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Expansión urbana e intensificación agrícola en el uso del suelo y agua en la región de Texcoco, estado de México
... 12 In addition to the cases reviewed in table 1 also González Rodrigo 1993 pp. 60-63, Martínez Lacy 1998 personal communication on Atotonilco, Morelos. 13 Palerm Viqueira 1993, González Rodrigo 1993, Zaldívar 1998, Lane 1994 14 Cuautla river case study (see table 1). 15 Sharing of available irrigation water (water prorate) and equity considerations are also found --according to Velasco 2000--in official government documents: SRH 1973 Normas para la aplicación del artículo 60 de la Ley federal de Aguas, Instructivo técnico número 30, Dirección General de Distritos de Riego, México --as Velasco 2000 states: "En los Distritos de Riego un primer criterio es hacer la distribución en forma proporcional ... el método es igualitario pero no equitativo ... Un segundo criterio basado en el aspecto de equidad es el que utiliza la curva de usuarios, proedimiento usuado en México desde muchos años atrás y que pretende garantizar que los que menos tienen (en tierra y agua) sean los menos afectados. ...
"Based on a nucleus of 8 in depth case studies with a common methodology (research done by the Colegio de Postgraduados research team and financed by CONACYT) and complemented with other studies that other information about self-management capacities in the administration of irrigation systems, we have a data base of about 20 cases that comprise different Mexican regions, community and multi-community situations, that present efficacy and inefficacy, with irrigated surfaces that go from 10 to 10,000 hectares. All of them comprise situations of non administration by the State, and one case of recent transfer of operation to the irrigators. "In Mexico, not withstanding the millenary tradition of irrigation there are no (or very few) long date irrigation organizations, this is due to (1) the concentration of land and water by the haciendas, and later the break with the Mexican agrarian reform, that created a multitude of new users; (2) the large irrigation systems constructed by the State in the 20th century were from the start operated by a State bureaucracy (so called Irrigation Districts) as they were largely constructed in non populated areas; and (3) the expansion of State operation in 'old' irrigated areas (1950 and 1960) and the State intervention in 'organizing' the irrigators of 'old' irrigated areas (1970 and 1980). "State intervention probably had a good sounding as there is a reported high rate of non use of new infrastructure (up to 75%!). This situation is a good indicative of the difficulties of starting operation of irrigation systems where irrigation is new, in contrast to the organizational capacity in places were irrigation is traditional. "Even so, and based on our 'data base' we find an impressive capacity in self-management; taking the case of strategies followed in situations of water shortage, we find a consistency in the type of organizational strategies, avoiding the alternative of physical violence and contraction of number of irrigators. "The organizational strategies to face water shortage are not formalized in written documents, but, and perhaps more important, they are agreements to which the irrigation community has arrived at. "The are two relevant aspects I wish to point out, the existence of mechanisms to re-assign irrigation water and to use irrigation water with efficacy avoiding the market (lending, preference to crops in danger, sharing between years, and others) and equity mechanisms (such as giving 'complete' water to those with less land)."
A systematic comparison of in-depth case studies of self-organisation for the administration, maintenance and construction of irrigation systems seems to offer interesting and suggestive results in terms of gaining familiarity with and analysing the capacity for self-organisation, as well as for discovering and classifying different organisational responses to similar types of problems. This presentation deals with our findings concerning typical responses in situations of water scarcity. The presentation begins with a discussion of the methodological basis used in the case studies of self-managed irrigation systems. This is followed by a review of background information on the capacity for self-organisation in the context of irrigation systems in Mexico. We then present our findings on organisational responses to water distribution in situations of scarcity. The paper closes with an evaluation of what occurs when no such organisational response is forthcoming.
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