Water markets and sustainable water use in Almería, Spain – assessing the readiness for organizational change

Purpose – Water availability and usage in agriculture suggests increasing scarcity. To ensure the long-term sustainability of water resources, efficient pricing and distribution methods must be considered. The role that market-based systems of water distribution can play in enhancing the management and sustainability of water resources has garnered attention. An important element that cannot be ignored when contemplating changes to established agricultural water delivery systems must be users’ readiness for change. Thus the purpose of this paper is to examine factors that impact the readiness for organizational change to a system where users can buy and sell water in an open market. Design/methodology/approach – Using data collected from a survey of greenhouse growers in Almería, Spain, a model of binary choice was developed to predict the probability of growers’ readiness to buy and sell water in an open market. Findings – The level of education of the grower, and the use of a euro per hour water metering system positively impacted the probability of the willingness to participate in formal water markets. Also, the degree of satisfaction in the administration of the growers’ irrigation community, as well as their overall confidence in anticipated water supplies, had a negative impact on readiness to change. Research limitations/implications – This research offers an interesting and unique scholarly contribution as it fuses the extant management literature on the topic of organizational change with issues related to natural resource management, thus contributing to the growing literature(s) related to resource sustainability and management. Originality/value – This research provides insight into some important factors which may predict the readiness to change of agricultural water users toward more market-driven distribution systems.