Collective decision making under drought: An empirical study of water resource management in Japan

The management of common-pool resources requires collective action and cooperation, especially when resource users face extreme weather events. This study examines collective decision making in water resource management during droughts. By focusing on the drought response by groups of water users in river basin communities in Japan, we investigate the determinants of collective decisions on water withdrawal restrictions. Our results show that water user groups are more willing to cooperate for water conservation when other water user groups in a community also cooperate. This suggests that the level of cooperation in drought management depends on other water user groups' cooperation. The findings contribute to a better understanding of collective action in water management, which is also informative to improve adaptive capacity to climate change.