Viewpoint -€“ The role of the German development cooperation in promoting sustainable hydropower

Cathleen Seeger
Policy Advisor, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany; cathleen.seeger@gtz.de
Kirsten Nyman
Project Coordinator, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany; kirsten.nyman@gtz.de
Richard Twum
Executive Director, Volta Basin Development Foundation (VBDF), Accra, Ghana; rtwumus@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: After long and intense discussions on the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), large dams are back on the agenda of international finance institutions. Asia, Latin America and Africa are planning to expand their hydropower utilisation. Hydropower is a key component of renewable energy, and therefore supports protection against climate change. Water storage over the long term and flood control are the main issues discussed with regard to climate adaptation measures.

Such trends are reflected by the increasing engagement of the German Development Cooperation (GDC) in the field of integrated water resources management (IWRM) programmes on the national and regional levels. A number of projects on transboundary water management in Africa, Central Asia and in the Mekong region have been initiated. In the context of these and other bilateral water and energy projects, partner countries are increasingly requesting the GDC to advise on the planning and management of sustainable hydropower.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has for the last decade been known as a promoter of multi-stakeholder dialogues and as a supporter during the WCD process and the Dams and Development Project (DDP) of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). In addition, it has a reputation as an important bilateral and neutral partner. The BMZ recognises hydropower as a source of renewable energy, and acknowledges the potential and need for multipurpose usages of dams, as well as its role in global energy change. However, large dams also have to meet social and ecological requirements for their sustainable use. In this respect, the BMZ endorsed the WCD recommendations.

Germany'™s engagement in the promotion of participatory processes on dam-related issues is building on the WCD and follow-up processes, as outlined in this article. On the global level, BMZ, represented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), is currently part of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF). On the national level, one example of support is the contribution to and interaction with the Ghana Dam Dialogue, which is facilitated through two local partners: the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Volta Basin Development Foundation (VBDF).

Lost in development'€™s shadow: The downstream human consequences of dams

Brian D. Richter
Director, Global Freshwater Program, The Nature Conservancy, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; brichter@tnc.org
Sandra Postel
Director, Global Water Policy Project, Los Lunas, NM, USA; spostel@globalwaterpolicy.org
Carmen Revenga
Senior Freshwater Scientist, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA; crevenga@tnc.org
Thayer Scudder
Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA; tzs@hss.caltech.edu
Bernhard Lehner
Assistant Professor of Global Hydrology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; bernhard.lehner@mcgill.ca
Allegra Churchill
Master'€™s Candidate, University of Virginia, Dept of Landscape Architecture, Charlottesville, VA; ac8rf@virginia.edu
Morgan Chow
Research analyst, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA; mchow@tnc.org

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) report documented a number of social and environmental problems observed in dam development projects. The WCD gave particular emphasis to the challenges of properly resettling populations physically displaced by dams, and estimated the total number of people directly displaced at 40-80 million. Less attention has been given, however, to populations living downstream of dams whose livelihoods have been affected by dam-induced alterations of river flows. By substantially changing natural flow patterns and blocking movements of fish and other animals, large dams can severely disrupt natural riverine production systems -€“ especially fisheries, flood-recession agriculture and dry-season grazing. We offer here the first global estimate of the number of river-dependent people potentially affected by dam-induced changes in river flows and other ecosystem conditions. Our conservative estimate of 472 million river-dependent people living downstream of large dams along impacted river reaches lends urgency to the need for more comprehensive assessments of dam costs and benefits, as well as to the social inequities between dam beneficiaries and those potentially disadvantaged by dam projects. We conclude with three key steps in dam development processes that could substantially alleviate the damaging downstream impacts of dams.

Initiatives in the hydro sector post-World Commission on Dams -€“ The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum

Helen Locher
Sustainability Forum Coordinator, International Hydropower Association; hl@hydropower.org
Geir Yngve Hermansen
Senior Advisor, Department for Energy, Norad, Norway; geir.hermansen@norad.no
Gudni A. Johannesson
Director General, National Energy Authority, Iceland; gudni.a.johannesson@os.is
Yu Xuezhong
Associate Professor, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, China; xzyu@iwhr.com
Israel Phiri
Manager, Ministry of Energy and Water Development, Zambia; iphiri@zamnet.zm
David Harrison
Senior Advisor, Global Freshwater Team, The Nature Conservancy; dharrison@mwhw.com
Joerg Hartmann
WWF Dams Initiative Leader, WWF Germany; hartmann@wwf.de
Michael Simon
Lead - People, Infrastructure and Environment Program, Oxfam Australia; michaels@oxfam.org.au
Donal O'€™Leary
Senior Advisor, Transparency International; doleary@transparency.org
Courtney Lowrance
Vice President, Environmental & Social Risk Management, Markets and Banking, Citigroup Global Markets Inc; courtney.lowrance@citi.com
Daryl Fields
Senior Water Resources Specialist, Energy, Transport and Water, The World Bank; dfields@worldbank.org
André Abadie
Forum Chair, Sustainable Finance Ltd; andre.abadie@uk.pwc.com
Refaat Abdel-Malek
MWH Global, Inc; president@hydropower.org
Andrew Scanlon
Manager Business Sustainability, Hydro Tasmania, Australia; andrew.scanlon@hydro.com.au
Zhou Shichun
Senior Engineer, China Hydropower Engineering Consulting Group Co., Beijing, China; zhoushichun@vip.sina.com
Kirsten Nyman
Policy Advisor for Sustainable Hydropower, GTZ, Germany; kirsten.nyman@gtz.de

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) has called for developers, governments, civil society, etc. to use its Strategic Priorities as a starting point for dialogue and initiatives to address issues regarding the development of dams. One very notable follow-up initiative has been led by the hydropower industry. The International Hydropower Association developed Sustainability Guidelines (IHA, 2004) and a Sustainability Assessment Protocol (IHA, 2006), and most recently has been involved in a two-year process with governments, NGOs and the finance sector to develop a broadly endorsed sustainability assessment tool based on review and update of the IHA Sustainability Assessment Protocol. This cross-sectoral process, known as the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF), has drawn on the knowledge base and many of the findings and recommendations of the World Commission on Dams, as well as a number of other developments in the last ten years. A fundamental premise of the work of the Forum is that an industry-driven and -owned initiative has far-reaching potential to influence performance in the hydropower sector. At the same time, the potential for the use of a broadly endorsed sustainability assessment tool for hydropower by those in other sectors is well recognised and aspired to by the Forum. This paper describes the work of the Forum up to August 2009 and the contents of the Draft Protocol released publicly in August 2009, and considers some of the commonalities and points of departure between this process and the WCD. The Forum'€™s work on the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol is a work in progress, so this paper can describe but not give a full analysis of the work while it is in train.

Peter Bosshard
International Rivers, Berkeley, CA, USA; peter@internationalrivers.org

ABSTRACT: Most actors of the global dam industry primarily operate within their national borders, and are either controlled by or do most of their business with the state. Because of this, the dam industry was slow to respond to the creation of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), and did not provide coordinated inputs into the WCD process. The hydropower industry is the part of the dam industry which is most directly affected by international policy developments. Not surprisingly, the hydropower sector provided the most systematic response to the WCD report among all industry actors, initially through a defensive reaction and subsequently through the creation of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum. While the hydropower industry was largely united in its rejection of the policy principles put forward by the WCD, its proactive approach has been beset by divisions and contradictions.

While some industry actors are trying to strengthen the environmental norms which are being applied in the sector, others do not see a need for this. Trying to balance such diverging views, the hydropower industry would like to establish norms that can create predictability through the certification of projects. Yet it is not prepared to accept binding minimum standards which would confer new obligations to the hydropower industry.

Desiree Tullos
Assistant Professor, Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, US; tullosd@engr.orst.edu
Philip H. Brown
Associate Professor of Economics, Colby College, Waterville, ME, US; phbrown@colby.edu
Kelly Kibler
PhD student, Water Resources Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, US; kiblerk@engr.orst.edu
Darrin Magee
Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, US; magee@hws.edu
Bryan Tilt
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, US; bryan.tilt@oregonstate.edu
Aaron T. Wolf
Professor of Geography and Chair, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, US; wolfa@geo.oregonstate.edu

ABSTRACT: Following the principles and priorities outlined by the World Commission on Dams, managers are increasingly considering a greater variety of impacts in their decision making regarding dams. However, many challenges remain in evaluating the biophysical, socioeconomic and geopolitical impacts of dams, including the potential diversity of stakeholder perspectives on dam impacts.

In this analysis, we surveyed representatives of non-governmental organisations, academics and hydropower and government officials in Yunnan Province, China, to better understand how stakeholder group views on the size (magnitude) and importance (salience) of dam impacts vary. We applied the technique defined by the Interdisciplinary Dam Assessment Model (IDAM) to simulate three dam development scenarios: dams in general, a single large dam and multiple small dams. We then surveyed the experts to measure their views on the magnitude and salience of 21 biophysical, geopolitical and socioeconomic impacts for the three scenarios.

Survey results indicate differences in the perceived salience and magnitude of impacts across both expert groups and dam scenarios. Furthermore, surveys indicate that stakeholder perceptions changed as the information provided regarding dam impacts became more specific, suggesting that stakeholder evaluation may be influenced by quality of information. Finally, qualitative comments from the survey reflect some of the challenges of interdisciplinary dam assessment, including cross-disciplinary cooperation, data standardisation and weighting, and the distribution and potential mitigation of impacts. Given the complexity of data and perceptions around dam impacts, decision-support tools that integrate the objective magnitude and perceived salience of impacts are required urgently.

Kirsi Mäkinen
Researcher, Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland; kirsi.makinen@environment.fi
Shahbaz Khan
Chief, Water and Sustainable Development Section, UNESCO, Paris, France; s.khan@unesco.org

ABSTRACT: Emerging concern over greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from wetlands has prompted calls to address the climate impact of dams in climate policy frameworks. Existing studies indicate that reservoirs can be significant sources of emissions, particularly in tropical areas. However, knowledge on the role of dams in overall national emission levels and abatement targets is limited, which is often cited as a key reason for political inaction and delays in formulating appropriate policies. Against this backdrop, this paper discusses the current role of reservoir emissions in existing climate policy frameworks. The distance between a global impact on climate and a need for local mitigation measures creates a challenge for designing appropriate mechanisms to combat reservoir emissions. This paper presents a range of possible policy interventions at different scales that could help address the climate impact of reservoirs. Reservoir emissions need to be treated like other anthropogenic greenhouse gases. A rational treatment of the issue requires applying commonly accepted climate change policy principles as well as promoting participatory water management plans through integrated water resource management frameworks. An independent global body such as the UN system may be called upon to assess scientific information and develop GHG emissions policy at appropriate levels.

Nepal'€™s constructive Dialogue on Dams and Development

Ajaya Dixit
Chairman, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu, Nepal; adbaluwatar@ntc.net.np
Dipak Gyawali
Research Director, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu, Nepal; dipakgyawali@ntc.net.np

ABSTRACT: This paper describes a consultation process that took place in Nepal from January 2003 to July 2004 involving dam builders, dam managers and dam critics. It discusses the key findings of the review and reflects on the differences between dams built with domestic designs and funding that suffer no controversy and ongoing dam projects involving international agencies that are mired in dispute. The paper concludes that Nepal must continue with the deliberative process which characterised the period immediately after the WCD Report was released if it is to end the policy impasse that plagues the development of hydropower in the country.

The government of Nepal, like the governments of its neighbours India and China, unequivocally rejected the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) Report soon after its release in November 2000. Later, more considered reactions revealed more complex sentiments among Nepalis inasmuch that social activists welcomed the recommendations as valid and necessary, while the dam building community, including the official hydrocracy, held that they were impracticable. The then government, assessing that the business-as-usual dam building approach would face an impasse and not help meet Nepal'€™s growing need for water and electricity, concluded that the country could ill-afford to reject the WCD'€™s findings. It took a policy initiative in December 2002 to engage with the report more aggressively, comparing the WCD recommendations with Nepal'€™s own national laws, acts and policies in order to explore the contours of an alternative approach. Lessons from the consultative and inclusive global review effort that the WCD represented needed to be thoroughly internalised by Nepal so that no bad dams would be proposed for funding and only good dams built.

The consultations of 2003-2004 revealed that many Nepali laws were already robust and did, in fact, incorporate the WCD recommendations adequately. A second cycle of consultations identified many second-generation problems, including those related to ensuring compliance, gaining public acceptance, recognising entitlements, sharing benefits and conducting comprehensive options assessments. The major limitation to Nepal'€™s ability to take up the WCD recommendations turned out to be less in the laws themselves and more in the implementation of, and compliance with, these laws.

The findings of the two consultative reviews meant little to either subsequent governments of Nepal or to the international aid industry, despite the opportunity for change that the dramatic democratic movement of 2005/2006 offered -€“ government hydrocracy and the political parties guiding it, as well as international donors, continued to favour the conventional model of dam building. Their silence about the review is inexplicable, especially in light of the flaws in, and controversy surrounding, the ADB-funded Kali Gandaki A and German-funded Middle Marsyangdi dams, both of which followed conventional practice. A new electricity act currently tabled in the parliament also fails to take into account many of the lessons that should have been learnt so easily from past mistakes.

John Dore
Water Resources Advisor, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Mekong Region; john.dore@dfat.gov.au
Louis Lebel
Director, Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Thailand; llebel@loxinfo.co.th

ABSTRACT: Gaining Public Acceptance (GPA) was a strategic priority recommended in the final report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD). GPA remains a central, thorny challenge for all parties interested in how society makes decisions about the development of water resources, the provision of energy, and the maintenance of ecosystems, whilst striving for social justice. The WCD'€™s GPA is largely about issues of procedural justice (e.g. inclusion and access) and proposes process-related principles. Distributional justice is also important (e.g. equitable sharing of benefits; and, avoiding unfair and involuntary risk-bearing).

Several key lessons are emerging from past initiatives to gain public acceptance through participatory exercises. Differences in development and sustainability orientations are obvious in debates on dams and need to be explicitly considered and not glossed over. Politics and power imbalances pervade participatory processes, and require much more attention than they receive. Ultimately, the accountability and legitimacy of state and non-state actors are crucial but complex as there are many ways to build public trust.

To earn legitimacy and more likely acceptance of important public decisions we suggest a comprehensive set of 'gold standard' state-society attributes for improving governance. Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) can help deliberation to become routine, enabling complex water issues to be more rigorously examined. The combination of increased public trust, earned by the state, and high-quality MSPs to assist more informed negotiations, we see as being key to the gaining of public acceptance.

Indonesia'€™s water supply regulatory framework: Between commercialisation and public service?

Wijanto Hadipuro
Post Graduate Programme on Environment and Urban Studies, Soegijapranata Catholic University, Semarang, Indonesia; hadipuro@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: Due to financial and operational problems faced by local Indonesian water supply companies (Perusahaan Daerah Air Minum -€“ PDAMs), people depend for their domestic water on many private providers, who use groundwater as their source. Within this context, this article interrogates the current water supply regulatory framework and its implications. Indonesia is at the crossroads of treating water supply as a public service or commercialising it through market or market proxy mechanisms. Through content analysis and a literature study on the impacts of such regulations in the past, this article shows that Indonesia'€™s regulatory framework lends itself to the commercialisation option. Some findings on the current regulations and their impacts indicate that awarding commercial water rights has the potential to marginalise traditional users as well as create administrative problems; adopting the full cost recovery concept has made PDAMs reluctant to expand their services, especially to the poor; inviting the private sector to manage water supply is surely not in the best interests of the provision of public services; assigning an Indonesian National Standard (SNI) has resulted in bottled water becoming the most reliable drinking water; and allowing groundwater extraction to take place without sufficient regulation and law enforcement has resulted in excessive extraction at a detriment to the environment.

Govind Gopakumar
Assistant Professor, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; govind@encs.concordia.ca

ABSTRACT: Public-private partnerships (PPP) are an important governance strategy that has recently emerged as a solution to enhance the access of marginalised residents to urban infrastructures. With the inception of neo-liberal economic reforms in India, in Indian cities too PPP has emerged as an innovative approach to expand coverage of water supply and sanitation infrastructures. However, there has been little study of the dynamics of partnership efforts in different urban contexts: What role do they play in transforming existing infrastructure regimes? Do reform strategies such as partnerships result in increased privatisation or do they make the governance of infrastructures more participative? Reviewing some of the recent literature on urban political analysis, this article develops the concept of water supply regime to describe the context of water provision in three metropolitan cities in India. To further our understanding of the role of PPP within regimes, this article sketches five cases of water supply and sanitation partnerships located within these three metropolitan cities. From these empirical studies, the article arrives at the conclusion that while PPP are always products of the regime-context they are inserted within, quite often strategic actors in the partnership use the PPP to further their interests by initiating a shift in the regime pathway. This leads us to conclude that PPPs do play a role in making water supply regimes more participative but that depends on the nature of the regime as well as the actions of partners.

Peter P. Mollinga
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK; pm35@soas.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This introductory article of the special section introduces the central question that the section addresses: do water policy dynamics in (semi-)authoritarian states have specific features as compared to other state forms? The article situates the question in the post-Cold War global water governance dynamics, argues that the state is a useful and required entry point for water policy analysis, explores the meaning of (semi-) authoritarian as a category, and finally introduces the three papers, which are on China, South Africa and Vietnam.

The state and water resources development through the lens of history: A South African case study

Larry A. Swatuk
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; lswatuk@uwaterloo.ca

ABSTRACT: This article sets contemporary challenges to good water governance in South Africa within an important historical context. While it is correct to say that 'the world water crisis is a crisis of governance', it is problematic to assume that all states can follow a similar path toward environmentally sustainable, economically efficient and socially equitable water resources governance and management. The nexus of decision-making power varies within and beyond states, and over time. Gramsci (1971) describes this as the "constellation of social forces". Where this constellation of social forces achieves consensus, a 'historic bloc' is said to emerge giving rise to a particular state form. The South African state form has varied greatly over several centuries, giving rise to various historic blocs. The resulting body of laws and policies and the varied forms of infrastructure that were developed to harness water for multiple social practices over time constitute a complex political ecological terrain not easily amenable to oversimplified frameworks for good water governance. This article outlines the role of water in the history of South Africa'€™s multiple state forms. It shows that over time, water policy, law and institutions came to reflect the increasingly complex needs of multiple actors (agriculture, mining, industry, cities, the newly enfranchised) represented by different state forms and their characteristic political regimes: the Dutch East India Company; the British Empire; the Union of South Africa; the apartheid and post-apartheid republics. Authoritarian, semi-authoritarian and democratic state forms have all used central-state power to serve particular interests. Through time, this constellation of social forces has widened until, today, the state has taken upon itself the task of providing "some water for all forever" (slogan of the Department of Water Affairs). As this article suggests, despite the difficult challenges presented by a mostly arid climate, this means 'adding in' the water demand of millions of people, but not 'allocating out' those privileged under other constellations of social forces as they contribute most substantially to economic growth. The implication, therefore, is a modified hydraulic mission involving significant new infrastructure and, in all likelihood, inter-basin transfers from beyond South Africa'€™s borders.

James Nickum
Tokyo Jogakkan College, Japan; nickum.water@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the nature of China'€™s unique decentralised 'authoritarian' regime and its various origins; the continuous dialectic between state-directed and market-directed approaches to the economy (including water); the economic and budgetary drivers of water policy change; whether the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) is overly 'loaded' with liberal ideas or even if not, whether it provides any insights beyond concepts more widely accepted in China; whether the state-society dichotomy makes sense in China'€™s guanxi (personal relations) culture; and the course of the World Bank-sponsored Self-funded/managed Irrigation and Drainage District (SIDD) reforms.

Vietnam: Water policy dynamics under a post-Cold War communism

Adam Fforde
Chairman, Adam Fforde and Assoc p/l; Asia Institute, University of Melbourne; Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University; adam@aduki.com.au

ABSTRACT: Vietnam is widely seen as a development success, with rather rapid economic growth and a reported reduced role of the state, yet presents many paradoxes to conventional analytical frameworks. Two of relevance are accounts that stress a combination of a strongly hegemonic regime with weak internal sovereignty in terms of both the internal coherence of the apparat and its interactions with the rest of Vietnamese society, and also associated accounts that deny much role to intentionality in explaining apparent development success. This article will contextualise accounts of political intention and policy development towards water issues in Vietnam through an examination of two main empirics: the evolution of formal policy, understood as documents of the state, as well as of political intention, understood as documents of the ruling Party; and the by now extensive series of 'active' case studies that have examined donor as well as other projects in the sector. It will examine the notion, in the contexts suggested by the Vietnamese experience, that attempts to explain Vietnamese water policy, which have shown a tendency to shift away from assumptions that an analytical framework's categories may easily and without too much risk be extended across different contexts. Rather, comparisons of Vietnamese experience across contexts will tend, if they are to be persuasive, to shift to the use of languages that reflect ontological fluidity, in that what things mean is expected to change over time, without reference to an imagined transcendental and universal 'real'. In this sense, Vietnamese water policy may be usefully understood as an example of how 'success gives voice to the local'.

David Groenfeldt
Water-Culture Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; dgroenfeldt@waterculture.org

ABSTRACT: Water policies are based on ethical assumptions, and efforts to promote more sustainable policies need to address those underlying values. The history of water policies from 'command-and-control' to more ecological approaches reveals an ethical evolution, but adaptation to climate change will require further ethical shifts. The case of the Santa Fe river in New Mexico (USA) illustrates how values that go unrecognised interfere with sustainable management. Exploring the underlying value dynamics is an essential step in the policy reform process and takes on added urgency in the face of climate change and the need to formulate adaptive water strategies. Bringing the topic of values and ethics into the water policy discourse can help clarify management goals and promote more sustainable practices.

The watershed approach: Challenges, antecedents, and the transition from technical tool to governance unit

Alice Cohen
Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; cohena@interchange.ubc.ca
Seanna Davidson
Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada; seannadavidson@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Watersheds are a widely accepted scale for water governance activities. This paper makes three contributions to current understandings of watersheds as governance units. First, the paper collects recent research identifying some of the challenges associated with the policy framework understood as the watershed approach. These challenges are boundary choice, accountability, public participation, and watersheds'€™ asymmetries with 'problem-sheds' and 'policy-sheds'. Second, the paper draws upon this synthesis and on a review of the development and evolution of the concept of watersheds to suggest that the challenges associated with the watershed approach are symptoms of a broader issue: that the concept of watersheds was developed as a technical tool but has been taken up as a policy framework. The result of this transition from tool to framework, the paper argues, has been the conflation of governance tools, hydrologic boundaries, and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Third, the paper calls for an analysis of watersheds as separate from the governance tools with which they have been conflated, and presents three entry points into such an analysis.

Sharing water with nature: Insights on environmental water allocation from a case study of the Murrumbidgee catchment, Australia

Becky Swainson
Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada; becky.swainson@gmail.com
Rob de Loë
Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; rdeloe@uwaterloo.ca
Reid Kreutzwiser
Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada; reidk@uoguelph.ca

ABSTRACT: Human use of freshwater resources has placed enormous stress on aquatic ecosystems in many regions of the world. At one time, this was considered an acceptable price to pay for economic growth and development. Nowadays, however, many societies are seeking a better balance between healthy aquatic ecosystems and viable economies. Unfortunately, historically, water allocation systems have privileged human uses over the environment. Thus, jurisdictions seeking to ensure that adequate water is available for the environment must typically deal with the fact that economies and communities have become dependent on water. Additionally, they must often layer institutions for environmental water allocation (EWA) on top of already complex institutional systems. This paper explores EWA in a jurisdiction - New South Wales (NSW), Australia -€“ where water scarcity has become a priority. Using an in-depth case study of EWA in the Murrumbidgee catchment, NSW, we characterise the NSW approach to EWA with the goal of highlighting the myriad challenges encountered in EWA planning and implementation. Sharing water between people and the environment, we conclude, is much more than just a scientific and technical challenge. EWA in water-scarce regions involves reshaping regional economies and societies. Thus, political and socio-economic considerations must be identified and accounted for from the outset of planning and decision-making processes.

Deluges of grandeur: Water, territory, and power on Northwest Mexico'€™s Rio Mayo, 1880-1910

Jeffrey M. Banister
Southwest Center and School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA; banister@email.arizona.edu

ABSTRACT: Northwest Mexico'€™s irrigation landscape, known today as El Distrito de Riego 038, or El Valle del Mayo, issues from historical struggles to build an official order out of a diverse world of signs, symbols, processes, places, and peoples. It is the ancestral home of the Yoreme (Mayo), an indigenous group for whom colonisation and agricultural development have meant the loss of autonomy and of the seasonal mobility required to subsist in an arid land. It is also the birthplace of President Álvaro Obregón, a one-time chickpea farmer who transformed late-19th century irrigation praxis into the laws and institutions of 20th century water management. Reshaping territory for the ends of centralising ('federalising') water resources has always proved exceedingly difficult in the Mayo. But this was particularly so in the beginning of the federalisation process, a time of aggressive modernisation under the direction of President Porfirio Diaz (1876-1910). Research on Mexican hydraulic politics and policy, with some important exceptions, has tended to focus on the scale and scope of centralisation. Scholars have paid less attention to the moments and places where water escapes officials'€™ otherwise ironclad grasp. This paper explores water governance (and state formation more broadly) in the late 19th century, on the eve of Mexico'€™s 1910 Revolution, as an ongoing, ever-inchoate series of territorial claims and projects. Understanding the weaknesses and incompleteness of such projects offers critical insight into post-revolutionary and/or contemporary hydraulic politics.

Participation as citizenship or payment? A case study of rural drinking water governance in Mali

Stephen Jones
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK; stephen.jones.2009@live.rhul.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Community participation in water governance in developing countries is considered important for increasing sustainable access to drinking water and improving broader local governance. The promotion of participation has therefore become a key aim of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This paper explores community participation in water governance in the rural municipality of Yélékébougou, Mali, and how it is influenced by 'capacity-development' initiatives of the international NGO WaterAid. WaterAid supports communities by helping to set up new institutions intended to manage water supplies and to promote 'participation as citizenship', the idea that community members are empowered to take part in decisions made on water access. However, the paper finds that the institutions created to promote 'participation as citizenship' focus more on promoting paying for water i.e. 'participation as payment', because lack of payment for maintenance of handpumps appears to be the critical obstacle to sustainable water access. However, 'participation as payment' as a means of pursuing cost recovery from communities is not working, and also detracts from the possibility of promoting 'participation as citizenship' and the associated potential longer-term benefits to water access and democratisation. The immediate outcome is that access to drinking water is neither sustainable nor equitable.