Imagineering waterscapes: The case of the Dutch water sector

Chris H. Büscher
Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London, London, United Kingdom; chrisbuscher@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article explores the imagineering of waterscapes using a cultural political economy (CPE) approach. 'Imagineering' is a portmanteau of imagining and engineering, and a 'waterscape' is taken to be a produced hydrosocial entity. On the one hand, then, imagineering waterscapes involves construing a hydrosocial imaginary based on material realities; on the other, such an imaginary itself ought to have performative and material effects. This article is primarily concerned with imagineering waterscapes at the national scale, taking the Dutch Water Sector (DWS) as a case in point. The article examines elements of the Netherlands' water history, geography, agential configurations, and the water infrastructural and conceptual inventions that serve as selectivities in the DWS imaginary. Anticipated performative effects of this DWS imaginary include gaining a competitive edge in the world market for water-related products and services and an enhanced power position in global water networks. The DWS case therefore illustrates how imagineering is simultaneously a cultural and political economic process or 'tactic', aimed at seducing prospective (business) partners into 'buying' particular hydrosocial visions and arrangements. I argue that imagineering is a strategic and potentially powerful tool in todayʼs intensified discursive struggles about how water (crises) ought to be seen and treated. But todayʼs focus on imagineering can also partly be explained as having replaced more coercive tactics (such as tied aid) that were once commonly used in the pursuit of Dutch water interests abroad. This is not to say that imagineering is somehow less political; our examination of this case shows how the politics of privileging and marginalising and of forgetting and remembering are engrained in the process of imagineering waterscapes.

KEYWORDS: Imagineering, waterscape, cultural political economy, Dutch Water Sector

Undercurrents of participatory groundwater governance in Rural Jalna, western India

Poonam Argade
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India; and Social Science Program, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA; psargade@syr.edu

N.C. Narayanan
Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India; ncn@iitb.ac.in

ABSTRACT: This paper analyses a participatory groundwater governance project called Purna Groundwater Management Association (PGWMA). A pilot project under the World Bank-funded Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement Project, the PGWMA project spanned eight villages in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. In the case study, we used ethnographic interviews, discussions with villagers, and analysis of project materials. At the governance level, we found that the groundwater problem was conceptualised in a depoliticised way and involved an oversimplified notion of the community; it also deployed a checklist-type approach to equity, sustainability and participation, and attempted to commodify water. At the level of the community, our observations of peopleʼs access to groundwater, and of their perceptions and knowledge, showed that the project failed to inculcate the idea of groundwater as commons. While the project led to slightly improved water access, for the most part it redeployed caste, class and gender relations and led to negligible improvement in community participation. The study examines the paradoxical coexistence of the 'success' of the participatory governance model and the actual failure to steer the community-groundwater relationship towards sustainability. The case could not be entirely explained by existing critiques within development studies (the root cause of the over-extraction problem was unsustainably high groundwater need); it did not fit the 'implementation failure' critique, nor did we find a semblance of an 'ideal', 'traditional' system of resource management; a politicised understanding of the community was also insufficient. Using the Cultural Political Economy approach, we found that the historical sedimentation of high groundwater demand was linked to an imaginary of a 'better life' through social structures, political economy, technology access and postcolonial development policies that have influenced agricultural practices. The situation has become unsustainable due to dwindling water tables. Thinking through these 'undercurrents' of groundwater governance leads to a deeper understanding of the groundwater problem, its framings and meanings at multiple levels, and its links to equity and sustainability.

KEYWORDS: Participation, groundwater governance, hard rock aquifer, community-groundwater relationship, Cultural Political Economy, Maharashtra, India

Reform and regression: Discourses of water reallocation in Mpumalanga, South Africa

Rebecca Peters
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; rebecca.peters@ouce.ox.ac.uk

Philip Woodhouse
The Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; phil.woodhouse@manchester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This paper traces the implementation of reforms in water resource management in the Inkomati catchment, South Africa, since the National Water Act of 1998. It focuses on the ways that the predominant water users – white commercial farmers – have negotiated competing demands for water, particularly from black farmers and from growing urban water supply systems. The paper argues that existing commercial agricultural interests have largely succeeded in maintaining their access to water. We investigate this outcome using a cultural political economy perspective which focuses on an analysis of discourses of water allocation and explores how different discourses are reinforced by social practice and through their adoption by, and diffusion through, institutions of water governance. The research has identified three principle narratives that underpin discourse: scarcity, participation, and rights. It focuses on the ways in which calculative techniques for quantifying water use and economic value have been used to reinforce discourses rooted in narratives of water scarcity, and how these narratives ultimately structure water reallocation by agencies of water governance. The paper also identifies the wider political and economic dynamics at play, and the processes that may shift the current discourse of water reallocation.

KEYWORDS: Water reform, South Africa, cultural political economy, discourse, water re-allocation

Policy discretion, adaptation pressure and reloading implementation experiences in EU water governance: The case of the Netherlands

Marjolein M.C.J. van Eerd
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; c.dieperink@uu.nl

Mark M.A. Wiering
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; mailxx

Carel C. Dieperink
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; mailxx

ABSTRACT: European water governance is characterised by processes of interplay and interaction. Member states present and discuss their preferences and expertise in the EU policy arena and implement EU policies at the domestic level. These processes of 'uploading' and 'downloading' are regularly studied. However, a knowledge gap exists concerning the 'reloading' of implementation experiences, i.e. the renewed uploading of information on how policies actually work domestically and how possible implementation problems are solved. Certain characteristics of EU policies are expected to affect processes of reloading. In this paper we study how adaptation pressures and the levels of policy discretion affect the reloading of implementation experiences. We empirically assess reloading processes in the EU Water Framework Directive and the EU Floods Directive. It was expected that a low level of policy discretion leads to clear reloading incentives, in order to either change the policy (if fit is low and adaptation pressure is high) or maintain stability (if fit is high and adaptation pressure is low). A high degree of policy discretion, on the other hand, leads to no incentive at all for reloading. The relatively specific Water Framework Directive indeed shows cases of reloading in which implementing agents discuss their rather technical implementation experiences in order to adjust policy or to maintain the status quo in line with their interests. However, it is notable that reloading also takes place in the relatively discretionary policy process of the Floods Directive. Reloading in this case is driven by social learning, and is triggered by the idealistic aim of improving flood risk management practices instead of changing or maintaining the policy on the basis of self-interest. The paper concludes that policy discretion and adaptation pressure do influence reloading processes, but that other factors also must be taken into account.

KEYWORDS: Policy implementation, policy feedback, EU Water Framework Directive, EU Floods Directive, policy characteristics, reloading, EU water governance, EU policy process, European Union

City sanitation planning through a political economy lens

Kumi Abeysuriya
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW, Australia; kumi.abeysuriya@uts.edu.au

Juliet Willetts
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW, Australia; juliet.willetts@uts.edu.au

Naomi Carrard
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW, Australia; naomi.carrard@uts.edu.au

Antoinette Kome
Water Sanitation WASH, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, The Hague, The Netherlands; akome@snv.org

ABSTRACT: While citywide sanitation planning is perceived to be an enabler of coordinated improvements in sanitation services for developing countries, intended outcomes have often been elusive. In order to illustrate how political economy, chosen planning approaches, and ideas about change and development have acted as determinants of outcomes, this paper draws on three case study countries that took qualitatively different approaches to sanitation planning – Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. The analysis found that the assumptions informing the planning methods were often not valid, which then undermined the potential for successful implementation. Based on the analysis, the paper argues that urban sanitation planning and implementation in developing countries needs to be transformed to reduce the emphasis on comprehensiveness and instead emphasise flexibility, a learning orientation and strategically chosen incentives. This approach demands tighter cycles of planning and action, direct testing of assumptions, and an in-depth understanding of the local- and national-level political economy and the links between them. It requires innovation to be enabled, with funding mechanisms that focus on outcome rather than input. In this way it would be possible to shift away from the typical emphasis on prescriptive procedural planning steps and towards delivery of the much-needed improved sanitation outcomes.

KEYWORDS: Urban sanitation, sanitation planning, political economy, developing countries, Southeast Asia

Gender, water, and nutrition in India: An intersectional perspective

Amit Mitra
Independent Researcher, New Delhi, India; artimtima@gmail.com

Nitya Rao
School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; n.rao@uea.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Despite the global recognition of women’s central role in the provision, management, and utilisation of water for production and domestic use, and despite the close links between production choices, the security of water for consumption, and gendered social relations, the implications of these interlinkages for health and nutrition are under-explored. This paper seeks to fill this gap. It unpacks the gendered pathways mediating the links between water security in all its dimensions and nutritional outcomes, based on research in 12 villages across two Indian states. The findings point to the importance of the dynamic links between natural (land and water) systems and gendered human activities, across the domains of production and reproduction, and across seasons. These links have implications for women’s work and time burdens. They impact equally on physical and emotional experiences of well-being, especially in contexts constrained by the availability, access, quality, and stability of water.

KEYWORDS: Gender, water, agriculture, nutrition, food security, India

Participation and power dynamics between international non-governmental organisations and local partners: A rural water case study in Indonesia

Ian Cunningham
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; ian.cunningham@uts.edu.au

Juliet Willetts
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; juliet.willetts@uts.edu.au

Keren Winterford
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; keren.winterford@uts.edu.au

Tim Foster
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; tim.foster@uts.edu.au

ABSTRACT: Community-Based Management (CBM) is an important part of Indonesia’s goal of universal access to water. However, approaches to CBM tend to neglect the impact of power relationships between community-based organisations (CBOs) and their external donor partners on CBO management capacity. This paper explores the power dynamics between a CBO and their donor partner, the international NGO Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB), in a rural water supply project in Tenganan, Indonesia. A diffracted power frame was used to analyse the response of CBO power to EWB’s participatory approach. The approach was sensitised to power, gave primacy to the CBO’s vision, used local assets, and had a flexible timeline. The CBO’s power was evident in the strength of its vision, its resistance to government involvement, the occasional rejection of technical advice from EWB, and its increased confidence in its capacity to manage Tenganan’s water supply. The findings reinforce the political nature of participation, with implications for approaches to establishing CBM in Indonesia and elsewhere. Strengthened outcomes in rural water supply are likely to result from greater self-reflection by external partners regarding their own positionality, coupled with a focus on strategies for maintaining and enhancing the power of CBOs.

KEYWORDS: Rural water supply, power, participation, community-based management, Indonesia

A sociopolitical analysis of drinking water governance in French Polynesia: The case of the Tuamotu Archipelago

Klervi Fustec
Independent researcher, France; klervi.fustec@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The assertion that only a small percentage of the French Polynesian population has access to drinking water is found in press reports and in reports by the French Senate and the French Polynesian Centre for Hygiene and Public Health, reports that were prepared in the context of implementing a new water law. In reality, however, inhabitants do have access to drinking water. How can we explain this discrepancy? This article analyses the sociopolitical dimensions of multilevel formal water governance in Tuamotu, one of the five French Polynesian archipelagos. Tuamotu's inhabitants use household rainwater harvesting cisterns for their drinking water provision. The analysis demonstrates that the current formal governance system is incapable of generating locally relevant and specific policies, and continues to struggle with inappropriate policy ideas derived from French Polynesia's experience as a French State.

KEYWORDS: Drinking water, cisterns, multilevel formal governance, French Polynesia, Tuamotu

Giving water its place: Artificial glaciers and the politics of place in a high-altitude Himalayan Village

Arjun Sharma
Modernity and Society 1800-2000 Department, Leuven, Belgium; arjun091182@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Jeff Malpasʼ concept of place as a bounded, open, and emergent structure is used in this article to understand the reasons for the differences in villagersʼ responses to 'artificial glaciers', or 'Ice stupas', built in two different places in the Himalayan village of Phyang, in Ladakh. Using archival material, geographic information system tools and ethnographic research, this study reveals how Phyang as a village is constituted by interacting ecological-technical, socio-symbolic, and bureaucratic-legal boundaries. It is observed that technologies such as land revenue records, and cadastral maps, introduced in previous processes of imperialist state formation, continue to inform water politics in this Himalayan region. It is further demonstrated how this politics is framed within the village of Phyang, but also shifts its boundaries to create the physical, discursive, and symbolic space necessary for projects like the Ice stupa to emerge. By examining the conflict through the lens of place, it is possible to identify the competing discursive frames employed by different stakeholders to legitimise their own projects for developing the arid area (or Thang) where the contested Ice stupa is located. Such an analysis allows critical water scholarship to understand both how places allow hydrosocial relationships to emerge, and how competing representations of place portray these relationships. Understanding the role of place in the constitution of hydrosocial relationships allows for a more nuanced appraisal of the challenges and opportunities inherent in negotiating development interventions aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change. It is also recommended that scholars studying primarily the institutional dimensions of community-managed resource regimes consider the impact on these institutions of technological artefacts such as the high density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes used to construct the Ice stupas.

KEYWORDS: Artificial glaciers, place, irrigation, water politics, Ladakh

De- and re-politicisation of water security as examined through the lens of the hydrosocial cycle: The case of Jakartaʼs sea wall plan

Thanti Octavianti
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; and Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of the West of England, Bristol; thanti.octavianti@ouce.ox.ac.uk

Katrina Charles
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; katrina.charles@ouce.ox.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This article asks how the pursuit of major engineering works causes changes in existing water-society relations. We employ the concept of the hydrosocial cycle postulated by Linton and Budds (2014) as an analytical framework and draw specific insights from political ecology and science and technology studies (STS). Using as a case study a sea wall megaproject plan in Jakarta, Indonesia, we find that such a project can depoliticise the cityʼs water security issues by rendering them technical and by dehumanising citizens and discounting the future. Using scientific language and logic, policymakers discourage the exploration of alternatives other than the sea wall. To repoliticise these water issues, we mobilise the concept of the hydrosocial cycle and tailor it to the context of large infrastructure. We identify departure points that may improve the current socio-natural process in Jakarta, particularly the empowerment of the middle class to voice their project-related concerns, and the recognition of the different capacities of each group in society to adapt to water-related hazards.

KEYWORDS: Water security, political ecology, hydrosocial cycle, sea wall plan, Jakarta, Indonesia

Confronting a 'post-truth water world' in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

R. Quentin Grafton
Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University; quentin.grafton@anu.edu.au

Matthew J. Colloff
Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University; matthew.colloff@anu.edu.au

Virginia Marshall
School of Regulation and Global Governance and Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University; virginia.marshall@anu.edu.au

John Williams
Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University; jwil3940@bigpond.net.au

ABSTRACT: Several independent findings about the current state of the environment and water management in the Murray-Darling Basin were released in early 2019 by the South Australia Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, the Australian Productivity Commission, and the Australian Academy of Science. We review these findings in relation to: an environmentally sustainable level of water diversions, as mandated in the Australian Water Act 2007; Sovereign Indigenous water rights and interests; the economics of water recovery to increase stream and river flows; and water governance. After reviewing the independent findings and the responses by government agencies, we propose the following actions to respond to post-truth: (1) instituting greater transparency in measurements of water use, consumption, storage and return flows and also of water values (market and non-market); (2) using deliberative democracy, engaging in more effective and inclusive participation in decision-making in terms of water planning and allocations, especially of those who have been long excluded such as the First Peoples of Australia; and (3) giving primacy to the environmental goals of the Water Act 2007 and supporting this through the establishment of an independent standing commission which reports to the Australian parliament and has audit and oversight powers in relation to land, water and the environment.

KEYWORDS: Scientific integrity, deliberative democracy, regulatory capture, Indigenous water rights, Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

The human right to water in Mexico: Challenges and opportunities

Margaret O. Wilder
School of Geography and Development and Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA; mwilder@email.arizona.edu

Polioptro F. Martínez Austria
UNESCO Chair on Hydrometeorological Risks, Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Puebla, México; polioptro.martinez@udlap.mx

Paul Hernández Romero
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Puebla, México; paul.hernandezro@udlap.mx

Mary Belle Cruz Ayala
Department of Arid Lands Resource Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; marybelca@email.arizona.edu

ABSTRACT: This article analyses Mexico’s 2012 constitutional guarantee of the human right to water and the new General Water Law that is required to implement it. Mexico has struggled to find consensus regarding a new law, but none has as yet been adopted. We examine three key questions regarding the 2012-2019 period: How is the human right to water defined in the Mexican context? What is the legal and institutional framework for implementing it? What are the opportunities and challenges involved in institutionalising it in light of the proposed water legislation? This research is based on a literature review, participation and observation at public forums, and in-depth interviews with key actors. Two principal legal proposals emerged in 2015, contrasting a technocratic approach with a socially inclusive one; neither was adopted but both remain relevant to the current discourse. The 2018 election re-energised social mobilisation around the right to water, and the government launched a new process for developing legal proposals. Using legal geography and political ecology as theoretical framings, we find that the new law creates opportunities for transforming access to water for marginalised communities, yet faces social, political and structural obstacles. Despite the challenges, the constitutional guarantee of the right to water is a positive foundation for democratising water governance in Mexico.

KEYWORDS: Human right to water, legal geography, political ecology, Mexico

Between project and region: The challenges of managing water in Shandong Province After the South-North Water Transfer Project

Dan Chen
College of Agricultural Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, China; cherrydew@hhu.edu.cn

Zhaohui Luo
College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China; lzhui@njau.edu.cn

Michael Webber
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; michaeljwebber@gmail.com

Sarah Rogers
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; rogerssm@unimelb.edu.au

Ian Rutherfurd
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; idruth@unimelb.edu.au

Mark Wang
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; myw@unimelb.edu.au

Brian Finlayson
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; brianlf01@gmail.com

Min Jiang
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; min.jiang@unimelb.edu.au

Chenchen Shi
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; chenchens1@student.unimelb.edu.au

Wenjing Zhang
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; wenjingz8@student.unimelb.edu.au

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandongʼs planners consistently overestimated future demand for water; this, together with the threats posed by reduced flows in the Yellow River, encouraged the Shandong government to support the building of the SNWTP. However, between the genesis of the plans for the SNWTP and its construction, the supply from the Yellow River became more reliable and the engineering systems and the efficiency of water use in Shandong Province itself has improved. As a result, by the time the SNWTP water became available, the province had little pressing need for it. Besides this reduced demand for SNWTP water, there have been difficulties in managing delivery of, and payment for, water within the province. These difficulties include unfinished local auxiliary projects that connect cities to the main canal, high water prices, conflict and lack of coordination among stakeholders, and ambiguous management policies. The result is that in 2016, on average, cities used less than 10% of their allocated quota of SNWTP water, while seven cities used none of their quota. The story of the SNWTP in Shandong is that of a centralised, hierarchically planned, fixed infrastructure with its deterministic projections coming into conflict with the fluidity of water demand and local political circumstances.

KEYWORDS: South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), water demand, politics, planning, Shandong, China

Framing the fluidity of water management conflicts in the Bagré irrigation scheme, Burkina Faso

Gabin Korbéogo
Joseph Ki-Zerbo University, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; kgabin1@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT: Anchored in qualitative and quantitative research, this article analyses the main factors of water-related conflicts in the Bagré large-scale irrigation system in Burkina Faso. It addresses the question of how conflicts over the uses of water emerge, and how conflict management works in terms of local conflict resolution mechanisms. The analysis illustrates how water-related conflicts are connected to material objects or assets as well as to the deviant behaviours of some farmers such as non-compliance with water allocation rules. The occurrence of conflicts and their severity depend on the nature and density of social ties between local stakeholders and the economic value of what is at stake. When solutions to water-related conflicts are contested by stakeholders they can become exacerbated until they extend beyond the irrigation scheme and spread to other social spheres at the village and regional level; this shows the fluidity of water-related conflicts and their potential to grow beyond the issue at hand. The article points out that water conflicts are settled with the help of various social actors, networks and mechanisms, and through interpersonal negotiations which unfold in farmer-based and official institutions. The article goes on to argue that because of the social networks that connect local actors, and because of the necessity of preserving social peace, farmer-based institutions and face-to-face conciliation are the most commonly used conflict resolution mechanisms; through these mechanisms, those participating in irrigation schemes have modified the ways in which local institutions deal with water-based conflicts.

KEYWORDS: Irrigation systems, water resource management, rural livelihoods, water conflicts, conflict management, Bagré, Burkina Faso

Querying water co-governance: Yukon First Nations and water governance in the context of modern land claim agreements

Nicole J. Wilson
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; n.wilson@alumni.ubc.ca

ABSTRACT: There exist few examples of functioning water co-governance systems where Indigenous and settler colonial governments work together to share authority for water on a nation-to-nation basis. In this paper I examine the multiple barriers to achieving water co-governance, highlighted by a multidimensional framework including distributional, procedural and recognitional (in)justices. I apply this framework to a case study in the Yukon, Canada, which is based on research conducted in partnership with four out of fourteen Yukon First Nations (Carcross/Tagish, Kluane, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and White River First Nations); all are in areas where the water governance system is shaped by Indigenous water rights and authorities that are acknowledged in modern land claim and self-government agreements. Despite the many substantive and positive changes resulting from the explicit acknowledgement of Yukon First Nation water rights, I find that this system falls short of achieving co-governance. In particular, Yukon First Nations critiques highlight the limitations imposed by the continued assertion of 'Crown' jurisdiction over water and by the marginalisation of Indigenous legal orders that follows from the privileging of settler worldviews and forms of governance. Thus, co-governance arrangements depend not only on the distributional justice of shared jurisdiction; Indigenous legal orders and relationships to water must also be reflected in the procedural and recognitional justices of the decision-making processes and institutions that are developed.

KEYWORDS: Co-governance, environmental justice, Indigenous law, Indigenous water governance, modern land claims, Yukon, Canada

Pop-up infrastructure: Water ATMs and new delivery networks in India

Jeremy J. Schmidt
Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK; jeremy.schmidt@durham.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, thousands of water ATMs have been installed across the Global South. In India, these vending machines increasingly augment both formal and informal networks of water supply and delivery. This article examines media reports on water ATMs in India in order to survey some of the variance across different water ATM technologies with respect to cost, capacity, and fit with infrastructure networks. It then examines how water ATMs are socially and politically positioned with respect to existing, promised, and incomplete infrastructure projects where they are installed: slums, hospitals, commuting routes, railway stations, rural villages, religious sites, and in 'smart city' initiatives. The analysis considers how water ATMs frustrate the distinctions between formal and informal infrastructure that are often used to describe differences in water networks. The article develops a novel approach to water ATMs as 'pop-up infrastructure' in which the movement of matter is operationally independent from, and only contingently reliant on, existing water delivery networks. Despite their unique aspects, water ATMs produce new common borders among social, material, and political relations to water. These relations are often contested and suggest important areas for future research on water ATMs.

KEYWORDS: Water ATMs, infrastructure, smart cities, urban, rural, peri-urban, India

Opening the gates of the Pak Mun Dam: Fish migrations, domestic water supply, irrigation projects and politics

Ian G. Baird
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; ibaird@wisc.edu

Kanokwan Manorom
Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Ratchathani University, Ubon Ratchathani, Warin Chamrap, Thailand; kanokwan.m@ubu.ac.th

Aurore Phenow
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; aurore.phenow@gmail.com

Sirasak Gaja-Svasti
Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Ratchathani University, Ubon Ratchathani, Warin Chamrap, Thailand; gajasvasti@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The Pak Mun Dam on the Mun River in Ubon Ratchathani Province in northeastern Thailand has long been one of the most controversial hydropower projects in Southeast Asia. The environmental and social impacts associated with blocking important fish migrations between the mainstream Mekong River and the Mun River Basin are particularly well known. Fishers, non-governmental organisations and academics have advocated for opening the gates of the dam either year-round or at least for an extended period, and especially at the beginning of the rainy season when a large number of fish migrate upstream. Crucially, however, the damʼs gates are not always opened at the beginning of the rainy season as required by previous agreements. Water management issues associated with opening the Pak Mun Dam have become increasingly complex and fraught because of additional challenges relating to the construction of new infrastructure such as irrigation dams on tributaries, and because of an increasing demand for piped domestic water to supply urban dwellers in Ubon Ratchathani City. In this paper, we adopt a political ecology approach to examine the present economic, ecological and political circumstances associated with the management of the Pak Mun Dam, including the trade-offs associated with different possible management decisions.

KEYWORDS: Hydropower dam, fish migration, infrastructure, fisheries, Pak Mun, Thailand

Sociotechnical alternatives and controversies in extending water and sanitation networks in Lima, Peru

Laure Criqui
Independent researcher and consultant, Paris, France; criqui.laure@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Basic service utilities in developing countries have long been criticised for their inefficiencies. Lima’s public utility firm, even so, has experimented with technical, social and institutional alternatives in order to adapt and extend water and sanitation networks to informal settlements. Though efficient, these innovative solutions have challenged conventional work practices and have not prompted a paradigm shift in the water and sanitation sector. The political economy of the utility’s neoliberal reform and its limitations has already been extensively studied. Much less studied, however, are the everyday practices and discourses that underpin what can be considered to be innovation niches and which have actually permitted service extension to the poor. Focusing on these practices, this paper examines the cognitive, social and political controversies around adjusting the ‘modern infrastructure ideal’ to informal urbanisation patterns. It shows how urban policies in the Global South are both highly influenced by conventional international models and required to adapt to ‘unconventional’ conditions. It argues that the sociotechnical dimension of urban water supply has been neglected in conducting service delivery reforms, hindering sustainable implementation of innovations. Changing professional mindsets and practices therefore appears as a key driver in the support of pro-poor alternatives in urban water and sanitation provision.

KEYWORDS: Lima, water and sanitation, innovation, sociotechnical regimes, informal urbanisation

Access to and ownership of water in Anglophone Africa and a case study in South Africa

Hilmer J. Bosch
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; h.j.bosch@uva.nl

Joyeeta Gupta
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; j.gupta@uva.nl

ABSTRACT: Access to water can be through public, private or community 'ownership', that is, the riparian rights that are associated with landownership, payments, contracts, markets and permits; these rights are often institutionalised in (customary) legal systems. Most countries are now revisiting such ownership rules in the light of growing water challenges, but there is little systematic understanding in the scholarly literature of what these rules are and how they are changing. This paper thus addresses the question of what is the state of de jure and de facto ownership of water in Anglophone Africa? A review of the scholarly literature on water ownership is accompanied by an analysis of the laws of 27 Anglophone African countries and field work in South Africa. The paper concludes that even though in all the studied countries the state has put water in the public domain, there remain situations where water is de facto owned by different actors; these cases of private ownership stem from the difficulties of changing Existing Legal Use permits, the implicit recognition of long-term entitlements that are based on permits, and the likely requirement of compensation in cases where entitlements are expropriated. The implication is that, in fact, water can be owned and that the law does not preclude the development of property-like rights over water.

KEYWORDS: Water rights, property rights, water ownership, water governance, water law, South Africa

Social networks and perceptions of power in the Mekong

Leong Ching
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore; ching@nus.edu.sg

ABSTRACT: Among researchers of the Mekong, there has been a call to incorporate local perceptions into governance regimes, both on social justice grounds as well as to improve policymaking; few studies, however, show how this can be done. This paper suggests a framework which combines quantitative mapping of local narratives onto social networks in order to enable us to understand how networks impact the public narratives which travel along them. We focus on a resettlement community at the Lower Sesan 2 Dam; we use social network analysis (SNA) to investigate relationship flows and Q-methodology to study the impact of the relevant narratives. Intriguingly, SNA shows that villagers perceive themselves to be highly influential in decision-making, whereas local leaders consider villagers to have little or no influence. While SNA classifies networks or groups into those which support dam construction and those which resist it, Q-methodology uncovers eight discourse factors which are far more complex; these include access to economic gains from hydropower development, coping costs from transitions, and non-economic costs such as cultural loss. This complex – and in some ways contradictory – narrative may explain the paradoxical perceptions of power observed between villages and local leaders. Overall, this framework allows policymakers to better understand complex public narratives as well as how and why narratives impact policy implementation.

KEYWORDS: Local perceptions, narratives, social network analysis, water governance, Mekong