ABSTRACT
The effort to achieve agricultural water conservation as a matter of public policy encounters physical, institutional, and definitional complexity. The achievement of gains in agricultural water conservation is difficult because it threatens to deprive the farmer of water without providing adequate incentives and compensation. The bureaucratic strategy would be more closely identified with the traditional character of agricultural water policy. Conservation would be achieved by more precise and enforceable definitions of beneficial use and better administration of water rights and water allocations. Further improvements that might be incorporated in the bureaucratic strategy would be the integration of surface and groundwater rights. The market-oriented strategy would place emphasis on the allocation of water to its most valued uses through the transfer of water rights or exchanges of water through purchase, lease, and rental agreements. In addition, new institutions would be created or old institutions would take on new functions of executing water agreements.
