Variables that contribute to the success of watershed organizations: analysis of past efforts in developing nations with an application in the Mexican portion of the upper San Pedro River basin

Abstract

At an international level, the management of water resources has become a highly contested topic. It is important to take into account this current need for efficient water resource use and management to protect future surface and groundwater supplies. Also, it is particularly important to consider that public participation should be implicit within such issues, especially when it is the public that is impacted by decisions. As in the case of emerging water resource management schemes such as IWRM, public participation is manifested as watershed organizations. Within developing nations such as Mexico, both watershed organizations and IWRM are important when consider water resource management. With this in mind, this thesis proposes to examine successful developing nation watershed organization variables and then apply what is learned to a specific case study. It presents a systematic and comprehensive review of the empirical literature from 1988 to 2004 and extracts case study examples from developing nations with the intent to create a model of a "successful" watershed organization. Statistical processes were used to analyze the developing nation watershed organization variables to develop a model. Also, the developing nation watershed organization model produced will be compared to the Mexican portion of the Upper San Pedro River Basin case study, ARASA. To complete this portion of the analysis, ethnographic methods were employed to produce an organizational profile and timeline.