Abstract

South‐east Spain is a drought prone area, characterized by climate variability and water scarcity. The Jucar River Basin, located in Eastern Spain, has suffered many historical droughts with significant socio‐economic impacts. For nearly a hundred years, the institutional and non‐institutional strategies to cope with droughts have been successful through the development of institutions and partnerships for drought management including multiple actors. In this paper, we show how the creation and institutionalisation of Multi‐Sector Partnerships (MSPs) has supported the development of an efficient drought management. Furthermore, we analyze the performance of one of the suggested instruments by the partnership related to drought management in the basin. Two methodologies are used for these purposes. On one hand, the Capital Approach Framework to analyze the effectiveness of the governance processes in a particular partnership (Permanent Drought Commission), which aims to highlight the governance strength and weakness of the MSP for enhancing drought management in the Jucar River Basin. Through a dynamic analysis of the changes that the partnership has undergone over time to successfully deal with droughts, its effectiveness on drought management is demonstrated. On the other hand, an econometric approach is used to analyze the economic efficiency of the emergency drought wells as one of the key drought mitigation measures suggested by the Permanent Drought Commission and implemented. The results demonstrate the potential and efficiency of applying drought wells as mitigation measures (significant reduction of economic losses, around 50 M€ during the drought period, 2005–2008).