Over the past, natural resources have been managed to a large part by the state. However, local communities increasingly account for a substantial share of management as well. Approximately 76% of the world’s irrigated area (277 million hectares, 40% of the world’s food production), is managed by local Water User Associations (Garces-Restrepo et al., 2007). Since state-governance did not always met expectations in the 1960 and 1970s (Acheson, 2006), many countries increased the involvement of local resource users in the management process (see Garces-Restrepo et al., 2007 for irrigation). This development led to a variety of different forms of collaboration between governments and communities. Indeed, despite the conceptual distinction, in practice there is considerable overlap between state and community-based governance and a wide diversity of experiences (Meinzen-Dick, 2014). Different ideas have been used to coin these experiences, including joint management, community-based management (Gruber, 2008), (adaptive) collaborative management, and, most prominently co-management (Armitage et al., 2009).