6 The available water in a catchment depends on where and when the water is taken. This raises 7 considerable man-made uncertainty in water availability. Partly due to this uncertainty, catchments are 8 over-allocated almost everywhere. The over-allocation problem could be managed more effectively if 9 catchment managers could match users’ rights to the available water. In this paper, I show ho...

Using a randomized evaluation in Kenya, we measure health impacts of spring protection, an investment that improves source water quality. We also estimate households' valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water, which limits incentives for private investment. Spring infrastructure investments reduce fec...

Most of MAS methodologies and infrastructures do not consider direct human participation even though humans can be seen as autonomous entities (i.e. human agents). Virtual Worlds (VW) provide all the necessary means for direct human inclusion into software systems. Virtual Institutions (VI) take advantage of this and combine Electronic Institutions (EI) and VWs to engineer MAS applications wher...

This paper argues that to prevent or lessen the impact of episodic water stress within modern political economies, harnessing and tailoring emerging modes of legitimacy will play a crucial role in formulating pragmatic, solution-focused policy. In setting out a case for this position, we analyse the role which existing and novel modes of legitimacy play in shaping the boundaries and opportunity...