Institutional innovation in water management : the case of Mexico City's recharge wells

Abstract

This thesis explores the difference in adoption patterns of water recharge well technology in Mexico City both by local entities and the central city government. The research finds that this technology, originally designed by the central city with the stated purpose of aiding aquifer recharge, was adopted by local entities driven by concerns over flood control. Geophysical realities, complemented by political and socioeconomic factors, are key in deciding the use and type of infiltration technology by local entities. Water policy priorities at the local level are a decidedly local affair, which makes coordination difficult and thus constitutes a challenge for sustainable water management in Mexico City as a whole. Ineffective formal coordination mechanisms among the three levels of government, and the incentives that explain the uneven adoption of recharge wells by local communities, suggest an alternative approach to metropolitan water governance. In addition to traditional solutions such as regulation and formal metropolitan cooperation bodies, a third path of sustainable water management would involve a division of tasks between high and lower local level governments. Levels of government with the resources and incentives to develop technologies with systemic impacts and that address immediate needs can then "market" or "scale down" these solutions to localities whose incentive structure would lead them to, in effect, implement these solutions. In this way, collective action problems could be sidelined at the metropolitan scale.