FAO.org

Ensuring secure access to both land and water is key to increased agricultural production and to the eradication of rural poverty, according to the new article in FAO’s Land Tenure Journal’s “Land and water: the rights divergence” by Stephen Hodgson, International legal consultant, one of the main authors of the water tenure assessment guide.

Most productive uses of land require the availability of water. Given these interlinkages between land and water, we might assume there is a high degree of coordination between the allocation of rights to these two resources, among others.

Historically in many jurisdictions formal water rights were a subsidiary component of land tenure rights. However, today this land-based approach is no longer workable, and many countries have legislated to establish permit-based water rights as part of reforms to implement integrated water resources management (IWRM).

According to the publication, the result of this is a significant divergence between land and water in terms of language, conceptual approaches and basic understanding. What could the response be to this divergence?

To address this question, Hodgson first looks back and seeks to trace how these water rights have diverted from land tenure rights, and by doing it, to identify the implications of this divergence. The final aim is to identify possible new approaches and areas of intervention as to promote dialogue and policy coherence. The water tenure concept is one example.

In any case, the paper and its topic are timely, as “the impacts of climate change, coupled with the need to feed the world’s fast-growing population, may force a reappraisal of land tenure and water rights linkages”, as we need to “make every drop count”.

Find out more at https://www.fao.org/3/cb9043en/cb9043en.pdf