UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Institutional Change in East German Water Management Systems

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.22004/ag.econ.25729

Authors

Christian Schleyer · Schleyer, Christian

Reported year

2006

Reported language

en

Source type

preprint

First detected

2026-11-09T19:19:30.276272+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:19:30.276272+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

Like in many fen land regions in East Germany, long-standing intensive arable farming -enabled by reclamation - has caused soil deterioration and high water runoff in the Schraden region. More than ten years of economic and political transformation that followed the breakdown of the socialist regime has worsened the situation and even added new problems. The visible consequences are droughts in the summer, waterlogged plots in the spring, and worn-down water management facilities that operate in an uncoo rdinated or unautho rized way. Given the local public good character of so me features of the fen land, the common-pool character of the intermittently scarce resource water within the ecosystem, and the conflicting interests of regional stakeholders, it is argued that the reallocation of property rights over reclamation systems, together with ineffective coordination mechanisms, have caused the physical and institutional failure of the water management system and thus impeded app ropriate land use. More precisely, the combination of legal insecurities accompanied by enforcement problems, fragmented land ownership structure, and a high number of short-term lease contracts have reduced the incentives for the majority of farmers to maintain the reclamation works. Due to limited statutory rights in conjunction with limited financials, the present water association appears to be an inadequate local coordination mechanism. Furthermore, the complete and timeintensive restructuring process at all levels of water administration has resulted in cumbersome or even nonexistent interrelations between various governmental layers as well as in rare transboundary contacts.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W1560630086

DOI

10.22004/ag.econ.25729

Documentary context

Documentary family

Working paper

Source-reported types

preprint

Natural entities mentioned

Ecosystem

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2 · Record 3

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.25729
• Document · https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/25729/files/pp062618.pdf
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W1560630086

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1442715657 · CITES
• openalex:w1974491836 · CITES
• openalex:w605002025 · CITES
• openalex:w74043263 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.