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Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233 – 245
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SPECIAL ISSUE
SOCIAL PROCESSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL VALUATION
The social construction of scarcity. The case of water in
Tenerife (Canary Islands)
Federico Aguilera-Klink *,1, Eduardo Pérez-Moriana 2, Juan Sánchez-Garcı́a
Department of Applied Economics, Uni6ersity of La Laguna, Campus Guajara, Camino La Hornera s/n, 38071 La Laguna,
Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
Abstract
Water has traditionally been considered a physically scarce resource in the Canary Islands. Paradoxically, one of
the reasons behind the conquest of the Islands in the 15th century was the existence of abundant water which allowed
sugar to be grown in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. This article aims to show that the water scarcity in Tenerife is not
physical or natural, but rather a socially constructed one, stemming from a set of social processes that reflect the
conflicts concerning the desirable kind of society and social order. These processes also consolidate the notion of
aquifer and water as a capital asset and commodity, as opposed to the notion of water as an ecosocial asset or
common property. The change in mentality with respect to water momentarily led to abundance, with availability
multiplying tenfold in less than a century and, at the same time, to the social construction of scarcity, given that the
groundwater aquifer was overexploited rapidly because successive changes in the institutional framework were
impeded which might have regulated water extraction. The overriding concern was to maintain private ownership of
water, even if this entailed eventual exhaustion. We study water shortage as the result of the articulation between the
natural system (aquifer) and the social system. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Water management; Social scarcity; Environmental valuation
The support of the funding received from DG XII of the European Commission under contract ENV4-CT96-0226 for the
project entitled ‘Social Processes for Environmental Valuation: Procedures and Institutions for Social Valuations of Natural Capital
in Environmental Conservation and Sustainability Policy (VALSE)’ is gratefully acknowledged, as are the helpful comments of
Martin O’Connor and the three journal referees.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34-922-317012/13; fax: +34-922-253742.
E-mail address: [email protected] (F. Aguilera-Klink).
1
Second E-mail address: [email protected].
2
Research assistant during the VALSE project.
0921-8009/00/$ - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 1 - 8 0 0 9 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 0 - 9
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F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
1. Introduction
It is customary for social scientists to speak of
natural resource shortage, which is self-evident if
one acknowledges that we live in a finite world.
For this reason, the approach we take seeks to
study and understand shortage not as a physical
statistic or as a point of departure, but rather as
the result of the articulation between the physical
and social systems, i.e. an arrival point. This
articulation can be understood in terms of coevolution (Norgaard, 1984), although it should be
noted that little mention has been made of the
fact that coevolution and coevolutionary development are not the same thing. Whereas coevolution
can lead to a more artificial and vulnerable physical (and by extension social) system, coevolutionary development would require constant and real
institutional change, one that translates into a
change in attitudes (thinking habits) and in conducts regarding the withdrawal, distribution and
use of water which would enable the social system
to be maintained and make it compatible with the
physical system.
Both options implicitly bring out the kind of
questions that need to be addressed if we are to
understand the articulation between the two systems. More specifically, in the case of the subject
under discussion here (water), we need to examine
in greater depth, among other issues, the understanding of the social processes related to the
perception of the causes of scarcity; the forms of
participation in the determination of the criteria
and institutions for water appropriation and use;
the distribution conflicts generated by the foregoing; knowledge of how the hydrologic cycle functions; the role of technologies which reduce water
scarcity; and the capacity to evaluate the implicit
technological risks of said technologies (such as
where desalination of brackish water from the sea
allows more sea water to enter and deteriorate
aquifers), etc. These are questions related in part
to scientific and technological knowledge and
partly also to power, that is, the social conflict
between the values and interests at stake, how this
conflict is addressed by society and how society,
in reaching a consensus, defines which problem is
socially and politically relevant and, lastly, what
society understands and accepts as a socially adequate solution.
In the case of Tenerife we endeavour to show
that, as compared to the widespread and widelyaccepted notion of the physical scarcity of water,
the notion of socially constructed scarcity is more
relevant and has greater explanatory power. To
do so, we will examine the social processes that
have led to the creation of this type of scarcity. In
the first part of the paper, we show the existence
of a constant social conflict over distribution,
arising out of the criteria used to appropriate and
then distribute surface water. These criteria favoured in particular those with some degree of
power, who from the 18th century onwards took
for themselves public and communal water, and
went unpunished in the process. In the second
part we examine the process of the privatisation
and exploitation of groundwater. This was done
using the ‘catchment’ rule and at the expense of
rapid exhaustion of surface water, so much so
that the documents from the 19th century speak
literally of drilling ‘fever’. Thirdly, we look at the
uncontrolled drilling of underground aquifers, a
process carried out under the formal umbrella of
numerous Water Laws, which in practice merely
sought to ensure that private ownership was
maintained. This was not always the result given
that more recognition was given to withdrawal
rights than to the groundwater aquifer’s recharge
and accumulation capacity. Although it is true
that groundwater availability did increase enormously, it was at the expense of a multiplication
of the number of drillings (many of which hardly
produced water), more expensive withdrawal
(competitive rather than cooperative drilling, due
to an intensification of the catchment rule) and
the continued depletion of the aquifer. Lastly, we
examine the importance of the valuation of the
social processes which form the notions of water
and water scarcity in order to complete the water
valuation exercise.
2. Tenerife water resources: the case study
Tenerife (Canary Islands) is a very mountainous island of volcanic origin, with recent erup-
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
tions (early this century). In spite of its small size
(2034 km2), it has a wide variety of local climates
which make for enormous variations in rainfall
(from 100 mm on the south coast to over 900 mm
in the highest northern and northeastern parts)
and the resulting difficulties in calculating the true
amount that filters down to the aquifer. Indeed,
experts from the Tenerife Water Council are just
now beginning to admit that the data used to
determine water balances are rather hazy as regards the levels of evapotranspiration and infiltration, as can be seen in Table 1. In just 5 years, the
calculations have had to be corrected by around
50%. Doubts also surround the amount of water
withdrawn from the aquifer. The reason is that
private water owners are against the Canarian
government’s plans to fit meters to measure withdrawal directly and the authorities are not strong
enough to enforce a mandatory meter scheme.
Tenerife’s current hydrologic system is made up
of a groundwater aquifer which is the remains of
a broader — surface and groundwater — system
that was ruined by constant overexploitation during the last century and the present one. Usable
recharge — the sum of natural infiltration plus
irrigation returns less natural coastal underground
run off — is less than the volume of withdrawals.
Hence, withdrawals more or less eat into reserves
and gradually lower the water table. The immediate result is a reduction in the volume of water
strikes (Tenerife Water Plan, 1993).
In Tenerife, the following phases in the hydrologic ‘cycle’ can be discerned:
“ Contributions to the aquifer. These include the
following direct and indirect sources: vertical
rain (some of which filters down into the
aquifer, some evaporates and some reaches the
Table 1
Water balance HM3/YRa
Year
Rain
Evapotranspiration
Infiltration
Runoff
1993
1998
865
606
239
20
865
480
365
20
a
Source: Tenerife Water Plan, 1993 and 1999 (personal
communication).
“
“
“
235
sea); horizontal rain, generated by trade-winds
in contact with vegetation (however, the true
amount involved does not figure in the water
balances because there is no precise evaluation
methodology); desalination of sea-water with
fossil energy; purification of urban waste water
for agricultural use.
The extraction of underground water. This is
done using wells and galleries (which are horizontal, although slightly sloped to allow gravity outlet of the water), or a combination of
both, such as when a horizontal gallery is
constructed at the bottom of wells. To give an
idea of the type of drilling, conventional galleries usually measure 3 km on average, but
many are in fact over 5 km long. The most
productive wells are between 170 and 300 m.
Tenerife is riddled with over a thousand horizontal galleries, totalling between them some
1620 km, and over 400 wells with a combined
depth of approximately 52 km.
The distribution of water. The main feature of
the distribution networks, both agricultural
and urban, is their extensive deterioration (with
some exceptions, such as the capital, Santa
Cruz de Tenerife), which causes considerable
water loss, in some cases over 50% of the
amount actually distributed.
Uses of water. Farming is the biggest consumer
of water, accounting for over 50% of the total
(109.2 Hm3 in 1991). Agriculture is a vital
sector both in terms of its repercussions on the
land and its cultural connotations. 46 000 Ha
are devoted to farming land, taken up for the
most part by irrigation crops for export (banana and tomatoes mainly). These crops account for over 50% of cropland. Household use
accounts for 30% (62.7 Hm3 in 1991), while
water consumption in the tourist areas is less
than 10% of the total (14.1 Hm3) (Tenerife
Water Plan, 1993). While water consumption
by the farm sector has been falling of late (due
to the low financial return of farming compared to other activities and, secondly, the
introduction of water-saving technologies in
new irrigation systems), both household consumption (due to population growth) and that
of the tourist areas (rise in the number of
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
236
Table 2
Water consumption in Tenerife, Projection 2000a
Consumption
Year 2000
Hm3
Non used resources
Variation (%)
1991–2000
(%)
2.6
1.21
−42.22
Losses in water
transfers
Agricultural use
11.1
5.16
−3.48
96.8
44.96
−11.36
Urban use
69.6
32.33
11.00
Tourism use
23.4
10.87
65.96
Industrial use
11.8
5.48
122.64
Total
a
215.3
10 000
3.86
Source: Tenerife Water Plan (1993).
holidaymakers) have increased in recent years.
The consumption levels forecast for the year
2000 by Tenerife’s Water Plan point to a considerable rise in urban and tourism use (Table
2):
The resident population in 1996 was some
690 000, to which one has to add the 2 993 084
tourists who between them spent over 25 million
nights on the island.
3. Appropriation and distribution of surface
water. Social conflicts and the strengthening of
the idea of private property
For a proper understanding of the process of
the social construction of scarcity, one first must
outline the historical context to show how current
values and interests have been shaped. The context which, without any doubt, has conditioned
water problems in the Canaries was Spanish society of the end of the late 18th and early 19th
centuries, one which underwent a major process
of transformation from the Ancien Regime to
Capitalism. The Ancien Regime was a state
regime — the monarchy — based on privilege
and in which the economic power held by the rich
rural minority allowed it to control (nominate)
political offices. However, for this ‘social order’ to
be maintained, social cohesion mechanisms (or
cushioning) were needed, first and foremost
among them common and public ownership of
water and land. Hence, although after the conquest of the Canaries (15th century) the Spanish
Crown distributed and granted (for private use
but without private ownership) water and land,
both with restrictions, a large proportion of these
waters and lands were common and public
heritage.
As is well known, although this property format allowed the Ancien Regime to be maintained,
it satisfied neither rich nor poor. It curtailed the
possibilities of the former to open new mercantile
activities and obtain greater profits — which were
restricted because of the limited availability of the
different types of property — and it imposed
difficult living conditions on the latter, in spite of
the existence of this more common form of
ownership.
It was against this backdrop that the ideas of
the Enlightenment gained ground. These may be
summed up as the glorification of private interests
as the sole motor and destiny of all economic
activity and the need for unrestricted competition
by economic and social agents as the most adequate form of allocating resources to social necessities. The application of these ideas required
institutional change, a break with the previous
institutional framework, and necessitated also the
shaping of content for a new one which would
allow free trade to enable the country to progress.
Here ‘progress’ means using (for crops) the lands
and waters not used commercially (common property) or in the hands of the church, and at the
same time making available to the State an important source of finance for public spending. For its
part, nature was viewed as a capital asset available for human exploitation (Harvey, 1996).
In the case of the Canaries, in addition to the
above, it is important to note the corresponding
economic incentive of export crops, which since
the Conquest had been one of the basic pillars of
the Canarian economy and society, and needed
new arable land and water for irrigation. Although much land was disentailed, the economic
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
and social results of the successive disentailments
(1836 and 1855) did not fulfil expectations (Ojeda,
1977). Indeed, one could say that property became more concentrated than before the process
and the situation of those who had neither water
nor land worsened considerably. The cushioning
mechanism that existed in the form of common
property had been eliminated. Besides, the rapid
collapse of some export crops in the Canaries
triggered the highest rate of emigration in the
region’s history (1835 – 1855), with many heading
for Cuba and Puerto Rico. Although surface water was initially allocated to the land on which it
fell, the challenging of the notion of property
(both public and common) encouraged owners of
land without water for irrigation to seek a means
of obtaining it. Here, following Nieto (1968), we
can distinguish two ways of appropriating surface
water.
The first was to ask municipal governments
with surplus water — once urban supply has been
guaranteed — for a concession, with a volume
similar to that of the surplus water. The problem
arose when these concessions were distorted by
those who obtained them and then claimed full
ownership of the water granted. According to
Nieto (1968), the mechanisms most commonly
used to generate this distortion were as follows:
(a) ‘to convert the concession of surpluses of
public water into private property encumbered
with an unavoidable obligation in favour of the
neighbours’, which is then disputed and denied;
(b) perversion of the original title ‘at the time of
its constitution by a real fiddling of concepts’; and
(c) perversion of the original title ‘as a consequence, in conclusion, of a phenomenon of hypostasis’. The previous mechanisms led to the
private appropriation of surface water usurping
the rights of use contained in the aforementioned
concessions.
The second was to buy at public auction disentailed lands with a given volume of surface water
allocation which was initially set according to
crop water needs. The philosophy underlying Disentailment was to challenge a social organisation
that was based on privilege and governed by the
power of large properties that barely created
‘commercial wealth’, and thus to allow those with
237
less power to create opportunities for economic
activities through exploitation of land and water.
The results obtained, however, were a far cry
from those initially sought because only the rich
were in a position to buy — or to take possession
of — water and land. Moreover, the situation
worsened for the majority due to the disappearance of common land and (surface) water which
they might have been able to use free of charge to
improve their lot.
Among the disentailed lands, forest areas were
sold off fraudulently by means of deliberately
false classification of the woods as uncultivated
land. This was the official response to the request
of certain sectors of Canarian society (Royal Economic Society of Friends of Las Palmas Area in
1868) who asked that forests should not switch to
private hands in the disentailment process: ‘‘The
destruction of trees without replanting will kill the
forests, this natural heritage of the air, water, land
and spontaneous production. Destroying the
forest destroys springs, humidity and fertility’’
(quoted by Ojeda, 1977). In a way this perception
reflects scientific knowledge of the environmental
functions performed by forests and also the need
to protect these functions for the benefit of society
in general and not just for a few private owners.
Since both ways were insufficient to meet the
growing agricultural needs arising out of the expansion of agriculture at the end of the 19th
century, a third way commenced, one involving
the private appropriation of groundwater.
4. Appropriation and distribution of groundwater.
From public and common property to ‘common
pool’
It should be noted that, as far back as 1873,
debate had already commenced among the Enlightened as to the consequences drilling for
groundwater would have for surface water
courses. In other words, concern arose for a better
understanding of the hydrologic cycle. The reason
for this was that with the passing of the Mines
Act of 1868, applications were being made for
mineral extraction licences, even though the minerals did not exist in the Canaries. The real aim
238
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
was to drill for groundwater. Within a short space
of time, 1000 applications for licences were filed in
Gran Canaria, thus opening the debate on the
relationship between surface water and groundwater, and also on the extension of existing rights over
surface water to groundwater. Documents of the
time speak literally of ‘water fever’ in describing
the situation. Behind this fever was a desire to
place Nature at man’s service and to use early
machinery to drill for groundwater. As a result, in
much disentailed land groundwater was appropriated, even though this represented a total lack of
regard for and usurpation of rights over surface
water.
It must be said that the extraction of groundwater did increase the volume of water available for
agricultural uses and encouraged an increase in
farm activity, although in doing so it caused the
disappearance (drying up) of public sources and
springs, i.e. of surface water. Thus, even if the
‘economic’ result is positive for those who withdrew groundwater and sold it to farmers, legally
speaking it is a second usurpation or ‘a real and
massive usurpation’ that entirely alters the ownership of water — some of which was also the result
of usurpation, as we saw above — and the previous owners of surface water were displaced by the
new water owners (Nieto, 1968; 106). Another
result was that most of the island’s springs dried up
and, although in the 18th century the entire population usually had enough water, in fact they were
forced to buy it from the ‘new owners’.
Water became consolidated — out of necessity,
albeit in a very favourable ideological context (the
Enlightenment) — as yet another commodity, and
the search for and extraction of groundwater became an important and risky (uncertain result)
activity at the end of the 19th and beginning of the
20th century. Once most of the surface water
courses had disappeared due to the spiralling
increase in underground drilling, which was favoured by the privatising philosophy of Disentailment, water became a private good and now had
to be taken from underground. This property right
was exercised only through extraction, applying
the catchment rule — i.e. if I don’t extract it,
someone else will — because there was only one
aquifer and there was great interdependence be-
tween the extractions. Waters that had been common and public property were thus transformed
into individual private property, but without
clearly-defined property rights (common pool)
since it was impossible to know: (a) whether the
drilling would hit water; (b) the volume of water
that could be withdrawn; and (c) the volume of
water that could be maintained over time. Hence
the beginnings of an all out ‘race’ or fever for water
withdrawal. Within a few years a situation of
physical scarcity (there was little water to satisfy
the needs created by the new commercial export
crops) was transformed into a situation of sociallyconditioned scarcity (explained by a given social
behaviour in the models of water withdrawal,
distribution and use).
This activity led to the eventual creation of
companies with capital to finance the purchase of
expensive steam-driven drilling machinery, in turn
leading to better knowledge of the hydrogeological
workings of the aquifer. However, the social conflict surrounding the legal appropriation of water —
or the unpunished usurpation thereof — has persisted until the present day, mainly because people
(a minority, it must be said) question how a
resource as badly needed as water could be owned
privately, can generate an impressive business including speculation in the sale of water and, besides, be tax-free. Still, this conflict did not deter
(‘willingness to play’) many from putting their
small savings (and frequently losing them, because
no water was found) in this new activity. There was
always the hope of finding a small water supply,
which would provide irrigation for a small plot and
would earn a fee when sold. A clear social perception existed that water owners were very powerful
and that, in an essentially agricultural economy, if
you did not have water and could not buy it,
emigration was the sole alternative.
Although the whole process was based on
usurpation, one of the chief worries of the ‘new
owners’ was how to obtain legal recognition (legitimacy) of the new property redefining the institutional capital.3 They did not find it too difficult
3
Stock of rules and underlying human organizational skills
which coordinate human behaviour in its interaction with
natural resources (Hanna, 1997).
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
to pressure the country’s lawmakers and thus
obtain the ‘acquired’ rights in the new laws affecting water (Water Act of 1866, Mines’ Act of 1868,
Water Act of 1879). Ultimately, once the hereditary, individualistic concept of underground water
was imposed, it led to permanent conflict over
rights between landowners and water withdrawers, to the detriment of ‘the stable economic content of the property’ and the social use of the
water. In the middle of the present century this
conflict (which was not an obstacle to the respective private interests in the Canaries) made it
necessary to draw up and apply regulations (1956
Landed Property Law — Heredamientos) to accommodate the conflicting interests of landowners
and water entrepreneurs. The accommodation
also served to deter untrustworthy public law
experts from exposing and denouncing the social
consequences of the system, including the potential for serious abuse on the part of the landowners and those withdrawing the water.
5. Uncontrolled drilling of the underground
aquifer: application to the full of the catchment
rule
Up until the end of the 19th century mining
fever dominated, with the following stages discernible in the exploitation of the aquifer (Tenerife Water Plan, 1989):
“ Stage 1: 1850–1910. Extraction of groundwater
begins, with 90% of galleries opened in areas
Table 3
Volume withdrawn (groundwater)a
Year
Volume (l/s)
Total km drilled
1930
1940
1950
1960
1965
1970
1980
1990
1998
1500
2000
4600
5600
7000
6300
5200
4700
4250
100
220
480
830
1.040
1.180
1.450
1.550
1.630
a
Source: Tenerife Water Council (personal communication).
239
with natural springs, resulting from hanging
aquifers. Many of these became exhausted.
“ Stage 2: 1910–1930. Galleries reach the aquifer
core. Slight lowering of water table. The island
becomes virtually dependent on groundwater.
“ Stage 3: 1930–1945. Exploitation of aquifer
core begins to affect volume of reserves. Water
table lowered by over 100 m in areas with
highest concentration of galleries.
“ Stage 4: 1945–1965. Gallery system for
groundwater extraction spreads throughout island. 90% of current galleries opened by 1965.
Extracted volume reaches 7000 l/s, compared
to 700 l/s for surface water in 19th century.
Sharp fall in water levels. Uppermost galleries
begin to dry up.
“ Stage 5: 1965–present day. Total extracted volume reaches ceiling, and constant fall of over
2000 l/s seen over last two decades (Table 3).
The problem is that the institutional framework
regulating surface water use was done away with
and replaced by one which, in practice, encourages open access to the aquifer. Moreover, to date
the various Water Acts have merely brought formal institutional change, but have not enriched
the institutional capital since they fail to acknowledge the existence of coevolution or coevolutionary development. Rather, they assume evolution
in the sense of a lack of real articulation between
the physical and social systems. The reason is that
although they regulate drillings (which required a
public concession and had to be physically separate in terms of space) and extractions, they maintained free access because, in practice, no control
is exercised over water withdrawals even today in
1999. Indeed, there are no public statistics showing how much is withdrawn by each well or
gallery.
In sum, throughout the history and management of Tenerife’s aquifer the maintenance of a
kind of institutional capital (and the ensuing incentives) has been assured and this has permitted
the transition from a situation of permanent potential water availability (sustainable aquifer management) to one of scarcity which is socially
determined in terms of aquifer depletion. The
combination of entrepreneurial risk-taking, innovative technological development in the physical
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
240
Table 4
Distribution of water ownership in La Isla Baja, Tenerife (1975)a
Amount of
shares
Owners
(%) (pi)
Shares
(%) (pi)
Owners
(%) (qi)
Shares
(%) (qi)
Accumulated
owners (%)
Accumulated
shares (%)
Less than 1
1–2
2–3
3–4
4–5
5–10
10–15
15–20
20–25
25–30
30–50
50–100
More than 100
S
18
165
112
87
43
117
51
32
10
8
18
9
6
676
8265
183 155
247 553
288 414
181 943
800 742
605 178
557 119
225 334
216 958
658 116
590 917
1183.85
5747.544
2.66
24.41
16.57
12.87
6.36
17.31
7.54
4.73
1.48
1.18
2.66
1.33
0.89
100.00
0.14
3.19
4.31
5.02
3.17
13.93
10.53
9.69
3.92
3.77
11.45
10.28
20.60
100.00
2.66
27.07
43.64
56.51
62.87
80.18
87.72
92.46
93.93
95.12
97.78
99.11
100.00
0.14
3.33
7.64
12.66
15.82
29.75
40.28
49.98
53.90
57.67
69.12
79.40
100.00
a
Source: Aguilera and Nunn (1989).
capital used and increases in the level of groundwater output capacity led groundwater resources
from a stage of socially determined surplus (complex water resource cycle) to one of full utilisation
in a relatively short period of time (simplification
of such complexity) (Hanna, 1997). This situation
can be illustrated in the following terms: low or
no-control over the levels of extraction of natural
capital; high rate of application of physical capital; and relatively undeveloped institutional capital for sustainable path management.
The social legitimisation of this water appropriation process is currently defended on grounds
that equal opportunities now exist for everyone
and water ownership is divided up extensively.
Although information in this respect is scant, a
sample obtained (Table 4) indicates that water
ownership is distributed very unequally, with a
handful of owners having much of the water and
a large number of small owners having very little.
This unequal distribution has very important implications for water control, since it indicates that
the handful of big owners have extensive powers
to: (a) fix prices; (b) fix the rules of the game with
respect to withdrawal; (c) establish the distribution conditions; (d) guide any rule changes; (e)
break the rules with impunity; and (f) influence
the dominant social perception of the water prob-
lem. In short, the major owners can be said to be
the holders of structural power.
The history of Tenerife’s water has thus been,
to borrow from Hanna’s terminology, a movement ‘‘from the stewardship needs of ecosystem
sustainability to the growth phase of frontier development; movement which has proceeded in the
presence of two powerful underlying tensions:
economy versus the environment and individual
versus the community’’. That movement has been
reinforced by a path dependence technology process (drilling and pumping technologies in the first
phase, with desalination and water treatment
technologies added in the second) and an evolution of property rights regimes, where those are
attained at the point of the resource capture and
where the decisions on resource use are made by
individuals who interact with other resource developers only through the depletion effect of the
aquifer (Goodstein, 1995; Hanna, 1997).
Physical evidence of the above-mentioned
movement can be seen in Tables 5 and 6.
The Tables show the evolution of the physical
yield of the volume of groundwater over the
period 1930–1998 and the percentage variation of
the number, physical returns, flows and drilled
meters of galleries and wells during the period
1973–1990 in Tenerife. We can see in Table 6
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
Table 5
Extracted volume (groundwater)a
Year
Physical yield (m3/day/km drilled)
1930
1940
1950
1960
1965
1970
1980
1990
1998
1269
769
811
571
569
452
303
257
221
a
Source: Tenerife Water Council (personal communication).
how the number of kilometres drilled has multiplied. The consequence of this massive drilling has
been not just a fall in the yield of the galleries and
wells, but also an alarming reduction in the
aquifer (in some places clearly irreversible). Available data on the evolution of underground extractions of water, both in galleries and in wells, as
well as the evolution of the springs (a natural
indicator of the state of the aquifer in as much as
springs function as aquifer regulators) corroborate the above statements. It can be seen that, in
the period observed, the choice made has been for
exploitation by wells. Given the state of the
aquifer this seems consistent as the coastal areas
are the least affected by over-exploitation. The
reduction in the yields is seen, however, in both
types of exploitation. It should be said also that
advances in techniques (pumping and drilling)
241
and the new technologies for desalinating brackish water have had very damaging effects on the
aquifer, as evidenced in wells where previously
exploitation would cease when the water quality
worsened as a result of intrusion by sea water
beyond certain limits (mainly the minimum quality required for irrigation use) but which are now
being exploited again thanks to the new technologies that help perpetuate the damage to the
aquifer (one single well contaminated by sea water
intrusion can lead to the contamination of an
entire and vast area). At present, the authorities
require a detailed study and compliance with certain minimum water quality conditions before
they will grant a licence for a brackish water
desalination installation at the bottom of a well.
Very often, however, the authorities are unable to
exercise control due to resistance by the well
owners. As a result, situations that are disastrous
for the aquifer are not avoided and wells are
being exploited which are totally contaminated by
sea water intrusion.
6. Water perceptions and environmental valuation
as a social process
Given all the above, it seems to us very important to emphasise — as has already been said —
that the most common social perception of the
problem of water is essentially linked to a generalised notion of physical scarcity, i.e. the belief
Table 6
Evolution of wells, galleries (number, drilled meters, flows and physical return), Tenerife, 1973–90a
Wells
No
Drilled
meters
m3/day
m3/day/drille
d m.
a
Galleries
1973
1980
1990
291
14 000
370
27 000
437
52 000
78.624
5616
133.661
4950
134.784
2592
Var. 73–90
(%)
50.17
271.43
1973
1980
1990
986
1 327 000
1001
1 453 000
1047
1 627 000
6.19
22.61
445 824
−18.74
71.43
548.640
−53.85
0.413
Source: Rodrı́guez Brito, (1995); author’s own elaboration.
487 555.2
0.336
Var. 73–90
(%)
0.274 −33.72
242
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
that the water scarcity is due to ‘natural reasons’
(for example, low rainfall), and not to the idea of
social scarcity, i.e. the scarcity has more to do
with the application of a particular rationale that
renders some conducts and some social processes
‘legitimate’. In other words, our considerations
would suggest that the problem of water (water
valuation) can only be adequately understood by
studying the social processes responsible for said
conduct and for the guidelines for extraction,
distribution and use. Only then will we be in a
position to understand why this social perception
does or does not exist, and the different types of
social perception that do exist. We cannot carry
out a water valuation from the perspective of
social processes without, at the same time, valuating the social processes behind the notion of water
and water scarcity. One could say that an understanding of social processes is needed for water
(environmental) valuation and an understanding
of the environment (water) is needed for social
process valuation.
Even though water is turned into a commodity,
it has to be said that the social perception related
to water is actually multi-dimensional, conditioned, fragmented and complex. Put another
way, it should first be clarified what is meant —
and what we mean — by social perception in the
case of water, because we may be referring to
different things at one and the same time. We
should not forget that water means different
things for different people, and the perception
may be so different that everyone can point to a
different quality or aspect of water or of its cycle.
Thus, an urban user who has been influenced by
‘save water’ campaigns may have a perception of
the water problem in terms of physical scarcity,
but may not realise (or know) that urban distribution networks lose more than 50 percent of their
water (Tenerife Water Plan, 1993). Nor will they
be aware that, until recently, in winter water was
usually discharged into the sea so that the price
did not fall in the summer (Cruz, 1958) or that the
aquifer is deteriorating irreversibly (Braojos,
1988). Moreover, it is difficult to understand that
the very techniques put forward as a solution to
the alleged physical scarcity — such as desalination of sea water with fossil energy — will have
potentially serious environmental impacts that
could lead to an increasingly artificial hydrologic
cycle, with ever-growing costs in terms of maintenance, energy dependence, and the environment.
Which is why we consider these proposed solutions as ‘non-solutions’, in the sense that they do
not involve coevolutionary development, nor are
they sustainable. Consequently, in order to be
able to speak of the social perception of water we
must first define what we mean when we speak of
water.
The physical renewability of water can be impaired by human behaviour in two ways: converting what used to be renewable into something
exhaustible, either by extracting more water than
is collected through precipitation; or by interfering in the workings of biochemical cycles through
the various types of pollution, which would include global warming. Secondly, although the hydrologic cycle itself functions with renewable
energy, most of the energy used thus far to reproduce the cycle artificially (mainly for sea water
desalination) comes from fossil sources, which are
exhaustible. This not only considerably limits any
attempt to generalise the use of desalination
plants, but also poses the problem of the gas
emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
Any valuation made of the reserves or
availability of a natural resource — water, in this
specific case — is meaningful only if related to
the technological and institutional structures of
the society in which the resource is found. Thus,
in the case of groundwater, it seems clear that
with water-wheel technology the availability of
water is limited by the wheel’s capacity and also
by the rules or laws regulating withdrawal. Improvements in drilling and pumping technology,
however, and changes in the laws regulating water
exploitation have made extraction of groundwater
easier (even leading to over-exploitation of the
aquifer) and have increased the availability of this
resource or have turned into a resource something
which was not a resource with other technology.
At present, the installation of desalination plants
now means that sea water can be considered a
resource that is always renewable as long as the
energy used in the desalination is renewable in
nature (wind and solar energy, for instance).
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
Where this is not the case, desalination of sea
water would exacerbate the exhaustion of fossil
resources and increase CO2 emissions.
Just as with other environmental questions, perception is rendered difficult because, in the Western world at least, most people live in the artificial
environmental medium formed by cities, and as
‘‘most of the population reacts mainly with this
medium, which is increasingly interposed between
man and nature, the illusion is created that each
time one is less dependent on it’’ (Sunkel, 1980;
19). The perception at urban user level is thus
very limited and fragmented, i.e. it refers almost
exclusively to the quality and continuity of tap
water, with no relation to the hydrologic cycle.
This perception is quite normal given that ‘‘in
economically developed countries, the emotional
relationship with water has been obscured because
of the smooth working of the institutions which
make sure that the water supply is guaranteed; the
availability of water just requires turning on the
tap. In economically developed countries, however, when the control of water is in danger, the
force of the emotional returns’’ (Brown and Ingram, 1987; 197–198). Moreover, not even the
‘scientific body’ has one sole perception about
groundwater and about how the aquifer works.
On the contrary, the debate, in its many facets
(legal, hydrogeological, economic, etc.) is open
and on many occasions is confused, ambiguous
and contradictory. One could say therefore that
groundwater can be viewed, according to Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993), as a problem characterised by uncertainty, conflict of values and
interests, the importance of what is at stake and
by the urgency (the need for quality information)
of decision-making.
In the case of Tenerife, drilling, pumping, desalination and water treatment technologies are
now firmly entrenched and have secured the water
supply from the tap for any use, with no account
taken of aquifer sustainability management. Policy has been nudging the choice of technology
along a non-sustainable track. The water problem
in the Canaries can be described as a case of
‘organised irresponsibility’, to use Beck’s term
(Beck, 1991). The appearance given is that everything is under control and water problems are
243
rarely mentioned. Indeed one can read that the
Canaries have been successfully resolving all such
problems (Hoyos, 1997; Simpson and Ringskog,
1997), and can now ‘‘offer our experience, our
knowledge and our techniques to help in the
always difficult and stormy ‘sea’ of world water
resources’’ (Alsina, 1997). In other words, official
water policy is really a ‘‘symbolic policy of decontamination’’, that is, a policy which has hindered
the social perception of the water problem and
therefore the capacity for ‘collective understanding’ (Vatn and Bromley, 1993; 143).
7. Conclusions
Access to water resources in the Canary Islands
has been a source of conflict for centuries. Since
the 19th century, surface water, until then largely
a public and common property resource, has been
transformed into an individual and privately
owned resource, a commodity. Profit opportunities opened by new export crops, which were
curbed by the physical scarcity of surface water,
led to groundwater pumping and within a few
years caused the disappearance of most of the
surface water courses. In an agricultural society,
the need for water created a real ‘water rush’,
leading within a short time to aquifer overexploitation and to (at times irreversible) damage.
As a result, the physical ‘surface water resource
scarcity’ condition was transformed into a socially
conditioned ‘groundwater resource scarcity’ (and
aquifer depletion). In spite of the large numbers
of people involved in water withdrawal, water
ownership was concentrated in the hands of a few
big owners, with the majority owning small quantities only. The big water owners become a real
‘structural power’, with the power to lay down the
rules of the game (water laws), to change them
and even to violate them with impunity. In sum,
the power to make water decisions. Attempts to
declare water a public good and to make coherent
decisions to ensure (renewable) aquifer management have generated important social conflicts,
particularly in the last decade, and resulted in the
adoption in 1990 of the new Water Act 1990
which formally at least sets out the need for
244
F. Aguilera-Klink et al. / Ecological Economics 34 (2000) 233–245
sustainable management of the aquifer, and yet at
the same time acknowledges something which is
totally incompatible with this goal, namely, recognition of private ownership for the next 75. The
permissive implementation of the Act reflects an
implicit accord between water owners and certain
politicians, whereby groundwater is the property
of the owners until it is exhausted, and the authorities undertake to invest heavily in small
reservoirs to store the winter surpluses of rainfall,
in waste water treatment and in sea water desalination. The prevailing approach now is that
aquifer management is outdated and what are
important now are new technologies, particularly
those for desalination. This approach has resulted
in, on the one hand, a reinforcement of water
owners’ power (‘water is ours’) and, on the other,
the search for technological ‘solutions’ to the
problems of social scarcity in order to avoid
having to challenge water owners’ vested interests.
It has resulted ultimately in a diminished social
perception of water problems. However, the socalled technological ‘solutions’ (sea and brackish
water desalination using fossil energy), although
(temporarily) reducing social conflict over the water issue, generate new conflicts and risks —
which are not perceived immediately — such as
increased atmospheric pollution and increased
aquifer deterioration due to the rise in the pumping of brackish water.
With regard to the social perspective, a range of
environmental valuation methods of a more or
less experimental nature can be deployed, among
them focus groups, citizen jury and multicriteria
analysis, and can be used as a support tool in a
decision-making process. In the case of groundwater in Tenerife (Canary Islands), key decisions
were already made some years ago. A proper
understanding of the multi-dimensional evolutionary process at play in the Tenerife case has required an explanation of the historical context, to
show how current values and interests have been
shaped; how conflict identification and resolution
with respect to the water resource have evolved;
the nature of the decisions concerning distributions of income resulting from the social processes
of water; how access or non-access to environmental resources and services such as water has
been determined; how technological risk, environmental hazards and possible future scarcities have
been addressed; the political choices behind the
institutions and the forms of compromise in the
social processes that have defined water environmental valuation in Tenerife.
Any serious option to confront the situation of
‘organised irresponsibility’ requires the opening of
public discussion fora to facilitate the diffusion of
information and to allow the re-creation of a
social perception which was lost some years ago.
This would serve to build a collective understanding of the problems associated with sustainable
management of the aquifer as well as the economic, social and environmental implications of
maintaining the current situation.
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