The impact of water users' associations on the productivity of irrigated agriculture in Pakistani Punjab

This paper finds productivity-enhancing effects of watercourse-level water users' associations for farms at the tail of a watercourse and for those that rely exclusively on groundwater - two groups that are marginalized from surface water use and more likely to rely increasingly on groundwater. Yet, heavy reliance on groundwater consumes vast energy resources and leads to environmental degradation through overdraft and groundwater salinization. Improving the management of surface water through functioning watercourse-level institutions can increase use efficiency across water, energy and land resources through increasing agricultural productivity of those now least able to access fresh surface water resources.