Water Management, Spanish Irrigation Communities and Colonial Engineers

Bibliographic Data

ID2285458
AuthorsSamuel Garrido (0000-0003-2321-0767, Department of Economics University Jaume I Avda. Sos Baynat, s/n 12071 Castellón Spain, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume14
Issue3
Pages400-418
Publication date2014-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/joac.12042
OpenAlexW1901061457
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited26

In the nineteenth century, Spanish irrigation was studied by a number of British and French engineers, who sought to acquire knowledge that could be applied to India and Algeria. In their reports, they said that Spanish irrigation communities were run by the irrigators themselves in a totally democratic way, which was not true. Although such ideas had hardly any practical consequences in colonial India and Algeria, they did have important repercussions in Spain, where the irrigation institutions came to resemble the image they had been given by the reporters, with the best results. Through the work of Elinor Ostrom, the myth created by the nineteenth-century reporters has also eventually become an argument in favour of irrigation projects in today's developing countries being managed by water users' associations

Argument (complex analysis · Colonialism · Democracy · Economic growth · Economics · Irrigation · Irrigation management · Mythology · Political science · Water resource management · Work (physics · Engineering · Environmental Science · History · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Water management and technologies · Water resources management and optimization · Ecology

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