Understanding a Common Pool Resource: A Conversation about Water and Policy

Photo by Sean Fleming
Dr. Ramiro Berardo of the School of Government and Public Policy talks with Sean Fleming, Student Science Journalist
Dr. Ramiro Berardo studies how people manage their water resources without government involvement or privatization. An Argentine by birth, he can often be found in his office sipping the national beverage, maté.
I notice that you’re drinking maté.
Yes, it’s basically tea. It has a very strong flavor, and you’ll walk on walls because it has so much caffeine.
Back in Argentina, how did you become interested in political science?
As a teenager I read a lot about politics and engaged in many political discussions with my classmates. I moved from my small town of Río Cuarto to the city of Córdoba to attend university. When I graduated, I had a marked tendency to do research. In 2001 I got a Fulbright scholarship, so I went to Florida State to get my Ph.D. in political science.
How do you find the political differences between Argentina and the U.S.?
Even though some people might call the U.S. an endangered democracy, given the growing power of lobbyists and corporations, I’m always surprised at its resilience. I was shocked that people actually call their representatives when they want to talk to them. In Argentina those practices are nonexistent. The first time I went to a public meeting in Tucson, I was surprised at how civil the discussions were between city officials and citizens. In Argentina many of us are of Spanish and Italian descent, and I feel we have it in our blood to be much more argumentative.
How do you think Tucson is handling its water supply?
The institutions in place are very good at preserving the water we have, even though we use a lot of it. We don’t have much rain, however, and the aquifer’s water level has gone down. Unless we put back what we consume, I don’t see how Arizona can keep expanding at current rates. It’s a political battle. Voters judge politicians by how they create jobs, so politicians tend to think in the short term. They’re very responsive to pressure from voters, but they won’t do anything without a critical mass of support for changes to water policy.
Will we ever reach a critical mass of support for water policy?
Policy—big policy—is enacted when there’s a crisis. [Political scientist] John Kingdon talks about these “windows of opportunity” that open. The planets have to align almost perfectly. For water, critical events almost always include droughts, which tend to affect only a small number of people. When the drought is over, people forget about the problem. I’m a pessimist in that sense. I don’t think things will change unless we have something that unites us. It’s the policy game.
How does the water policy here compare with the policy in Argentina?
Oh, it’s light years away. In the U.S. there are regulations on a national level, such as the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act. Those arose from crises in the 1960s, when the environmental movement was gaining steam. We didn’t have any galvanizing events in Argentina. There’s only weak regulation. The arsenic level in the water of my hometown is five times the amount allowed in the U.S.
What is the problem with how we use our water?
Water is a common pool resource. Imagine that you have a lake, and anyone can access it. If I do something that pollutes the lake, I extract all the benefit because I disposed of my waste. Everyone shares the cost, however, because all the users of the lake now have unclean water. Users act in their own self-interest, so the quality of the resource is compromised. This problem is found in many other resources, such as deforestation in the Amazon.
What are possible solutions?
You can privatize the resource so only the owner can use it. Or you could have a governmental authority that patrols and monitors the resource, but that’s expensive. You’d have to hire a lot of people. Or you could give power to the users themselves. This is more successful because the local users are interested in preserving their resource. In Maine, fishermen have their own informal rules to protect their resources. When they find a lobster with high reproductive capacity, they put a “V” on the tail and toss it back in the ocean. When other fishermen see the “V,” they won’t catch the lobster because they know it’s needed to maintain the population.
What are the next steps in your research?
I’m studying the water management of a river that flows through Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. It’s home to a species of fish called the sabalo. Irrigation canals in Argentina and Paraguay pump so much water from the river that the sabalo can’t swim upstream to Bolivia, where indigenous people depend on the fish. This threat to their livelihood has created political conflict that sometimes involves violence. I hope to find out what these countries are doing to fix this problem and evaluate whether their proposed solutions are sufficient to effectively protect the resource. If not, I hope to say something about what needs to be done.