Flood risk, land use and private participation in embankment maintenance in Indian Sundarbans

- We analyse the influence of alternative land use on private maintenance of river embankments in Indian Sundarbans;
- We consider two major uses of land: agriculture and brackish water aquaculture;
- We report the results of a household survey from 11 villages in two blocks in Indian Sundarbans;
- Higher returns from aquaculture encourage increased maintenance though households with intense social ties free rides;
- Strategies to enhance agricultural productivity might be more efficient than directly subsidising embankment maintenance.

This paper analyzes the complementarities between land productivity and conservation investments in the context of river embankment maintenance in the Indian Sundarbans. The study finds that households whose principal occupation is aquaculture commit more resources to embankment maintenance relative to those in non-aquaculture employment. While conservation efforts are greater in all types of aquaculture plots irrespective of distance from the embankments, such efforts unambiguously decrease for agricultural plots that are located at a distance from the embankments. Private returns to traditional aquaculture are much higher than returns to agriculture, enabling aquaculture households in invest in managing their local public good. However, there is evidence of free riding in canal-based aquaculture when multiple users draw water from a single source. Head-enders with greater wealth as well as intense social networks tend to free-ride while tail-enders with less land holdings contribute more towards canal maintenance. Furthermore, public intervention in embankment maintenance may be crowding out private efforts. Thus, in primarily agricultural areas, productivity-enhancing policies like adoption of salt tolerant crops with supportive extension activities may be more efficient than policies that fully subsidize public good maintenance.