The Long-Term Outcomes of Restoring Indigenous Property Rights to Water
Presented by:
Bryan Leonard
Test Dept
Arizona State University
Friday, January 21, 2022
12:00 pm-1:30 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
Online - https://go.wisc.edu/jmydkq
Water rights were allocated in the Western United States over 1850—1900 without regard for preexisting Indigenous claims, but a 1908 U.S. Supreme Court Ruling (Winters v. United States) created a framework for restoring tribal rights. To date, reservations in the Colorado River Basin have obtained rights to 2.8 million acre-feet of water, and unsettled tribal rights may exceed the annual flow of the Colorado River. However, various institutional barriers including land tenure, credit access, and bureaucratic hurdles may constrain tribes’ utilization of these new rights. This paper uses satellite data on land use to study the effect of Winters settlements on 26 reservations that received water rights between 1974 and 2012. Using several new difference-in-difference techniques, we find statistically significant, economically small differences in agricultural and developed land use. Back-of-the-envelope calculations reveal that most tribes are using a small fraction of their entitlements, foregoing billions of dollars in potential revenue. We provide evidence that land tenure and credit constraints may explain some of this shortfall.
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