Making their own way: recognizing the commons in water management. Wyoming 1900-1925

摘要

In an era of population growth and climate change, when water management is increasingly important worldwide, it can be useful to re-examine how water management schemes have been crafted, and how they have changed, in the past. In the U.S., where management through private property or central government control are the most familiar approaches to natural resources, it is worth considering an example of a different approach. This article takes up an instance of Americans who changed an institution of centralized state management into an institution with strong attributes of common property management. Such was the case in the years 1900-1925 in Wyoming with management of water, which is scarce and sought-after in that state. Historical evidence, from court cases, state records and correspondence, details how and why, in response to their physical and economic environment, Wyoming water administrators and water users together made institutional change. They moved away from their centralized management system, once lauded as a model for the nation, to create a system far more complex-with aspects recognizable to students of common property.