**5.2 Flexibility of property rights and water conservation**

There is huge evidence in literature that resource degradation and sustainable management is dependent upon the efficient institutional arrangements [71, 91]. It was argued in the preceding sections that placing flexibility on property rights can


### **Table 3.**

*Flexibility of property right vs water conservation.*

*Incentives for Managing Water Demands: Lessons from the Umgeni River Basin, KwaZulu-Natal… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106238*

have both positive and negative impacts on the resource. The results from the correlation analysis between flexibility and intention to conserve water are presented in **Table 3**.

The results of this research indicated that the flexibility of the property rights correlated significantly with water conservation intentions among water users implying that low flexibility may lead to low conservation intentions while higher flexibility may lead to higher conservation intentions. However, the results revealed that the relationship was very weak (as observed from a correlation coefficient of 0.19). Since the flexibility of one's property right would affect the behaviour of another resource user within the resource regime [72], Corral-Verdugo, Frias-Amenta [92] suggest that the intentions of resource users to conserve water would be affected by the actions of those other users in the catchment. Corral-Verdugo and his colleagues argue that water users that are affected by other rights holders who change the pattern of water use are more likely going to be demotivated to conserve water on their property. In addition, these authors claim that flexible property rights would also reduce the likelihood of collective action towards conservation and sustainable utilisation of the resource. From this observation, it can be suggested that there is need to ensure that property rights should exhibit some form of flexibility in order to motivate water users conserve water while at the same time protecting the interests of neighbouring water users.

### **5.3 Enforceability of property rights and water conservation**

Well defined property rights entails having a good compliance monitoring and enforcement mechanisms either done by the community of resource users themselves or indeed by the state [93]. Ostrom and several other colleagues argue that the behaviour of actors lean to a large extent onto the enforceability of the institutions within the context [78, 87, 94, 95]. An analysis on the relationship between enforceability and intentions of water users to conserve water using SPSS Spearman's Rho Correlations has been presented in **Table 4**.

In this study, it has been established that there is a positive correlation between enforcement of property rights and conservation of water by resource users. This result implies that any increases in enforcement of the property rights by the water management agency would result in increased water conservation efforts by water users. Although the current study finds a moderately strong correlation, there is agreement


*\*\*Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Bold shows statistically significant results.*

### **Table 4.**

*Enforceability of property rights and water conservation.*

with the findings from a study conducted by Yang, Zhang [96] in China. Yang and his colleagues reported that irrigation farmers were more motivated to conserve water by having enforceable water rights than changing the pricing incentives. From this finding, it can be concluded that the enforceability of the property right can be used as incentives towards the conservation of water by water users on either their farm or other properties. By having a well enforced property right system in place, water users would be able reduce water consumptions by adhering to their set water abstraction limits thereby reducing water demands. In so doing, water management agencies would be in a position to contain the surging water demands in stressed river basins.
