Institute for Agricultural Policy and Market Research, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Senckenbergstr. 3, D-35390 Giessen, Germany.
J Environ Manage. 2011 Nov;92(11):2924-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.07.001. Epub 2011 Jul 30.
In the hard rock areas of India, overdraft of groundwater has led to negative externalities. It increased costs of groundwater irrigation and caused welfare losses. At the same time informal groundwater markets are slowly emerging and are believed to improve water distribution and to increase water use efficiency in the irrigation sector. These claims are evaluated in this study. For this purpose data was collected from a sample containing three different groups of water users: water sellers, water buyers and a control group of non-traders. First the socio-economic characteristics of these groups are compared. Then the efficiency of water use of the three groups is studied using Data Envelopment Analysis. The results indicate that groundwater markets provide resource poor farmers access to irrigation water, giving them the opportunity to raise their productivity. Water buyers are furthermore shown to be most efficient in their water use, while water sellers are also shown to be more efficient than the control group. The differences in efficiency between the groups are statistically significant. The demonstrated potential of groundwater markets to improve the efficiency of water use and to increase equity in resource access should be taken into account by the Indian government when deciding on their attitude towards the emerging groundwater markets.
在印度的硬岩地区，地下水超采导致了负面的外部性。它增加了地下水灌溉的成本，并造成了福利损失。与此同时，非正式的地下水市场正在缓慢出现，据信这将改善水资源分配，并提高灌溉部门的用水效率。本研究对这些说法进行了评估。为此，从一个包含三组不同用水者的样本中收集了数据：卖水者、买水者和非交易者的对照组。首先比较了这些群体的社会经济特征。然后，利用数据包络分析研究了三组的用水效率。结果表明，地下水市场为资源匮乏的农民提供了灌溉用水，使他们有机会提高生产力。此外，买水者在用水方面效率最高，而卖水者的效率也高于对照组。这些群体之间的效率差异具有统计学意义。印度政府在决定对新兴地下水市场的态度时，应该考虑到地下水市场在提高用水效率和增加资源获取公平性方面的潜力。
