Brazil’s São Luiz do Tapajós Dam: The art of cosmetic environmental impact assessments

Philip M. Fearnside
National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil; pmfearn@inpa.gov.br

ABSTRACT: Brazil’s planned São Luiz do Tapajós dam is a key part of a massive plan for hydropower and navigable waterways in the Tapajós basin and on other Amazon River tributaries. The dam’s Environmental Impact Study (EIA) illustrates the fragility of protections. EIAs are supposed to provide input to decisions on development projects, but in practice these studies tend to become formalities in legalizing prior decisions made in the absence of information on or consideration of project impacts. The EIA has a tendency to minimize or ignore significant impacts. Loss of fisheries resources is likely to be critical for Munduruku indigenous people and for traditional riverside dwellers (ribeirinhos), but the EIA claims that there is "low expectation that natural conditions of aquatic environments will be significantly altered". The destruction of Munduruku sacred sites is simply ignored. The Brazilian government’s priority for the dam has resulted in blocking creation of the Munduruku’s Sawré Muybu indigenous land and other indigenous lands throughout Brazilian Amazonia. With the exception of one legally recognized community (Montanha e Mangabal), non-indigenous ribeirinhos are considered as not 'traditional people'. Even the one recognized community is not considered to require free, prior and informed consent. The São Luiz do Tapajós case illustrates problems in decision making in Brazil and in many other countries.

KEYWORDS: Hydropower, Indigenous people, EIA, Hydroelectric dams, Amazon, Brazil

Virtual water and water footprints: Overreaching into the discourse on sustainability, efficiency, and equity

Dennis Wichelns
Bloomington, Indiana, USA; dwichelns@csufresno.edu

ABSTRACT: The notions of virtual water and water footprints were introduced originally to bring attention to the large amounts of water required to produce crops and livestock. Recently, several authors have begun applying those notions in efforts to describe efficiency, equity, and the sustainability of resources and production activities. In this paper, I describe why the notions of virtual water and water footprints are not appropriate for analysing issues pertaining to those topics. Both notions lack a supporting conceptual framework and they contain too little information to enhance understanding of important policy issues. Neither notion accounts for the opportunity cost or scarcity value of water in any setting, or the impacts of water availability and use on livelihoods. In addition, countries trade in goods and services – not in crop and livestock water requirements. Thus, the notions of virtual water and water footprints cannot provide helpful insight regarding the sustainability of water use, economic efficiency, or social equity. Gaining such insight requires the application of legitimate conceptual frameworks, representing a broad range of perspectives from the physical and social sciences, with due consideration of dynamics, uncertainty, and the impacts of policy choices on livelihoods and natural resources.

KEYWORDS: Agriculture, efficiency, food security, livelihoods, risk, trade, uncertainty

On the sidelines: Social sciences and interdisciplinarity in an international research centre

Jean-Philippe Venot
IRD, UMR G-EAU, Montpellier, France; Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University; jean-philippe.venot@ird.fr

Mark Giordano
Georgetown’s University School of Foreign Service, Washington, DC, USA; mark.giordano@georgetown.edu

Douglas J. Merrey
Independent Consultant, Pittsboro, North Carolina, USA; dougmerrey@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This paper reflects on the notion of interdisciplinarity in the research for development sector from a specific vantage point, that of social science researchers at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Drawing from first-hand experiences of doing research at IWMI, a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and a series of interviews with former and current staff, we highlight the disputed nature of social science research within the institute and link it to major challenges to interdisciplinary research practice. For research managers and non-social science researchers, social science research has always been, and still is, central to IWMI’s mission and current activities. Social science researchers, on the other hand, tend to think their work has progressively been sidelined from a core to a peripheral concern; they feel they are underrepresented in management and hence have little influence on strategic orientation. This reinforces a tendency to work in isolation and not engage in the unavoidable negotiations that characterise the workings of an organisation. The uneasiness felt by IWMI social science researchers is largely grounded in the fact that many do not share the view that IWMI’s objectives and research practices are value-neutral and that the purpose of social science research is to add human dimensions to natural science projects rather than lead to knowledge creation.

KEYWORDS: Social sciences, interdisciplinary research, international agriculture research organization, IWMI-International Water Management Institute, coupled human-natural systems, water resources management

Viewpoint - Paradigm shift of water services in Finland: From production mentality to service mindset

Ossi Heino
Tampere University of Technology, Department of Chemistry and Bio-engineering, Tampere, Finland; ossi.heino@tut.fi

Annina Takala
Tampere University of Technology, Department of Chemistry and Bio-engineering, Tampere, Finland; annina.takala@tut.fi

ABSTRACT: In this article, the current management paradigm of water services in Finland is conceptualised. For this purpose, the managers of water utility in ten Finnish municipalities were interviewed. Consequently, the ways in which water services are perceived and managed are also described in this article. In addition, it is argued that the current paradigm produces systemic behaviour that can be considered to give rise to unsustainable ways of developing water services. Based on the problems of the current paradigm, an alternative paradigm is drafted that rethinks the value-creation logic. This alternative paradigm implies that one should be aware of the interactions between systems in which water services play a crucial role, and act accordingly.

KEYWORDS: Paradigm, value creation, water services, Finland

A compact to revitalise large-scale irrigation systems using a leadership-partnership-ownership 'theory of change'

Bruce Lankford
University of East Anglia, UEA, Norwich, UK; b.lankford@uea.ac.uk

Ian Makin
International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka; i.makin@cgiar.org

Nathanial Matthews
Water Land and Ecosystems (WLE) Programme, Colombo, Sri Lanka; n.matthews@cgiar.org

Peter G. McCornick
International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka; p.mccornick@cgiar.org

Andrew Noble
International Centre for Agriculture in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Amman, Jordan; a.noble@cgiar.org

Tushaar Shah
International Water Management Institute, Anand, India; t.shah@cgiar.org

ABSTRACT: In countries with transitional economies such as those found in South Asia, large-scale irrigation systems (LSIS) with a history of public ownership account for about 115 million ha (Mha) or approximately 45% of their total area under irrigation. In terms of the global area of irrigation (320 Mha) for all countries, LSIS are estimated at 130 Mha or 40% of irrigated land. These systems can potentially deliver significant local, regional and global benefits in terms of food, water and energy security, employment, economic growth and ecosystem services. For example, primary crop production is conservatively valued at about US$355 billion. However, efforts to enhance these benefits and reform the sector have been costly and outcomes have been underwhelming and short-lived. We propose the application of a 'theory of change' (ToC) as a foundation for promoting transformational change in large-scale irrigation centred upon a 'global irrigation compact' that promotes new forms of leadership, partnership and ownership (LPO). The compact argues that LSIS can change by switching away from the current channelling of aid finances controlled by government irrigation agencies. Instead it is for irrigators, closely partnered by private, public and NGO advisory and regulatory services, to develop strong leadership models and to find new compensatory partnerships with cities and other river basin neighbours. The paper summarises key assumptions for change in the LSIS sector including the need to initially test this change via a handful of volunteer systems. Our other key purpose is to demonstrate a ToC template by which large-scale irrigation policy can be better elaborated and discussed.

KEYWORDS: Irrigation, food security, water security, ecosystem services, theory of change

A political economy of environmental impact assessment in the Mekong Region

Andrew Wells-Dang
Independent researcher, 57 Tran Phu, Hoi An, Vietnam; andrewwd@gmail.com

Kyaw Nyi Soe
Pact/Mekong Partnership for the Environment, Yangon, Myanmar; ksoe@pactworld.org

Lamphay Inthakoun
Independent researcher, Nonghai village, Hatxaifong district, Vientiane, Lao PDR; lamphay@gmail.com

Prom Tola
Independent researcher, House No. 85E1, Street 107, Sangkat O Reussey 4, Khan Chamcarmon, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; tolaprom@yahoo.com

Penh Socheat
Pact/Mekong Partnership for the Environment, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; psocheat@pactworld.org

Thi Thanh Van Nguyen
Pact/Mekong Partnership for the Environment, Hanoi, Vietnam; ntvan@pactworld.org

Areerat Chabada
Pact/Mekong Partnership for the Environment; Pathumwan, Bangkok, Thailand; achabada@pactworld.org

Worachanok Youttananukorn
Pact/Mekong Partnership for the Environment; Pathumwan, Bangkok, Thailand; worachanok@pactworld.org

ABSTRACT: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an issue of concern to governments, organized civil society groups, as well as business actors in the Mekong region. EIA and related forms of environmental assessments are being carried out throughout the region with varying levels of quality, legal frameworks, monitoring and compliance. Through a political economy approach, we seek to understand the interests and incentives among key stakeholders in each of the five Mekong region countries and propose ways that EIA processes can potentially be improved, with reference to hydropower and other infrastructure and development projects. The analysis is based on a collaborative research process carried out under the auspices of the Mekong Partnership for the Environment, a USAID-funded program implemented by Pact that aims to advance regional cooperation on environmental governance. We find that at present, EIA implementation is limited by numerous political economy constraints, some general across the Mekong region, others specific to one or more country contexts. Certain of these constraints can be addressed through a regional cooperative approach, while others will require longer-term changes in social and political dynamics to encourage uptake and impact and avoid possible blockage from entrenched interest groups.

KEYWORDS: Environmental Impact Assessment, political economy, infrastructure, hydropower, governance, economic development, Mekong region

Bulk Water Suppliers in the City of Harare – An endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water services in Zimbabwe?

Emmanuel Manzungu
University of Zimbabwe, Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, Harare, Zimbabwe; emmanuelmanzungu@gmail.com

Margret Mudenda-Damba
University of Zimbabwe, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Harare, Zimbabwe; dambamargret@gmail.com

Simon Madyiwa
University of Zimbabwe, Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, Harare, Zimbabwe; smadyiwa@gmail.com

Vupenyu Dzingirai
University of Zimbabwe, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Harare, Zimbabwe; vdzingi@gmail.com

Special Musoni
University of Zimbabwe, Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, Harare, Zimbabwe; smusoni3@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the phenomenon of bulk water suppliers in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe’s largest urban metropolis and capital. Bulk water suppliers began in 2005 to sell domestic water to middle- and high-income suburbs because of shortcomings in the city’s water delivery system without state regulation, and have since become a permanent feature of the Zimbabwean urban waterscape. The study was conducted between 2012 and 2013 in three up-market suburbs of Harare, which were known to depend on bulk water suppliers. State regulation of bulk water suppliers was introduced in 2013, close to a decade after the start of operations, indicating a reactive and reluctant acknowledgement that bulk water suppliers were now significant players in water service provision. The regulation was, however, poorly conceptualised, based on potable water standards, which proved to be cumbersome and placed onerous demands on the suppliers. The paper concludes that bulk water suppliers are playing a critical role in water service provision in Zimbabwe’s largest metropolis and represent a spontaneous injection of local private capital in the urban domestic water supply sector. They can therefore be seen as a viable endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water service (as contrasted to multinational companies) but should be viewed as complementing rather than replacing functional urban water supply systems. The operations of bulk water suppliers can be enhanced if a regulatory regime, informed by realities on the ground is crafted.

KEYWORDS: Urban domestic water supply, privatisation, waterscape, bulk water suppliers, Zimbabwe

Critical reflections on building a community of conversation about water governance in Australia

Naomi Rubenstein
Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Australia; naomi.rubenstein@monash.edu

Philip J. Wallis
Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Australia; phil.wallis@monash.edu

Raymond L. Ison
Engineering & Innovation Department, Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, ray.ison@open.ac.uk

Lee Godden
Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Australia; l.godden@unimelb.edu.au

ABSTRACT: Water governance has emerged as a field of research endeavour in response to failures of current and historical management approaches to adequately address persistent decline in ecological health of many river catchments and pressures on associated communities. Attention to situational framing is a key aspect of emerging approaches to water governance research, including innovations that build capacity and confidence to experiment with approaches capable of transforming situations usefully framed as 'wicked'. Despite international investment in water governance research, a national research agenda on water governance was lacking in Australia in the late 2000s as were mechanisms to build the capacity of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and collaborative policy practice. Through a two-year Water Governance Research Initiative (WGRI), we designed and facilitated the development of a community of conversation between researchers concerned with the dynamics of human-ecological systems from the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, policy, economics, law and philosophy. The WGRI was designed as a learning system, with the intention that it would provide opportunities for conversations, learning and reflection to emerge. In this paper we outline the starting conditions and design of the WGRI, critically reflect on new narratives that arose from this initiative, and evaluate its effectiveness as a boundary organisation that contributed to knowledge co-production in water governance. Our findings point to the importance of investment in institutions that can act as integrative and facilitative governance mechanisms, to build capacity to work with and between research, policy, local stakeholders and practitioners.

KEYWORDS: Water governance, learning systems, knowledge systems, networks, Australia

The Italian water movement and the politics of the commons

Chiara Carrozza
Centro de Estudos Sociais, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; chiaracarrozza@ces.uc.pt

Emanuele Fantini
Department of Integrated Water Systems and Governance, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands; e.fantini@unesco-ihe.org

ABSTRACT: The article contributes to the debate on the commons as a political strategy to counter the privatisation of water services by focusing on the experience of the Italian water movement. It addresses the question: how has the notion of the commons – popularly associated with the Global South – been understood, adopted and translated into practice by social movements in a European country like Italy? We identify three different understandings of the commons coexisting within the Italian water movement – emphasising universality, locality and participation. We describe the political claims and the initiatives informed by these understandings, and the actors which promoted them. Our analysis underlines that the polysemy of the notion of the commons, its complementarity with the 'human right to water' and its overlapping with the idea of 'public' not only proved to be effective in the Italian case, but also posed challenges when it came to translate the notion of the commons into specific governance and management frameworks. The politics of the commons defines the space where these dynamics unfold: it is more articulated than a mere rhetorical reference to the commons, but less homogeneous and coherent than the idea of a 'commons movement'.

KEYWORDS: Commons, water, social movements, privatisation, Italy

The struggle for residential water metering in England and Wales

David Zetland
Leiden University College, The Hague, The Netherlands; d.j.zetland@luc.leidenuniv.nl

ABSTRACT: The transformation of water services that began with the privatisation of water companies in 1989 extended to households with the implementation of water metering. Meters 'privatised' water and the cost of provision by allocating to individual households costs that had previously been shared within the community. This (ongoing) conversion of common pool to private good has mostly improved economic, environmental and social impacts, but the potential burden of metering on poorer households has slowed the transition. Stronger anti-poverty programmes would be better at addressing this poverty barrier than existing coping mechanisms reliant on subsidies from other water consumers.

KEYWORDS: Water meters, collective goods, privatisation, regulation, England, Wales

Cultivating the desert: Irrigation expansion and groundwater abstraction in Northern State, Sudan

Stephen Fragaszy
Independent Consultant; Research undertaken whilst at SoGE, University of Oxford, UK; sfragaszy@gmail.com

Alvar Closas
International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Cairo, Egypt; a.closas@cgiar.org

ABSTRACT: This study examines the socioeconomic features that underpin the expansion of groundwater-dependent irrigation in Northern State, Sudan. Groundwater development in the region serves as an economic lifeline given the poor Nile-based irrigation infrastructure and future changes in Nile hydrology. Groundwater-dependent irrigation is found to be expanding in previously uncultivated regions increasingly distant from the Nile. The study finds these historically marginal lands are targeted for capital-intensive agricultural projects because landholding patterns in traditionally cultivated areas preclude new large developments and improved infrastructure has lowered farming costs in distant terraces. Private companies and large landholders have a history of successful agricultural ventures in Northern State and are reliant on easily accessible and reliable groundwater resources for these new farms.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater abstraction, irrigation, agriculture, land tenure, Saharan Nile, Sudan

Water, infrastructure and political rule: Introduction to the Special Issue

Julia Obertreis
Department of History, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany; julia.obertreis@fau.de

Timothy Moss
Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Relations (IRI THESys), Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany; timothy.moss@hu-berlin.de

Peter P. Mollinga
Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London, London, UK; pm35@soas.ac.uk

Christine Bichsel
Geography Unit, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland; christine.bichsel@unifr.ch

ABSTRACT: This introductory article sets the scene for this special issue on water, infrastructure and political rule. It makes the case for revisiting the complex relationships between these three dimensions which have fascinated scholars since Wittfogel’s pioneering – if much criticised – work on causal links between large-scale irrigation systems and autocratic leadership. Scholarship on water, on infrastructure, as well as on political rule has made huge advances since Wittfogel’s days, requiring a wholesome reappraisal of their triangular relationship. In this article, we review the relevant advances in scientific knowledge and epistemological approaches on each dimension. We subsequently summarise the different ways in which each of the following papers takes up and interrogates the relationship between water, infrastructure and political rule prior to the final paper which synthesises the principal findings emerging from the special issue.

KEYWORDS: Water, infrastructure, rule, Oriental despotism, Wittfogel

Water and the (infra-)structure of political rule: A synthesis

Christine Bichsel
Geography Unit, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland; christine.bichsel@unifr.ch

ABSTRACT: This synthesis paper engages with the key messages which emerge from across the eight papers in this special issue. It situates them in the context of Wittfogel’s hydraulic hypothesis and its legacy. The paper seeks to synthesise the insights of the papers with the aim to reinterpret the relationship between water, infrastructure and political rule and to provide a stimulus for further research.

KEYWORDS: Water, infrastructure, political rule, hydraulic society

Fostering Tajik hydraulic development: Examining the role of soft power in the case of the Rogun Dam

Filippo Menga
University of Manchester, School of Environment, Education and Development, Manchester, UK; filippo.menga@manchester.ac.uk

Naho Mirumachi
Department of Geography, King’s College London, London, UK; naho.mirumachi@kcl.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Basin riparians are not equally endowed in their resources and capacity to control water within a shared international river basin. Beyond hydrological constraints and geographical positions, other less tangible factors such as discourses and narratives influence interactions among basin riparians for water resources control and river basin development, requiring further analytical refinement of the role of power. The analysis of discursive and ideological dimensions of power, or 'soft' power, in particular, enables insights to strategies and tactics of water control under conditions of power asymmetries between basin states. This paper examines the debate around the controversial large-scale Rogun Dam project on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan, exploring how the exercise of 'soft' power can, and sometimes cannot, shape transboundary water outcomes over water allocation. By focusing on international diplomacy and narratives, the paper provides insights into the non-coercive ways in which hydraulic development is justified. In particular, it is shown how 'soft' power was utilised by the Tajik decision-makers to legitimise dam development both at the international and domestic levels. The paper illustrates how, in the case of the Rogun Dam, 'soft' power falls short of determining a hydraulic development that changes the status quo of water allocation for Tajikistan.

KEYWORDS: Transboundary water relations, power, dams, Central Asia, Aral Sea Basin

Re-engineering the state, awakening the nation: Dams, Islamist modernity and nationalist politics in Sudan

Maimuna Mohamud
Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, Mogadishu, Somalia; maimuna.mohamud@heritageinstitute.org

Harry Verhoeven
School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Georgetown University; hv89@georgetown.edu

ABSTRACT: This article investigates how and why dam building has fulfilled a crucial role in hegemonic projects of elite consolidation and nation-building. By drawing on the case of Sudan’s Dam Programme and the associated propaganda the Khartoum government has produced, we show how the dams have not just served to materially restructure the Sudanese political economy but have also been essential in the attempted rekindling of the identity of both the regime and the country. Massive investment in hydro-infrastructure dovetailed with the political rebalancing of an authoritarian system in crisis, turning dam-builders into nation-builders: the message of the dams as midwife to a pious, prosperous and revitalised Sudan allowed it to reconcile the nationalism of its military and security wing with the enduring ambitions for transformation of its Islamist base. Dam building in Sudan, as elsewhere, has thus meant a physical redrawing of the landscape and intensified rent creation and seeking but also embodies a high modernist narrative that matches the interests and worldviews of very different constituencies. This, we argue, helps explain its salience in earlier periods of state-building and nation-building, as well as contemporarily.

KEYWORDS: Hydropolitics, dams, nationalism, Islamism, nation-building, Sudan

A matter of relationships – Actor-networks of colonial rule in the Gezira Irrigation System, Sudan

Maurits Ertsen
Water Resources Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands; m.w.ertsen@tudelft.nl

ABSTRACT: In the first half of the 20th century, colonial rulers, a British firm and Sudanese farmers changed the Gezira Plain in Sudan into a large-scale irrigated cotton scheme. Gezira continues to be in use up to date. Its story shows how the abstract concept 'development' is shaped through the agency of humans and non-humans alike in government offices and muddy fields. Gezira provides a well-suited starting point for moving into the networks of development without any pre-suggested division in terms of levels, contexts or relations. Hierarchies, arenas and institutions do exist. Such power relations are associations between humans and non-humans: relatively stable relations are typically produced when non-human agency is involved, for example through books, roads, and money. The Gezira case shows the potential of actor-network theory in building and understanding of conceptual and empirical links between water, infrastructure and political rule.

KEYWORDS: Actor-network theory, material agency, power, infrastructure, social relations, Gezira scheme, Sudan

Ruling by canal: Governance and system-level design characteristics of large-scale irrigation infrastructure in India and Uzbekistan

Peter P. Mollinga
Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London, London, UK; pm35@soas.ac.uk

Gert Jan Veldwisch
Water Resources Management Group of Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; gertjan.veldwisch@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the relationship between governance regime and large-scale irrigation system design by investigating three cases: 1) protective irrigation design in post-independent South India; 2) canal irrigation system design in Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan, as implemented in the USSR period, and 3) canal design by the Madras Irrigation and Canal Company, as part of an experiment to do canal irrigation development in colonial India on commercial terms in the 1850s-1860s. The mutual shaping of irrigation infrastructure design characteristics on the one hand and management requirements and conditions on the other has been documented primarily at lower, within-system levels of the irrigation systems, notably at the level of division structures. Taking a 'social construction of technology' perspective, the paper analyses the relationship between technological structures and management and governance arrangements at irrigation system level. The paper finds qualitative differences in the infrastructural configuration of the three irrigation systems expressing and facilitating particular forms of governance and rule, differences that matter for management and use, and their effects and impacts.

KEYWORDS: Canal irrigation, design, governance, management, India, Uzbekistan

Conserving water and preserving infrastructures between dictatorship and democracy in Berlin

Timothy Moss
Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Relations (IRI THESys), Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany; timothy.moss@hu-berlin.de

ABSTRACT: This paper sheds a long-term perspective on the politics of water infrastructure in 20th century Berlin, focusing on how water conservation became enrolled in the political agendas of very diverse regimes, from the Weimar Republic to the present day. The paper poses the following three questions: firstly, in what socio-technical and political contexts have strategies of water conservation emerged (and disappeared) in Berlin? Secondly, what meanings have been attributed to these strategies and how were they politically appropriated? Thirdly, what continuities and changes to water-saving strategies can be traced across Berlin’s turbulent 20th century history? These questions are addressed with an empirical analysis of four periods of Berlin’s water infrastructure history: a) an era of expansion (1920-1935) about harnessing (regional) water for (urban) prosperity, b) an era of national autarky (1936-1945) about enrolling urban water in the Nazi cause, c) an era of division (1948-1989) about reordering truncated water flows in divided West and East Berlin, and d) an era of reunification (1990-present) in which expansionism has confronted environmentalism, giving rise to contestation over the desirability of water conservation. This empirical analysis is framed conceptually in terms of a dialogue between notions of obdurate socio-technical systems and dynamic socio-material assemblages.

KEYWORDS: Water politics, water conservation, infrastructure history, path dependence, assemblage, Berlin

Transnational system building across geopolitical shifts: The Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal, 1901-2015

Jiří Janáč
Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic; janac@usd.cas.cz

Erik van der Vleuten
School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands; e.b.a.v.d.vleuten@tue.nl

ABSTRACT: We study the politics of water infrastructure through the Large Technical Systems (LTS) literature, which examines human agency in the dynamics of complex sociotechnical systems. We take into account the transnational turn in LTS-studies in the past decade. Transnational analysis is about the mutual shaping of the international, national, and local. Accordingly, we look at how key system builders – historical agents envisioning and working on the entire sociotechnical system – identified and negotiated international, national, regional, and local politics through the design process. We do this for the intriguing case of the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal, the so-called 'missing link' between the North, Baltic, and Black Seas, with a design history spanning wildly diverging paradigms of political rule – from imperialism to fascism, communism, and 'EU-ropeanism'.

KEYWORDS: Large Technical Systems, water politics, transnational infrastructure, Central European history, transnational history, environmental history