Given Spain’s long tradition of successful surface-water users’ associations
(some in Valencia are centuries old), the new water law has emphasised the formation of groundwater users’ associations particularly for managing overexploited aquifers.
While thousands of small groundwater users’ associations have been formed, the majority focus on ‘collective management of the irrigation network’.
Only a handful have a larger mandate of ‘collective management of aquifers’ and of these, not all are success cases.