A Study on The Governance of Common-pool Resources: The Case of Hot Spring Resources in Jiaosi Area

Jiaosi area contains rich hot spring resources. With flourishing tourism industry, the amount of hot spring resources being used increased significantly, resulting in the decline of both the groundwater level and temperature of hot spring in Jiaosi area. Regardless of the warning sign of over-consumed hot spring resources, local users seem to underestimate the situation and didn’t form self-organized system to cope with the problem. In addition, relative laws and rules fail to execute effectively because lacking of distinctiveness upon the case of Jiaosi area. Thus, this study applies Institutional analysis and development ( IAD) framework proposed by E. Ostrom as basis, and utilize relevant literature to analyze the governance difficulties in Jiaosi area. This study first focuses on the attribute that hot spring resources possessed as a common-pool resource, and bases on it to further find out disadvantageous biophysical conditions in Jiaosi through in-depth interview. Second, combining resource distribution characteristics and attributes of community, this study tries to explain the resons why local users don’t pay enough attention and form self-organized system to resolve the problem. Third, on the basis of biophysical conditions and community attributes in Jiaosi, this study points out that the existing boundary rules failed to consider the speciality of Jiaosi and thus couldn’t carry out ideal achievement. Finally, the study focuses on the attributes that can be improved by effort and provides suggestions as follow-up reference materials.