Haskovo's Irrigation System D, southern Bulgaria

The Haskovo region is located along the southern border of Bulgaria near both Turkey and Greece. The four study sites contained within the case study are deliberately kept anonymous but are representative of seventeen village case studies conducted in three regions of Bulgaria and were chosen because distorting variables could be excluded in these cases. The Haskovo study sites include smaller irrigation catchment areas and definite numbers of actors and are managed by the water users themselves. Haskovo Village D represents the tail-end position of the second catchment area in the study, and while it shares characteristics with the other three villages in the study (Villages A, B, and C), it is not the primary focus of the study. The case study focuses on examining incongruities between formal and informal rules, power dynamics, and maintenance of social capital in the systems over a six month period of time subdivided into three phases spanning two and a half years. Water is the main resource in all of the cases and the hard irrigation infrastructure (pipes) and soft institutional infrastructure are the public infrastructures discussed.

The case study has subsequently been used in comparative analyses regarding Ostrom’s Design Principles (see bibliography).