Policy, politics, and water management in the GuadalquivirRiver Basin, SpainAnjali BhatSchool of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USAWilliam BlomquistDepartment of Political Science, Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USAReceived 3 October 2003; revised 6 January 2004; accepted 6 February 2004; published 16 July 2004.[1] Among countries with river basin organizations to manage their water resources,Spain’s experience is one of the longest. One of the first basin agencies established inSpain was for the Guadalquivir River in the south. A case study of that river basin and itsmanagement indicates how basin management is shaped by political economy factors suchas the historical path of the agency’s evolution, the basin agency’s relationships withcentral government and with regional or local governments, the patterns of water userrepresentation within the agency, and developments in water law and policy external to thebasin agency. The case raises questions about whether and how integrated water resourcesmanagement at the river basin scale is implemented, even in locations where basinagencies already exist. It also suggests that the politics of management at the river basinlevel will affect the implementation of national water policies intended to promoteintegrated management.INDEX TERMS: 6319 Policy Sciences: Institutions; 6399 Policy Sciences:General or miscellaneous; 1884 Hydrology: Water supply; 1857 Hydrology: Reservoirs (surface); KEYWORDS:Guadalquivir River, integrated water management, river basin management, Spain, water policyCitation: Bhat, A., and W. Blomquist (2004), Policy, politics, and water management in the Guadalquivir River Basin, Spain, WaterResour. Res., 40, W08S07, doi:10.1029/2003WR002726.1. Introduction[2] Integrated water resource management (IWRM) andorganizing it primarily at the river basin level are two of themost common and widely repeated recommendations in thewater resources literature of the last decade, if not longer.Basin management is also often associated with the conceptof decentralization, of managing water resources at the‘‘lowest appropriate level’’ [see e.g., United Nations,1992; World Bank, 1993; Lee and Dinar, 1996; Solanes,1998]. Several conceptual arguments have been presented infavor of decentralization in water resource management andbasin-level management in particular: that the whole arrayof resources and use patterns in the basin will be taken intoaccount, public participation will be greater and broader,management decisions will be based on better knowledge oflocal conditions, and so on.[3] Empirical studies of river basin management systemsprovide opportunities to examine the claims made for basin-level integrated resou rces management and to explorefactors that appear to influence its impleme ntati on andoutcomes. Because river basin management agencies haveexisted in Spain since the 1920s and because Spanish waterpolicy has turned toward integrated water resource manage-ment since the 1980s, Spain provides a welcome setting forsuch an examination. As part of a team pursuing a largerproject, we recently participated in a case study of theGuadalquivir River Basin in Spain.[4] We pursued a case study approach for this project inorder to employ a close examination of historical processesand institutional change. Research team members collecteddocuments concerning the origins, processes, and results ofdecentralization reforms to prepare for interviews withstakeholders during a site visit. The site visit was facilitatedby a local university faculty member and expert on the riverbasin, who arranged interviews and also prepared a back-ground paper on the basin prior to the visit. During the sitevisit, t eam members met with basin-level stakeholders,central government officials and basin management agencystaff, and a regional government official responsible forwater policy and management. The basin stakeholdersincluded representatives of three irrigation communities inthe basin, a basin-wide association of irrigation communi-ties, and two different types of urban water supply andsanitation service providers. Although it is impossible toverify the representativeness of the interviewees (in terms ofhow they compare with all irrigators or all urban suppliersin the basin), they do represe nt a cross section of theimportant water interests in the basin. The interviews werefocused on understanding the processes of institutionalchange and the performance of basin-scale institutions,matters closely within the knowledge of the interviewees.[5] In this study we begin with some context concerningthe evolution of Spanish river basin institutions and Spanishwater policy and introduce the Guadalquivir Basin and itswater resource management problems. We then review theorganizational structure of the river basin agency, describeits relationships with other organizations and with waterusers in the basin, and discuss how some political economyCopyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.0043-1397/04/2003WR002726$09.00W08S07WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 40, W08S07, doi:10.1029/2003WR002726, 20041of11factors have affected the implementation of integrated waterresource management there. Among those factors we high-light the agency’s historical path, the patterns of water userrepresentation within the agency, the agency’s relationshipswith other governments, and national-level policy changeswhich have altered the agency’s responsibilities as well asits intergovernmental setting. We conclude by drawingattention to aspects of politics that affect the implementationof river basin management and the outcomes that arerealized, which may be relevant to scholars and policymakers in other settings as well.2. Spanish Water Policy and Institutions[6] From the latter half of the 19th century to the latedecades of the 20th, Spanish water policy emphasized a‘‘structural’’ approach to alleviating problems of drought,flooding, and supply variability by increasing the availabil-ity of water supplies and promoting their use, especially forirrigation. Early national water laws in 1866 and 1879 wereintended to promote water use as a means of enhancingagricultural productivity and national prosperity. In the early20th century, national water plans called for central gov-ernment subsidization of water projects throughout thecountry, particularly for irrigation systems. To