This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the factors that promote and hinder the effectiveness of different approaches to governing groundwater pumping in the context of rapid urban growth and competing water demands. As cities in the Western U.S. continue to grow and water demands increase, questions regarding the reallocation of already over-allocated water supplies are becoming increasingly critical. Despite some achievements in conservation, policy results have been uneven and often have been unable to bring long-term aquifer declines under control. It therefore is important to evaluate approaches to governing groundwater in order to identify important weaknesses and propose reforms. This research project will compare the more localized groundwater districts and Edwards Aquifer groundwater cap-and-trade system in Texas to the more centralized, permit-based Arizona approach. Paying special attention to the different institutions (systems of working rules) that shape human use of water resources, this doctoral student will investigate how groundwater districts manage groundwater in two major Southwestern metropolises, Phoenix and San Antonio. The three main questions on which this project will focus are: (1) How do the institutional arrangements in centralized and decentralized groundwater governance systems produce differences in the incorporation of new groundwater uses and management of conflicts? (2) How does market-based trading compare to administrative permitting in the reallocation of groundwater from rural to urban users? (3) How important are groundwater districts for controlling aquifer depletion relative to state laws, state administration, and regional political economic factors? Documentary evidence will consist of relevant water rights laws and court cases, regulatory statutes, records of rulemaking by groundwater districts, and media reports on water-related issues and conflicts. Historical water-trading and permitting data will also be collected, and interviews will be conducted with numerous stakeholders. The student will triangulate among these different sets of evidence, comparatively analyzing the planning and decision-making processes, incidence and management of groundwater conflicts, frequency and type of rulemaking, and frequency and amount of rural to urban water reallocation for the districts in the two metro areas. This project's analysis of the Phoenix and San Antonio cases will help explain failures to alleviate groundwater overdraft and identify laws and policies that might be worth copying or not by other states. By comparing centralized and local groundwater districts, permit-based systems and market-oriented ones, this project will contribute to academic and policy debates about the merits of decentralized governance and the degree of "fit" of different organizational forms for managing common pool water resources. The project also will highlight negative socioeconomic impacts on rural communities that can result from the reallocation of water from rural to urban uses. Findings will be disseminated through scholarly publications as well as through documents developed for stakeholders. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.