Title: Social processes, values and interests: environmental valuation of groundwater in the Tenerife (Canary Islands) case

Authors: Federico Aguilera-Klink, Eduardo Perez-Moriana, Juan Sanchez-Garcia

Addresses: Departamento de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de La Laguna, Campus Guajara, Camino La Hornera s/n, 38071 La Laguna, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, Spain. Departamento de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de La Laguna, Campus Guajara, Camino La Hornera s/n, 38071 La Laguna, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, Spain. Departamento de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de La Laguna, Campus Guajara, Camino La Hornera s/n, 38071 La Laguna, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, Spain

Abstract: We discuss the recent institutional history of water resources governance in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, as a case of a real social process of environmental valuation. Emphasis is placed on the institutional and cultural factors for the emergence, and change over time, of collective understandings about co-evolution possibilities between natural and socio-economic processes. Tenerife aquifer water resources could be exploited sustainably. At present, however, a set of interests and collective perceptions dominates that treats water as a commodity to be appropriated privately, and that puts faith in new technologies of water production (e.g. desalination) to overcome scarcity. Yet there is sufficient scientific and economic evidence to support a more precautionary approach based on avoidance of irreversible deterioration of the aquifer resource.

Keywords: aquifer; Canary Islands; co-evolution; conflict; environmental valuation; institutional economics; power; precautionary principle; social processes; water.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2001.000587

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2001 Vol.15 No.1, pp.79-93

Published online: 18 Jul 2003 *

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