Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Resource Economics

Dissertation of Christian Schleyer, 2009

Institutional Change of Water Management Systems

Start: 04/2003
End: 12/2009

 

This project addressed the issue of designing institutions for the use and protection of natural resources in the specific context of system transformation. Agri-environmental policy design cannot only rely on the agri-environmental instruments but has to comprise also the institutional structures that are necessary for the respective decision and implementation processes and that are often still to be developed. In the Central and Eastern European transition countries, there is also the question whether the required institutional arrangements for achieving sustainability in the area of agri-environmental resource management can be built more easily in the period of system transformation as they fill institutional gaps, or whether processes of transition make institution building a more difficult and more time consuming task. In other words, is such a ‚twofold transformation‘ feasible? Considering water regulation in post-socialist reclamation areas as an example, the deficiencies and frictions of the institutional structures were illustrated and more suitable institutional approaches to overcome the problems were designed. The comparative institutional analysis contrasted a region in East Germany (Schraden) and a region in Northwest Poland (Pyrzyce).

Researcher: Christian Schleyer

Cooperation Partners:


  • Department of Organisation and Management der Agricultural University Szczecin, Poland (Prof. Dr. Michael Switlyk)
  • Department of Soil and Water Chemistry of the Institute for Land Reclamation and Grassland Farming, Raszyn/ Falenty, Poland (Prof. Dr. Andrzej Sapek)
  • Lehrstuhl für Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Umweltökonomie, des Instituts für Umweltmanagement der Brandenburgischen Technischen Universität Cottbus (Dr. Kai Rommel)
  • Fachgebiet Vergleichende Landschaftsökonomie am Institut für Landschafts- und Umweltplanung der Technischen Universität Berlin (Prof. Dr. Volkmar Hartje; Dr. Waltina Scheumann)

 

Advisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Konrad Hagedorn; Dr. Insa Theesfeld

Funding:German Research Foundation (DFG)