The impacts of land fragmentation on irrigation collective action: Empirical test of the social-ecological system framework in China

Land fragmentation is an interesting physical character in some developing countries, especially China. This study aims to discover the direct and mediated effects of land fragmentation on collective action in China based on an empirical test and the social-ecological system framework. We introduce three innovations to the literature on collective action in the commons. First, we focus on the mechanism of land fragmentation on collective action in the commons, which has been largely ignored in the literature. Second, building on the social-ecological system framework, we use structural equation modeling, which is robust to endogeneity and latent variable problems. Third, we use original survey data from 3895 households and 284 villages from 17 provinces/regions in China, a critical case because China has some of the most fragmented farmland use in the world. We find that land fragmentation has a direct negative effect on irrigation collective action. And besides the direct negative effect, there are four indirect factors: dependency on farming, irrigation rule-making, economic pressure and land circulation. Of these, the first three have a negative effect, and the last one, a positive effect. Our findings add to the theoretical literature on collective action in the commons and suggest new policy handles for more efficient land and labor markets in China. •We focus on the mechanism how land fragmentation affects collective action in the commons.•We employ structural equation modeling using the social-ecological systems framework to explore the mechanism.•The survey data from 3,895 households and 284 villages of 17 regions in China are used to reveal the effect empirically.•We find that land fragmentation has a negative, significant but mediated effect on collective action.•The mediating mechanisms include dependency on farming, irrigation rule-making, economic pressure and land circulation.