Robust irrigation system institutions: A global comparison

•Ostrom doubts that any list of design principles would be necessary or sufficient for robust outcomes.•We examine 62 irrigation systems in 37 countries and investigate robust outcomes with respect to Ostrom’s Design Principles.•The four most important criteria for robust irrigation system are:•Presence of clearly defined boundaries.•User involvement in monitoring and enforcement.•Comprehensive resource condition monitoring.•Minimum rights for users to organize. In many places irrigation systems rely on robust governance for continued existence. Elinor Ostrom listed design principles that should achieve robust governance, but doubted that any list could be both necessary and sufficient to result in robust governance. To date, this assumption has never been formally tested. We conduct a meta-analysis and ultimately evaluate 62 case studies via fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify necessary/sufficient conditions for robust irrigation system governance. We identify four necessary conditions and seven configurations sufficient for robust governance. Further, we identify a union of conditions that, when absent, are likely to result in system failure.