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Resolving the scale incompatibility dilemma in river basin management
Author(s) -
Perry Jim,
Easter K. William
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2003wr002882
Subject(s) - dilemma , drainage basin , structural basin , transaction cost , water resources , interbasin transfer , bridge (graph theory) , scale (ratio) , environmental resource management , resource (disambiguation) , state (computer science) , water resource management , environmental planning , business , environmental science , geography , computer science , geology , mathematics , finance , geometry , cartography , medicine , paleontology , ecology , computer network , algorithm , biology
This study illustrates how integrated river basin management can conflict with our increased emphasis on decentralizing water resources decision making. For over a decade, water and environmental decision making in many countries has been shifting from national levels to state/province and local levels. At the same time we have increasingly found that it is critical to consider how individual water resource decisions impact the river basin. We provide detailed examples of this incompatibility dilemma from the United States and Turkey as well as smaller examples from Japan and Macedonia. We argue that new institutional models are required for effective river basin management and that implementation of such models can be evaluated through the use of transaction costs. This study concludes with examples of institutional arrangements that can help bridge the incompatibility gap.