The feasibility of managing groundwater as a common pool resource in Malta

Abstract

Malta is frequently ranked as one of the most water-stressed countries in the world; the quality and quantity of Malta’s main freshwater resource – groundwater – has been depleted over the years due to issues of overabstraction, saline intrusion, and nitrate pollution. By conceptualizing Malta’s groundwater resources as common-pool resources, this problem can be framed as a classic case of the tragedy of the commons in which individual users of a common resource damage that shared resource and decrease the common good for the wider community. The freshwater issue Malta faces is often described as a water governance one. This study proposes community management as an alternative form of water governance, with a specific focus on the Mġarr-Wardija perched aquifer system. The main aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of managing groundwater via collective action, which is assessed by analysing this resource system through a social-ecological systems lens and exploring whether there exist the right conditions for the genesis of collective action via ten pre-existing variables, as determined by Ostrom (2009). A two-pronged approach is taken, measuring some variables via secondary data, and the others via Q methodology. A secondary aim of this study was to assess the applicability of Q methodology for ex-ante evaluation of the feasibility for collective action. Overall, whilst some aspects of the resource system were conducive to collective action, it was found that, under current conditions, the probability that users will self-organize to manage the Mġarr-Wardija perched aquifer is relatively low; for the majority of user groups, the perceived costs incurred via collective action outstrip the perceived potential benefits of such an endeavour. Two key findings included a sub-group of users who lacked a perception of water scarcity, and two sub-groups of users who were estranged from the wider community and did not prescribe to the idea of community management. With regards to the secondary aim, Q methodology was effective in uncovering subgroups of users who shared certain subjectivities relating to the potential for collective action and therefore lent itself effectively to the ex-ante assessment of the feasibility for collective action.