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Developing farmers' institutional capacity to defend their water rights is central to sustaining irrigation farming in the UK. Increasing demand and competition for water and the introduction of new water regulations have led many farmers to re-evaluate the security of their water rights. As a consequence, some have formed water abstractors groups, a trend which is strongest in eastern England, where irrigation is most concentrated and water resources are most stressed."Collective choice" theory attempts to explain how institutions evolve to share common resources and what key elements are needed for them to endure over the long term. This paper compares the characteristics of four existing water abstractors groups against those of "collective choice" theory. It concludes that it is applicable in the UK context and relevant when addressing a range of emerging water management challenges.The approach taken offers a means of analysing capacity at an institutional level and suggests a way of supporting the development of existing water abstractors groups as well as developing new ones. It is argued that this approach to developing institutional capacity could be used elsewhere where problems between resource availability, environmental protection and the sustainability of agricultural production are evident. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
