IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/endeec/v15y2010i04p465-483_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of the water rights system on smallholder irrigators' willingness to pay for water in Limpopo province, South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • SPEELMAN, STIJN
  • FAROLFI, STEFANO
  • FRIJA, AYMEN
  • D'HAESE, MARIJKE
  • D'HAESE, LUC

Abstract

Water rights are currently receiving increased attention from scholars and policymakers due to the growing understanding that ill-defined water rights impair efficient use. In South Africa, smallholder irrigation faces problems of low water use efficiency and cost recovery of government investments. This study uses contingent ranking to analyse the willingness to pay (WTP) of smallholder irrigators for changes in the water rights system. The results indicate that smallholders are prepared to pay considerably higher water prices if these are connected to improvements in the water rights system. By segmenting the population it was also shown that the importance attached to water rights dimensions varies in each segment. While lower institutional trust and lower income levels lead to a lower WTP for transferability, experiencing water shortage increases this WTP. Such information is valuable in guiding policy makers in the future design of water rights.

Suggested Citation

  • Speelman, Stijn & Farolfi, Stefano & Frija, Aymen & D'Haese, Marijke & D'Haese, Luc, 2010. "The impact of the water rights system on smallholder irrigators' willingness to pay for water in Limpopo province, South Africa," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 465-483, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:15:y:2010:i:04:p:465-483_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1355770X10000161/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kassahun, Habtamu Tilahun & Swait, Joffre & Jacobsen, Jette Bredahl, 2021. "Distortions in willingness-to-pay for public goods induced by endemic distrust in institutions," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    2. Speelman, Stijn & Veettil, Prakashan Chellattan, 2013. "Heterogeneous preferences for water rights reforms among smallholder irrigators in South Africa," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 2(2), pages 1-19, August.
    3. Djiby Racine Thiam & Ariel Dinar & Hebert Ntuli, 2021. "Promotion of residential water conservation measures in South Africa: the role of water-saving equipment," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(1), pages 173-210, January.
    4. Veettil, Prakashan Chellattan & Speelman, Stijn & Frija, Aymen & Buysse, Jeroen & van Huylenbroeck, Guido, 2011. "Complementarity between water pricing, water rights and local water governance: A Bayesian analysis of choice behaviour of farmers in the Krishna river basin, India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(10), pages 1756-1766, August.
    5. Rui Fragoso & Carlos Marques, 2013. "The Economic Impact of Alternative Water Pricing Policies in Alentejo Region," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2013_02, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    6. Aravindakshan, Sreejith & Krupnik, Timothy J. & Amjath-Babu, T.S. & Speelman, Stijn & Tur-Cardona, Juan & Tittonell, Pablo & Groot, Jeroen C.J., 2021. "Quantifying farmers' preferences for cropping systems intensification: A choice experiment approach applied in coastal Bangladesh's risk prone farming systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    7. Vafaei, Elahe & Shahabi Ahangarkolaee, Saeed & Lucas-Borja, Manuel Esteban & Shabanali Fami, Hossein & Zema, Demetrio Antonio, 2021. "A framework to evaluate the factors influencing groundwater management in Water User Associations: The case study of Tafresh County (Iran)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    8. Kidane, Tesfai T. & Wei, Si & Sibhatu, Kibrom T., 2019. "Smallholder farmers’ willingness to pay for irrigation water: Insights from Eritrea," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 30-37.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:15:y:2010:i:04:p:465-483_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ede .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.