Special Issue: The Politics of Water Quantification

Call for papers

 

Special Issue: The Politics of Water Quantification

Guest Editors: François Molle, Bruce Lankford, Rebecca Lave

 

'Modern water' is associated with various quantitative attributes that describe and quantify it in terms of volume/stock, discharge/flow, chemical or biological characteristics, and associated economic values, costs and benefits. Quantifying water is mediated by in-situ measurements, indicators, metrics, standards, categories, water-accounting procedures, models and simulations, projections, etc. and is generally seen – and branded – as a neutral and natural operation conducive to improved objective and rational decision-making (Porter, 1996). But the production, promotion and use of 'water numbers' actually conceal deeply political hypotheses, concepts, intents, fashions and processes. Whether embodied in indicators, thresholds, water accounting or virtual-flow analysis, cost/benefits or environmental flow analyses, water numbers contribute as much to the scientization of politics as to the politicization of science. Just like storylines, narratives and discourses, numbers do important political work, concealing complexity, 'rendering technical', selecting 'what counts', giving meaning to social and physical phenomena, rallying epistemic coalitions behind methods, numbers or sets of numbers, interpretations (Lankford, 2022), or offering a boundary concept/target around which negotiations may unfold.

This Special Issue reflects on the societal and environmental outcomes accomplished by addressing water as a quantifiable resource, and, conversely, what quantifying water does to society/environment and particular individuals or groups. We identify and call for contributions from social, natural and interdisciplinary scientists to one or more of six areas of reflexion (not excluding other relevant themes):

  • Environmental uncertainties as constraint and resource
  • The politics of water numbers and number narratives
  • Quantification and governance
  • Reductionist ontologies of quantified water
  • Water numeracy and selective ignorance
  • Datafication, control and commodification
  1. Environmental uncertainties

Water is a fluid, highly fluctuating, partly invisible element, which frequently eludes quantification efforts that are subject to significant uncertainties. While these uncertainties are partly derived from measurement itself and from the hydro-social complexity of the circulation of water in space and time, they also constitute both a constraint and a resource. Uncertainty contributes to ambiguity, a key element of political processes, but it can also be manufactured or preserved for opportunistic and strategic use by specific actors. Conversely, while competing representations and interpretations are never completely accurate, ‘different actors will try to represent interpretations as more certain than they are in order to justify their world views’ (Forsyth, 2015). Water metrics, whether hydraulic or economic, and their associated practices offer numerous situations to explore how uncertainties are dealt with and possibly put to use.

  1. The politics of water numbers and number narratives

'Water numbers' are produced by specific actors, knowledge-making practices, and webs of interests. They are often incorporated into 'number narratives' or justification discourses (Brooks, 2017) and as such contribute to policy-making and implementation processes. It is therefore important to understand water numbers’ production, circulation and contestation, particularly with respect to how they frame problems and solutions, favouring the consideration of what can be 'counted' to the detriment of other values, interests and individuals/groups (Tadaki and Sinner, 2014).

Although 'numbers' are frequently massaged and made compatible with plans and objectives ex-post, they are valued for their neutral, objective and rational gloss to legitimize political decisions (e.g. new infrastructure, drought or emergency measures, dam releases, and new policies). ‘Trust in numbers’ can be manufactured and instrumentalised to naturalize situations (e.g. water crisis, overallocation and mismanagement), depoliticize decisions or instantiate proof of 'improvement' or policy success (Porter, 1996; Rudebeck, 2019). Actors who have the technical, economic and political means to produce and disseminate numbers are in a position to define ‘truth’ and what counts. Hence, whether these numbers are accurate or true may be secondary to the role they play in making some futures more possible than others. Numbers can be produced with regard to local-scale projects (e.g. C/B analysis, eflows, fish catch, urban- or irrigation-scheme efficiency, etc.) but also, often in the form of indicators, as key elements of global/Earth science outputs (e.g. global water depletion, value of ecosystem services, percentage or 'free-flowing rivers', etc.), global policies, such as the SDGs, or national/international databases (e.g. FAO Aquastat).

If numbers and 'number narratives' matter in the legitimation of dominant discourses and interests, there is also a need to examine 'number counternarratives', whereby NGOs, academics or coalition of actors join to produce alternative numbers and 'truths' (e.g. ‘Thai Baan’ research in Thailand, Soppecom in India).

  1. Water quantification and governance

Thus, more broadly, water quantification is associated with governance. It may promote an ideology of control, thereby endowing those promising to overcome scarcity, uncertainty or inefficiency and ensure ‘water security’ (such as engineers, scientists, hydrocrats and construction companies) with social power. This can enforce ‘a culture of domination, control and alienation’ (Parrinello et al., 2020). But the preoccupation with full knowledge and control is difficult to align not just with water’s capriciousness and lack of predictability, but also with the pragmatic, contested and often messy ways in which actual decisions about water are made.

With their implicit emphasis on ‘governing by numbers’ (Shore and Wright, 2015), New Public Management and other control and auditing approaches contribute to the prevalence of the languages of management, accounting and regulation, and in a distinct preference for quantification and efficiency, something that Turnhout (2018) calls measurementality. What is the role of numbers, indicators, ranking, benchmarking, models or water-accounting procedures in water governance? Who develops, promotes or benefits from these technologies? What kind of subjects do they produce and what strategies do they elicit in response? Do water accounts promote or demote performative norms (e.g more, higher, better efficiency, resilience, sustainability, equity, etc.) that subsequently mask other concerns?

  1. Reductionist ontologies

While number narratives simplify reality and are selective in what is counted 'in' and 'out', the representations of nature attached to quantification, and categories and classification systems more deeply, ‘foreground specific elements of nature while silencing or ignoring others’ (Turnhout, 2008). In other words, the metrics, standards, categories and concepts through which we apprehend the world filter and sideline certain actors, rationales, values or alternative ontologies. Neoliberal regimes of quantification, for example, favour 'economisation', where ‘individuals, activities and organisations are constituted or framed as economic actors and entities’ (Mennicken and Espeland, 2019). Quantification typically promotes 'modern water' –which is stripped of historical, geographical, sensorial, affective or spiritual particularities (Vogt, 2021). Ontologically, how is water comprehended in ways that shape its hydrological quantification? And, conversely, how does hydrological numeracy shape conceptions of water? ‘Seeing water as stocks and/or flows’, ‘advancing the river basin as the natural balancing unit’ and ‘arguing that the conservation of mass must be respected’ are examples of the co-construction of water and its quantification.

Within this fourth theme we also encourage contributions that engage with how water and hydrology are modelled and are rendered, or abstracted, into models. Models, self-contained metaphors for a real-world richness that can never be fully captured, usually support dominant narratives and follow disciplinary or professional fashions that would benefit from fresh inspection.  One example is the critiqued levelled at the dominance of the hydrological cycle (Farnum et al., 2018).  

  1. Critical water numeracy

'Water numeracy' refers to the technical capacity to understand or use water accounting and operationalise other metrics, and the associated assumptions, scope, computations and policy advice. Thus, critical water numeracy foregrounds concerns about whether and how precepts, abstractions, computations, scales, boundaries and variables are used (or not) in water accounting and more generally in policies that define objectives, justifications or achievements based on water quantification. 'Selective ignorance' of specific complexities or elements of the water cycle is also common. Epistemologically and methodologically, how are water accounts, budgets and indicators evidenced and formulated? How is scale taken into consideration and accommodated? What omissions, shortcuts and elisions are commonly employed? How are statistical errors and error bars employed to mask deep uncertainty leading to unwise policy (Puy et al., 2022).  Are critical water studies insufficiently ‘numerically grounded’, dissociating critical/social science water studies from an understanding of/insight in hydraulic and hydrological dynamics?

How is water numeracy experienced and theorised in different disciplines (farming, hydrology, economics, engineering)? And what strengths and weaknesses are built into their world views? Can water numeracy contribute to social and environmental justice, and improve outcomes for people and nature, or is numeracy’s utility limited by the political forces that shape water distribution.

  1. Datafication

Datafication is often rooted in an ideology that sees the collection of data as a way to represent and capture both physical processes and social life, often with a view to/hope of controlling them. The ubiquitous mantra 'you can't manage what you can't measure' is often implicitly a promise that more data will necessarily beget better management. But datafication is also a means for national administrations (and international bodies) to secure budgets and to be seen ‘doing something’ to solve water problems by deploying (and displaying) huge means to generate data, databases, web-based maps, etc. With the rise of satellite imagery, global connectivity, and the Internet of Things, datafication seems to be accelerating.  It is spurring calls to build global water data-sets and institutions deemed to be necessary to build global water governance, suggesting that control and sound decision making will be made possible at that level. Datafication is also about the commodification of data; that remotely sensed ‘proof’ of a problem fixed is likely more investor-facing than it is problem-facing. However, datafication especially that rapidly gleaned via satellite imaging, usually involves the omission and/or elision of a rich underlying ‘hidden iceberg’ of resource relations, and management-relevant and people-centred field data, to say nothing of stochastic uncertainties and non-equilibrium disconnects between an actual catchment and its digital twin. Is datafication therefore a reflection of regulatory and measurement failure?  Are glossy global-scale datafication websites glossing over the micro and meso-scales? Is datafication a cul-de-sac or a stepping stone to a water secure future guided by machine competency? 

 

Types of articles

We welcome the submission of abstracts by authors intending to write full papers or shorter Viewpoints. See our general guidelines.

Send your abstract (300 words or more) to managing_editor@water-alternatives.org 

Timeline for the Special Issue

Special issue announcement: 20th March 2023

Abstract submission deadline: 5th May 2023 [abstracts can still be sent until the end of May]

Decision communicated to authors: 31st May 2023

Full paper submission deadline:  15th January 2024

Special Issue publication: 1st week June 2024
(Papers are however made available on line whenever completed)

 

References

Brooks, E. 2017. Number narratives: Abundance, scarcity, and sustainability in a California water world. Science as Culture, 26(1), 32-55.

Farnum, R.L., Macdougall, R., Thompson, C. 2018. Re-envisioning the hydro cycle: The hydrosocial spiral as a participatory toolbox for water education and management. Water, Creativity and Meaning, 138-156.

Forsyth, T. 2015. Integrating science and politics in political ecology. In The international handbook of political ecology (pp. 103-116). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Lankford, B.A. 2022. Irrigated agriculture: more than ‘big water’ and ‘accountants will [not] save the world’. Water International 47, 1155-1164.

Mennicken, A., & Espeland, W. N. 2019. What's new with numbers? Sociological approaches to the study of quantification. Annual Review of Sociology, 45, 223-245.

Parrinello, G., Benson, E. S., & von Hardenberg, W. G. 2020. Estimated truths: water, science, and the politics of approximation. Journal of Historical Geography, 68, 3-10.

Porter, T. M. 1996. Trust in numbers. Princeton University Press.

Puy, A., Sheikholeslami, R., Gupta, H.V., Hall, J.W., Lankford, B., Lo Piano, S., Meier, J., Pappenberger, F., Porporato, A., Vico, G., Saltelli, A. 2022. The delusive accuracy of global irrigation water withdrawal estimates. Nature communications 13, 3183.

Rudebeck, T. (2019). Corporations as custodians of the public good? Exploring the intersection of corporate water stewardship and global water governance. Springer.

Saltelli, A., Di Fiore, M., (2023) The politics of modelling. Numbers between science and policy, Oxford.

Shore, C., & Wright, S. 2015. Governing by numbers: audit culture, rankings and the new world order. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 23(1), 22-28.

Sletto, B. 2008. The knowledge that counts: institutional identities, policy science, and the conflict over fire management in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela. World Development, 36(10), 1938-1955.

Tadaki, Marc, and Jim Sinner. 2014. "Measure, model, optimise: Understanding reductionist concepts of value in freshwater governance."  Geoforum 51:140-151.

Turnhout, E. 2018. The politics of environmental knowledge. Conservation and Society 16(3): 363-371.

Vogt, L. 2021. Water, modern and multiple: Enriching the idea of water through enumeration amidst water scarcity in Bengaluru. Water Alternatives 14(1): 97-116.

Call for papers: Unconventional Waters: a critical understanding of desalination and wastewater reuse

 

“Unconventional times call for unconventional water resources” (UN-Water, 2020).

The growth of unconventional water resources as a new resource frontier has been much touted over the last two decades and is transforming society’s relationship with water in diverse contexts. Desalination and wastewater reuse, in particular, are potentially game-changing technologies for water management and (re)distribution, and are carried forward by promises to overcome water scarcity, enhance water security and, for wastewater at least, increase agricultural yields while also improving the receiving environments. However, they also raise serious questions around justice and access to water services, political power, financing and corporate interests, environmental impact and sustainability, energy demand, and the cost of capital-intensive infrastructure. Unconventional waters are entering the hydro-social cycle through a myriad of social, political, economic and cultural configurations, from small-scale technologies to mega-infrastructure projects across the Global North and Global South.

Unconventional water technologies are likely to increasingly reshape the practices, politics and political economy of water throughout the twenty-first century, as the climate crisis worsens, water challenges become more entrenched, global economic growth continues and thirsty industries expand, and capital continues to seek out new opportunities for accumulation. Empirical evidence suggests that the 'creation of new water' does not necessarily ease the situation but may result in, and even compound, inequalities in terms of allocation or access. As such, the contradictions associated with the creation of unconventional water resources will continue to grow. In this rapidly evolving terrain, new critical research is needed to understand, expose and challenge these contradictions.

We are seeking papers that develop non-technical and critical understanding of desalination or wastewater reuse (or both). Although desalination and wastewater reuse are becoming prominent issues in the water sector, the non-technical scholarship about these issues is still incipient. Papers addressing issues of justice, inequality, political economy and socio-political conflicts around unconventional waters are most welcome. We are particularly interested in empirically-rich papers with substantial original research, although we will also consider review articles on wastewater re-use.

If you are interested in contributing to this special issue, please submit abstracts (of ca.400 words) to the guest editors by 15th June 2022.


Timeline

Abstract submission deadline: 15th June 2022

Decision communicated to authors: 1st July 2022

Full paper submission deadline: 15th December 2022

Special Issue publication: June 2023


Guest editors

Joe Williams, Cardiff University, UK: williamsj168@cardiff.ac.uk

Pierre-Louis Mayaux, CIRAD, France: pierre-louis.mayaux@cirad.fr  

Ross Beveridge, University of Glasgow, UK: ross.beveridge@glasgow.ac.uk

Call for papers: Assessing the Water Framework Directive

WaA Call for papers
 
WFD + 20: Assessing the European Water Framework Directive

 
The European Water Framework Directive, issued in 2000, is a major landmark in the history of European water policy. It has introduced in national legislation a number of principles and priorities that have the potential to substantially revise the supply-oriented and state-centred ‘business as usual’ of water resource development. The WFD has, in particular, incorporated some of the policy ideas promoted in the 1990s, such as full cost recovery and resource pricing, the participation of stakeholders or the environmental health of ‘water bodies’. It has also mainstreamed other tenets of IWRM such as water management at the basin scale (or ‘district’) and the polluter-pays principle.

While the inclusion of the WFD into national strategies and legislation together with the implementation of the first measures have taken close to a decade, a twenty-year period provides an ideal time span to engage in a comprehensive assessment of what the WFD has changed in terms of legislation, practices, representations and results on the ground. This special issue aims at taking stock of the progress, difficulties and illusions accompanying the implementation of the WFD by EU member states. We welcome in particular papers that unpack policy processes and present longitudinal studies of policy changes, whether in a specific country or comparatively, across countries. Hindsight papers analysing the formation phase of the WFD (ideologies, interest groups, coalitions, procedures, differences between countries, etc) are also welcome. Key questions include:
How has the WFD been translated/incorporated into the legislation and practices of a particular country?

  • How have the main instruments and principles (river basin management, participation, water pricing, cost recovery, etc) been promoted, implemented and with what results?
  • What are the gaps that have appeared between principles and implementation and how they have been dealt with (politics of exemption, circumvention of rules, etc)
  • Contesting the WFD: which groups have supported or fought against the WFD’s principles and implementation, why and how?
  • What improvements in terms of water quality and nonpoint source pollution have been recorded and through which means have they been achieved?
  • How has WFD implementation differed between EU member states?
  • What steps have been taken to revise the WFD and how far do they represent a shift in emphasis?
  • How have WFD-oriented water policies impacted and been impacted by spatial planning?
  • What novel forms of integration and competition between agricultural, water, and environmental policies have emerged in implementing the WFD?
  • How have the metrics and politics of objective-setting, compliance and ‘success’ shaped the implementation process?
  • In what ways has the WFD acted as a model for water resources management globally? 

 
Guest-editors
Gabrielle Bouleau (IRSTEA, France)
Timothy Moss (Humboldt University, Berlin)
José Albiac (Department of Agricultural Economics, CITA, Spain)
Lenka Slavíkova (University of Economics, Prague)
 
Timeline
Call for paper: May, 15 2019
Deadline for abstracts: July, 10
Decision on abstracts: July, 30
Deadline for full submissions: December, 31
Review process: until May, 30 2020
Publication: October, 1st  2020

Abstracts should be around 350-500 words. Submissions should be policy-oriented and not technical in scope.

 

 

Call for papers: Irrigation management in East Asia

Call for papers

Irrigation management in East Asia: Institutions, socioeconomic transformation and adaptations


With the financial support of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China


Irrigation has a long history in East Asia. The ways in which water is organised, allocated and utilised demonstrate endogenous responses to the conditions of natural habitats such as rainfall, topography, population density and amounts of farmland. Although the development of irrigation has significantly sustained the prosperity of rural communities, traditional irrigation management in East Asia [China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan] has been confronting a series of new challenges in the past few decades.

Among these challenges, the most arduous include:

  • an ageing and decreasing rural population as a result of rural–urban migration,
  • increasing competition for water among different regions and sectors,
  • incentive changes in agricultural water supply and food production that are associated with the growing influence of neo-liberalisation, and
  • shifting water, land and food policies that reshape the relationships between the state, the market and rural communities.

These new challenges, combined with increasing environmental pressure, have changed the characteristics of collective action in irrigation and rural affairs, thus presenting novel institutional and policy problems for rural communities and decision makers.

This special issue aims at revisiting irrigation management in East Asia against the backdrop of rapid socio-economic transformation. We particularly welcome papers that probe into the institutional dynamics, policy processes, social relations and power struggles that are related to the co-management of irrigation systems by public, communal and private actors.

Key questions include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • What is the performance of irrigation management in terms of water use efficiency, productivity, equity and sustainability?
  • What are the trade-offs and implications involved in water allocation and distribution among different individuals, communities, regions and sectors?
  • What new forms of water institutional arrangements and policies – in particular in terms of co-management by state and users and the introduction of intermediary entrepreneurs or market-driven instruments – have emerged and evolved in response to rapidly changing socio-economic settings?
  • How have the combinations of broader governance frameworks, policy instruments, political economy and social norms influenced irrigation management?
  • How have external shocks, policies and institutions been translated into everyday practices of irrigation management in specific socio-ecological settings?
  • Why have irrigation institutions succeeded – or failed – to adapt to, and cope with, the new challenges of socio-economic transformations?

For this special issue, we are looking for contributions that are based on empirical work in a specific locality and/or comparatively across regions or countries, and which engage in theoretical discussions on the institutions, policies and practices of irrigation management in East Asia. We also welcome papers that take stock of historical changes in irrigation-based socio-ecological systems in the longue durée. Contributions may be grounded in fields and disciplines such as institutional and agricultural economics, human geography, political ecology, political economy, political science, sociology and anthropology. Abstracts should be approximately 500 to 1000 words long and should briefly present the analytical framework, methodology, main findings and arguments.

 

Guest editors:

Raymond Yu Wang (Southern University of Science and Technology, SUSTech)

Jinxia Wang (Peking University, PKU)

Wai Fung Lam (The University of Hong Kong, HKU)

 

Timeline

Call for papers: May 10, 2020

Deadline for abstracts: June 30, 2020

Decision on abstracts: July 30, 2020

Deadline for full submissions: December 31, 2020

Review process: until April 30, 2021

Publication: June, 2021

Send your abstract to managing_editor@water-alternatives.org

Call for papers: Farmer-led irrigation development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Call for papers

Farmer-led irrigation development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Investment, policy engagements & agrarian transformation

Guest editors: Gert Jan Veldwisch, Hans Komakech, Jean-Philippe Venot

Debates about irrigating sub-Saharan Africa are not new but have re-emerged at the start of the century (World Bank, 2006; AfDB et al. 2008; Lankford, 2009; AgWa 2010) following renewed concerns over stagnant African agricultural productivity (NEPAD 2003; Commission for Africa, 2005; World Bank, 2008) and the 2007-8 increase in food commodity prices. Key to the debate is “the form that irrigation must take” in sub-Saharan Africa given mounting evidence that past irrigation development has fared much below expectations on a variety of criteria (Svendsen et al., 2009; Inocencio et al. 2007; Woodhouse, 2012). In this context, the idea that smallholders can be a driving force of irrigation development has started to get some traction as illustrated by the 2018 international water for food forum organized by the Daugherty Global Institute and the World Bank and entitled Farmer-led irrigated agriculture: Seeds of opportunity.

Farmer-led irrigation might well be on its way to become “a new investment model” promoted by major development players in conjunction with national governments. This interest partly builds on a growing number of empirical studies that have documented an intensification and expansion of agricultural water management, often by small-scale producers using a variety of technologies and often in circumstances where legal and regulatory frameworks have not been developed to address such patterns of water use and agricultural development (de Fraiture and Giordano, 2013; Veldwisch et al., 2013; Woodhouse et al., 2017). However, the debate has remained largely framed in dual terms whereby farmer-led irrigated agriculture (often characterized as small scale) is often opposed to investments (often thought to be of a larger scale) by the state and private companies with or without support of development aid agencies and NGOs.

In this special issue, we take a slightly different view. Instead of framing farmer-led irrigation as another (neatly) bounded and fixed irrigation category we focus on farmer-led irrigation development (FLID). We define farmer-led irrigation development as a process in which farmers drive the establishment, improvement and/or expansion of irrigated agriculture, often in interaction with other actors: government agencies, NGOs, etc. This type of irrigation development cuts across existing irrigation typologies defined on the basis of scale, technologies, crops, modes of management, etc. It has become a reality of rural sub-Saharan landscapes: it is widespread and increasing and embedded in institutional and governance arrangements that are situation specific. This special issue aims at shedding light on the multiplicity of farmer-led irrigation development by tackling questions that include but are not limited to:

  • The “knowledge dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. How to assess its extent: what tools and methods can be used to map and share information on these dynamics? What can they reveal, what do they miss? What are the political consequences of generating new knowledge and data on farmer-led irrigation development on these very processes?
  • The “governance dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. How do different stakeholders (researchers, NGOs, Government agencies, private companies, and aid agencies) perceive, frame and then engage with FLID? In which multi-level governance arrangements are FLID embedded in?
  • The “policy dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. How does farmer-led irrigation development feature in national and continental plans to enhance agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa? Notably, how does FLID relate to initiatives promoting large scale agricultural entrepreneurship (for instance growth pole, growth corridors, and outgrowers’ schemes, etc)?
  • The “institutional dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. What institutional arrangements emerge and underpin FLID, what are the property rights and land tenure regimes associated with such dynamics, what strategies farmers adopt to engage with different “external” actors, for what purposes?
  • The “water dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. What is the water use efficiency of FLID at scales (local, system, watershed), what possible water allocation trade-offs it implies, and what environmental effects in a local and river basin perspectives, etc?
  • The “agricultural and social dimensions” of farmer-led irrigation development. How productive is FLID? What investment processes underpins it? Does it lead to widespread poverty alleviation and prosperity? Does it create new inequalities across class, gender and generational gaps?

For this special issue we are looking for contributions that start from empirical work (single and/or comparative case studies) to draw broader analytical and/or theoretical arguments on what farmer-led irrigation development tells us about the discourses, policies and practices of irrigation development, agricultural intensification and water resources management in sub-Saharan Africa. Contributions may be grounded in a variety of fields and disciplines ranging from agricultural and irrigation/water engineering, to economics, physical and human geography, anthropology, sociology, political ecology and policy science. They should however shed light on the politics related to knowing and characterizing farmer-led irrigation development.

We are calling for long abstracts (1000 to 1500 words) that should briefly present the analytical framework, the methodology used, the main lessons of the case study/ies, and stress the main (analytical) arguments put forth in the paper.

Send your abstracts to: gertjan.veldwisch@wur.nl and jean-philippe.venot@ird.fr, with copy to managing_editor@water-alternatives.org.

Standard review process will apply: upon selection of the abstracts, submitted papers will be sent to two external reviewers chosen by the guest editors together with the editors of Water Alternatives. Guest editors will be responsible for the final decision of accepting papers on the basis of reviews received from the reviewers and the editors of Water Alternatives (see http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/guide to format your contribution).


Time line

Launch of the call                                                                20 February 2018

Deadline for submission of abstracts (1000-1500 words)  15 March 2018

Notification of authors                                                         15 April 2018

Submission of selected papers                                           15 July 2018

Reviews sent back to authors                                             30 October 2018

Submission of revised papers                                             15 December 2019

Publication                                                                           1 February 2019

Key references

AfDB et al 2008. Investment In Agricultural Water for Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth. A collaborative Program of AFDB, FAO,IFAD, IWMI and the World Bank. Synthesis Report http://www.fanrpan.org/documents/d00508/1-agric_water_investments_World_Bank.pdf

AgWA. 2010. AgWA governance, institutional and operational architecture. Agricultural Water for Africa. http://www.ukia.org/agwa/AgWA%20Architecture%20Inception%20Report.pdf

De Fraiture, C. and Giordano, M. 2013. Small private irrigation: A thriving but overlooked sector. Agricultural Water Management 131: 167-174.

Lankford, B., 2009. Viewpoint—the right irrigation? Policy directions for agricultural water management in sub-Saharan Africa. Water Alternatives 2 (3), 476–480.

Merrey, D. 2018. Pathways to Increasing Farmer-led Investments in Sustainable Agricultural Water Management in sub-Saharan Africa. Background paper for the recent World Bank-USAID-DWFI conference on farmer-led irrigation development in Africa.

NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development). 2003. Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. Pretoria, South Africa: NEPAD. http://www.nepad.org/foodsecurity/agriculture/land

Svendsen, S., Ewing, M., Msangi, S., 2009. Measuring irrigation performance in Africa. IFPRI Discussion Paper 894. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

Veldwisch, G.J.; Beekman, W. and Bolding, A. 2013. Smallholder irrigators, water rights and investments in agriculture: Three cases from rural Mozambique. Water Alternatives 6(1): 125-141.

Woodhouse, P. 2012. “Water in African Agronomy.” In Contested Agronomy: Agricultural Research in a Changing World, edited by J Sumberg and J Thompson, 102–15. London: Earthscan.

Woodhouse, Philip, Gert Jan Veldwisch, Jean-Philippe Venot, Dan Brockington, Hans Komakech, and Ângela Manjichi. 2017. “African Farmer-Led Irrigation Development: Re-Framing Agricultural Policy and Investment?” The Journal of Peasant Studies 44 (1):213–33.

World Bank. 2006. Reengaging in agricultural water management: Challenges and Options. Washington D.C: The World Bank.

World Bank. 2007. World Development Report 2008. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

  1. Call for papers: Local- and national-level politics of groundwater overexploitation
  2. Call for papers: Dam removal: new environments and new landscapes?
  3. Call for papers Nexus
  4. Call for papers: trends and developments in rural water supply services delivery