Dr. Carla Roncoli (Anthropology and Master's in Development Practice) is conducting a study on decentralized management of water resources in Burkina Faso (West Africa), in collaboration with anthropologist Benjamin Orlove  and geographer Brian Dowd-Uribe (both at Columbia University) as well as host-country research and policy institutions. The project is part of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, an interdisciplinary research consortium - based at Columbia University and funded by the National Science Foundation- that studies individual and group decision making in the face of climate uncertainty and environmental risk.

Articulated in two phases, the research addresses the interaction of perceptions of environmental change, framing of scientific information, and participation in collective decision-making. The case study focuses on a water management system located in the Upper Comoé River Basin in southwest Burkina Faso, servicing multiple users who are endowed with different levels of institutional power and access to resources and information. A national policy for integrated water resource management (IWRM) has established Local Water Committees to serve as consultative fora for more equitable water resource allocation. Multi-scalar research among water users and decision-makers explores how the political context (history, politics, interests, etc.) affects the particular ways IWMI policies are expressed at ground level and how the social context (perceptions and valuations of water, social identities and goals, information asymmetries and uncertainties) shapes modes of participation within the new framework of decentralized governance. A second goal of the research examines how different ways of  representing environmental uncertainties affects information processing and decision outcomes.

For preliminary results, see: Roncoli, C., P. Kirshen, D. Etkin, M. Sanon, L. Somé, Y. Dembélé, B.J. Sanfo, J. Zoungrana, G. Hoogenboom. 2009. "From Management to Negotiation: Technical and Institutional Innovations for Integrated Water Resource Management in the Upper Comoé River Basin (Burkina Faso)." Environmental Management, 44 (4): 695-711.