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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:52:53am WEST

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Daily Overview

Session

Water 3
Location: B129
Session Chair: Lennart Georg Vogelsang, AFRY Austria GmbH

Presentation 2

Incentives and Local Governance in Shared Watershed and Irrigation Management: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Ethiopia

Gebreegziabher Fentahun Gugsa^1,2, Gebretsadik Teshager Siltanu¹, Goytom Abraha Kahsay¹, Dagim Belay¹, Zewdu Berhanie Ayele², Carsten Smith-Hall¹

1: Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 25, DK-1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark; 2: Department of Agricultural Economics, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Discussant: Lennart Georg Vogelsang (AFRY Austria GmbH)

In a changing climate, water scarcity has emerged as a major constraint on agricultural production worldwide, threatening the livelihoods of billions of people. Without effective institutions to coordinate individual use of shared water resources, this may exacerbate existing food security challenges and intensify resource use conflicts. Using a randomized lab-in-the-field experiment, we examine how financial compensation and joint water governance institutions affect cooperation and water extraction in an upstream–downstream irrigation game. We find that compensation alone does not increase cooperation. However, the combination of compensation and joint local water governance strengthens cooperation, enhances earnings from water extraction for both upstream and downstream users, and promotes more equitable water allocation. Adding enforcement mechanisms to compensation and local governance also strengthens cooperation. These results suggest that financial incentives (compensation) alone are insufficient to promote cooperation in watershed and irrigation management, whereas combining compensation with effective local water governance systems significantly enhances farmers’ cooperation and improves equity in irrigation water distribution.