Who gets what water? Water allocation, water permitting and corruption in a changing climate
- cgrandadam
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
“Water allocation has moved from being a background administrative activity to one of the most defining water governance challenges of the times. Water allocation is no longer just about matching supply and demand. It has become an arena where societies negotiate sustainability, justice, economic prosperity, and climate resilience all at once.”
-Jonatan Godinez Madrigal, IHE-Delft
Integrity Talk 15
December 11, 2025
Water availability is increasingly unpredictable because of climate change, and increasingly under pressure from economic and population growth. This is leading to a water resource crisis, but one that is not just hydrological.
In this Integrity Talk, leading researchers looked at how people and sectors share water and the challenges of changing the rules and systems for allocation. They discussed how water allocation regimes designed decades ago are buckling under modern pressures, creating fertile ground for corruption and system failure.
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Water allocation systems under pressure: power struggles, systemic weaknesses, and deliberate underfunding
There are different systems for water allocation, which speakers categorised as the "3 Ps": Permits, Pricing and market-based mechanisms, and Platforms or institutions for decision-making. All these different systems are facing worrisome integrity risks across their development, implementation, and monitoring.
Ghost systems and empty institutions were risks that the speakers highlighted specifically. This can refer to:
strong laws and principles that cannot be implemented effectively;
systems that allocate water that is no longer available;
the perception of rights as unchangeable quasi ‘property rights’, over a resource that is public, moving and unstable; and
institutions that do not have the power or capacity to carry out their mandate or implement allocation systems adequately.
Speakers also noted that insufficient capacity or resources are often mentioned as reasons for the challenges. However, they emphasised that capacity weaknesses are actually often deliberate and they can both enable and stem from corruption or other malfeasance. Understaffed, poorly led water allocation institutions with fractured mandates, as well as systematic underfunding of monitoring making it impossible for allocation systems to work.
“There are two ways you can have systemic integrity issues. One, if you have a system where even with exemplary implementation, it cannot produce an equitable and sustainable outcome. That's a systemic integrity issue. Or secondly, if the system itself cannot be implemented, it inherently lacks integrity.”
-Dr Mary Galvin, Water Integrity Network
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Examples: water allocation system failures and paths for change
At the integrity talk 15, we heard examples of how these water allocation issues play out in Mexico, Indonesia, Chile, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Brazil. The panellists spoke of historical legacies, "water mafias" controlling irrigation gates in Indonesia, and of Mexico's underfunded monitoring, enabling widespread overextraction and power plays slowing reform.
“People and companies that had more power were the ones that were able to get their water allocation rights. And those who didn't, or didn't have the resources to go through all the paperwork, they ended up without these water allocation rights. And at the same time, what was happening is that there was very little investment in building a strong regulatory agency of water allocation rights. And so what became the norm was overextraction, pollution of water ecosystems without any consequence for water right owners.”
-Fermin Robles Reygadas, Co-Founder of Cantaro Azul
The discussion also highlighted positive responses and paths for action. Indigenous communities in Oaxaca are reclaiming collective water management. River basin organisations, like those studied In Indonesia, are implementing straightforward procedural and staffing changes that limit risks of abuse in the operation of floodgates and other systems. There are policy entrepreneurs persistently and slowly pushing through change, for example in Chile.
Accountability appears to be a crucial component of any reform.
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What next?
The conversation brought out two fundamental challenges:
One, can we reform broken allocation systems, or do we need entirely new approaches that shift power and recognise diverse water rights?
Two, can we do the work required fast enough?
What do you think?
“We need to recognize and make things which are unseen seen. Going away from only formal tenure, but recognizing different kinds of use before we allocate. Otherwise, the structural injustice will persist, simply because we are ignoring and not taking into account the real water users in the field.”
-Mohamad Mova Al’Afghani, Center for Regulation, Policy and Governance
Get in touch to work together on these topics or to get updates on the results of our research on water allocation (info@win-s.org) >
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Panellist presentations:
Jonatan Godinez-Madrigal presented findings from a two-year global comparative study by IHE Delft examining water allocation regimes. He discussed a major gap between systems on paper and systems in practice. He also highlighted systemic weaknesses in permits, pricing mechanisms, and platforms for water allocation, noting how these dwarf already very common individual acts of corruption.
He also pointed out the difficult position of allocation officials with limited resources dealing with unavoidable trade-offs. He argued solutions must be built on transparency, accountability, and participation.
More on his research: https://www.un-ihe.org/water-allocation-and-rights-project
Fermin Reygadas traced Mexico's severe water crisis to failures rooted in 1990s reforms that combined neoliberal market-based policy with massive investment for large infrastructure, while neglecting investment in regulatory capacity.
He shared examples of change and resistance, for example from Indigenous communities in the region of Oaxaca who have rejected individual permits in favour of collective action to protect the aquifers, limit extraction, and restore water levels. He focused on the need for communities to act together, the need for political incentives, and the usefulness of feedback loops for decision-makers to live with the consequences of their actions.
More resources:
Mohamad Mova Al'Afghani presented research from the Cimanuk River Basin in Indonesia examining agency tenure: the water rights held by public institutions with operational mandates, particularly those controlling irrigation infrastructure.
In Indonesia, where 80% of water use is agricultural and most farmers depend on irrigation networks, the officials managing water gates wield enormous power over which areas receive water. The research documented cases of structural injustice and reports of "water mafia" operating during drought seasons. He closed with possible avenues of response at the level of the river basin organisation in staffing, division of responsibilities, complaint systems, and technology for control.
More resources water tenure and this research:
Mary Galvin presented WIN's research on integrity risks in water allocation systems, with particular focus on permitting systems. She introduced a framework distinguishing between procedural integrity risks in the implementation of allocation systems (at various stages from policy development to compliance monitoring) and integrity issues of the system itself, a crucial conceptual distinction.
At the procedural level, she identified risks including policy capture and lobbying by powerful groups, collusion between officials and interest groups over drought rules, manipulation of data in water availability assessments, and unclear roles and responsibilities that create exploitation opportunities. Systemic integrity failures occur when even exemplary implementation cannot produce equitable and sustainable outcomes.
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