1.
Commoning Water
Experiential Learning Tools to Strengthen
Water Governance
Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Pratiti Priyadarshini, Subrata Singh,
Rajesh Mittal, and Thomas Falk
Wednesdays for Water Forum
1700-1815 IST, November 23, 2022

2.
Water as Commons
Water as commons:
• One person’s use reduces availability for others
• Low excludability, boundaries difficult to establish
• Fugitive resource—hard to see where it goes
Further challenges of groundwater:
• Low visibility
• Lack of understanding of resource dynamics
• Lots of disbursed users
• Difficult to identify aquifer boundaries, esp. in hard rock
• “Traditional knowledge” insufficient with rapidly developing
pumping technology
• State regulation not enough
Need for collective action to manage the resource

3.
Community Water Management
• Technical tools to improve understanding of water resources, but what
motivation to use them?
• Community water management programs often not sustained
• Social innovations
• From “teaching” to “social learning”

4.
Experiential Learning
Can games be used to strengthen collective resource management?
• Offer safe environment to experience
shared challenge
• Simulate several seasons in short time
• Encourage discussion of situation
• Try different institutional arrangements
(Rules)
• Shape “mental models” and
understanding of relationships
(biophysical and social)
Requires understanding of behavior

5.
Games +
Tools
Community
Rules
(Surface & GW)
Groundwater
Use
Groundwater
Levels
Prices
Government
Policy
Watershed
Management
Programs Maintenance
of Surface
Structures
Groundwater
Recharge
Rainfall
Community
Understanding

6.
Groundwater Game
• Groups of 5 men or women (separately)
• Choose crop
• A takes 1 unit water, gives 2 units money
• B takes 2 units water, gives 3 units money
• 2 units (total) for domestic water
• 7 units recharge
• See effect on water table over multiple “years”
• First set of rounds: no communication, individual
choice
• Second set of rounds: communication allowed

7.
Community Debriefing
• Full village invited
• Basics of game described
• Share general game results
• No specifics about individuals
• Small group discussions led by game
participants
• Engage community in discussions
about:
 How this relates to own
experiences and challenges
farming
 Lessons and insights participants
gained from the experience
 Possible solutions

8.
How can
games and
debriefing
influence
behavior?

9.
• Players individually decide on
contributions to dam
maintenance;
• Benefits from dam depend on
total investment of all group
members;
• Dam benefit equally
distributed amongst all
players; OR in sequential order
• Community debriefing.
Net return per
ha in INR
Water requirement per
ha in cum
Wheat 15000 5500
Gram 13000 3000
Surface Water Game

10.
Outcomes of Games
Game States Year # habitations Outcomes
Groundwater
pilot
Andhra Pradesh 2013,
2014
17 Some effect on attitudes
Communities more likely to adopt water registers &
rules for groundwater *
Surface water Rajasthan
Madhya Pradesh
2016
2017
30
60
Communities more likely brought swelling water
conflicts to the table and engaged in dam
maintenance activities *
Groundwater
expansion
Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh,
Andhra Pradesh
2014-
2019
214 Total 3747 farmers adopted less water consumptive
crops or varieties and irrigation scheduling to save
water**
*Compared to randomly selected control communities where game has no been played
**Compared to farmers’ reported behavior, prior to the games
Taken from India to Ethiopia and Ghana starting in 2021

11.
Importance of Follow-up Tools
Download from https://cwb.fes.org.in/ Download from https://det.fes.org.in

12.
538
774
300
244
307
99
258
214
627
1062
464
404
395
152
350
405
89
288
165
159
88
53
92
191
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Intercrops (Wheat, Jowar etc.), Mandal, Bhilwara
Wheat, Mandal, Bhilwara
Cotton- CWB, Yavatmal
Cotton+Redgram- CWB, Yavatmal
Wheat- CWB, Yavatmal
Gram- CWB, Yavatmal
Jowar- CWB, Yavatmal
Tomato, Chittoor
Water Used & saved (Litre/ Kg of Prodcue)
Locations
&
Crops
Water Used Before and After Crop Water Budgeting
Rabi - 2019-20
Water Saved
Water used Before CWB
Water used After CWB

13.
Scaling up Experiential Learning Tools
for Sustainable Water Governance in
India
Improve the capacities of 3,500 rural communities
covering 245,000 households directly and in partnership
with other NGOs and Government in six Indian states to
manage water more sustainably.

14.
Resources
• Project website: https://www.ifpri.org/project/scaling-experiential-
learning-tools-sustainable-water-governance-india
• Commoning the Commons: A Sourcebook to Strengthen
Management and Governance of Water as Commons
https://fes.org.in/resources/sourcebooks,manuals,atlases-&-
ecoprofiles/manuals/strengthening_governance_and_management
_of_water_as_commons.pdf
• Meinzen-Dick, R., M. Janssen, S. Kandikuppa, R. Chaturvedi, K. Rao
and S. Theis. 2018. Playing Games to Save Water: Collective Action
Games for Groundwater Management in Andhra Pradesh, India.
World Development 107(July):40-53.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1830
0445
• Falk, T., Kumar, S., Srigiri, S., 2019. Experimental games for
developing institutional capacity to manage common water
infrastructure in India, Agricultural Water Management. 221: 260–
269
• HTTP://GAMESFORSUSTAINABILITY.ORG/PRACTITIONERS/
• http://g amesforsustainability.org/2015/12/05/groundwater-
game-for-practitioners/
• https://gamesforsustainability.org/practitioners/#game-on-
managing-check-dams

15.
Thank you