisis?!

4

Context of water conservation (CIT)

Water Users

CognitionMotivationResource

Administrator

CognitionMotivationResource

Target Implementer

process

Specific Context

Structural Context

Wider Context

• Problem context• Political context• Economic

context• Cultural context• Technological

context

Governance• Scales and levels• Actors and

networks• Problem

perspective and goal ambitions

• Strategies and instruments

• Resources and responsibilities

Property rights

• Previous decisions

• Specific conditions

5(Source: de Boer and Bressers, 2011)

Internal contextExternal context

Data gathering

6

Sources of data Documents

Interview

Questionnaire

Governance structure (Issues)

• Top-down management• Too much distance between the levels

Scales and levels

• Conservation as a governmental affair• Conflicting interests between different

governmental organizations

Actors and networks

• Dealing with conservation as a project• Emphasis on regulative rules• Conflict in rules (changing rules)• Emphasis on efficiency instead of

productivity

Strategies and instruments

7

Governance structure (Issues)

• Misallocation of financial resources• No transparent mechanism for sharing

information between actors

Resources

• Lower priority of conservation in comparison with other problems

• Deep belief in the effectiveness of the obligatory approach

• Lack of comprehensive studies• Lack of required skills for

conservation processes• Unclear about the trade-off between

the water and food security• Unclear about the policy for

population size

Problem perspectives

8

Actors’ Characteristics (Issues)

• Other actors (state) intervention and inadvertence has been the major problem

Cognition • Conservation as a responsibility of the government

Water users

• Low intention for conservation and instead high intention for coping with intensifying scarcity by irrigation system improvement

Administrators

• Controlling the water abstraction rate by installing smart metering devices and filling illegal wells

Motivation

• Lack of support from the other state actors and insufficient power for facing with unruly users

Resource • Lack of cooperation between users for conservation

9

Governance effect on actors

“Conservation of groundwater

resources in none of our business”

Water users:

“We know how to conserve, we just

need high power to enforce

conservation”

Administrators:

Trap of short-termism

10

Dynamics in the governance system

Implementation and evaluation

Develop operation goals and measures

Strategic goal setting and policy formulation

11(Source: Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013)

Escaping the trap

• What is the cost of fixing the monitoring and evaluation function to transform the governance structure?

12

Social and political process of conservation

Users’ behaviorMacro economic

settingGovernment’s

role

National and international

policies

Dilemma

• Transforming the governance (and beyond) or leaving it unchanged!?

Governance transformation

Insisting on the previous approach

13

Thank you

14