Institutional Form and Its Effect on Environmental Change: The Case of Groundwater in the Southern High Plains

Resource-management institutions mediate the relationship between society and the environment in such a way as to prevent or reduce socially and economically undersirable outcomes. Usually, these outcomes have to do with “waste” and “inefficiency” in resource use or in the investment of capital and labor. These resource regimes may take a variety of forms, the three most common archetypes being 1) private property institutions, unfettered by the state; 2) self-organized or common-property institutions; and 3) centralized state institutions. Our research examines the effects of these resource regimes on environmental change. We evaluate the effects of these institutions on aquifer water-level declines in the Llano Estacado of the Southern High Plains of the United States from pre-development through 1980, while controlling for other variables that would also affect water-resource development. Our findings suggest that water levels declined relatively less in managed areas than in areas of unrestrained private property. Differences in water-level declines between centrally controlled and communally organized areas are insignificant, however. Even though these differences among managed areas in environmental effects are minimal, a communally organized resource regime has the advantage of being more conducive to sustaining the economic base of the region.