"They have kidnapped our river": Dam removal conflicts in Catalonia and their relation to ecosystem services perceptions

Mathias Brummer
University of Bayreuth, GCE Koordination Lehrstuhl für Biogeografie Universitätsstr, Bayreuth, Germany; mathias.christian.brummer@gmail.com

Beatriz Rodríguez-Labajos
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Barcelona, Spain; beatriz.rodriguez@uab.cat

Trung Thanh Nguyen
Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany; thanh.nguyen@iuw.uni-hannover.de

Dídac Jorda-Capdevila
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Barcelona, Spain; dd.joca@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: River restoration is essential to guarantee access to ecosystem services provided by free-flowing rivers. One mechanism to restore rivers is the decommissioning of run-of-the-river dams, but restoration can create opposition as anthropised landscapes form part of the environmental history and imaginary. To facilitate decision-making, actorsʼ perceptions on ecosystem services for and against dam removal should be considered. We analyse perceptions on ecosystem services at two levels of study in Catalonia (Spain): the Catalan context and two local cases of dam removal in the Ter River Basin. Local case studies illustrate that combining participatory mapping and interviews makes contrasting values conspicuous and contributes to conflict understanding. Additionally, we acknowledge a dichotomy of perceptions between locals and outsiders, and the relevance of cultural values, environmental aesthetics, and history for actorsʼ positioning. We propose the engagement of local stakeholders at the basin level through participatory approaches for the sake of understanding water conflicts, as decision making will rarely achieve social sustainability without local support.

KEYWORDS: Water conflicts, participatory mapping, Mediterranean River basins, cultural values, history

Removing dams, constructing science: Coproduction of undammed riverscapes by politics, finance, environment, society and technology

Zbigniew J. Grabowski
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA; z.j.grabowski@pdx.edu

Ashlie Denton
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA; adenton@pdx.edu

Mary Ann Rozance
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA; rozance@pdx.edu

Marissa Matsler
Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA; matslerm@caryinstitute.org

Sarah Kidd
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA; sarah.kidd@pdx.edu

ABSTRACT: Dam removal in the United States has continued to increase in pace and scope, transitioning from a dam-safety engineering practice to an integral component of many large-scale river restoration programmes. At the same time, knowledge around dam removals remains fragmented by disciplinary silos and a lack of knowledge transfer between communities of practice around dam removal and academia. Here we argue that dam removal science, as a study of large restoration-oriented infrastructure interventions, requires the construction of an interdisciplinary framework to integrate knowledge relevant to decision-making on dam removal. Drawing upon infrastructure studies, relational theories of coproduction of knowledge and social life, and advances within restoration ecology and dam removal science, we present a preliminary framework of dams as systems with irreducibly interrelated political, financial, environmental, social, and technological dimensions (PFESTS). With this framework we analyse three dam removals occurring over a similar time period and within the same narrow geographic region (the Mid-Columbia Region in WA and OR, USA) to demonstrate how each PFESTS dimension contributed to the decision to remove the dam, how it affected the process of removing the dam, and how those dimensions continue to operate post removal in each watershed. We conclude with a discussion of a joint research and practice agenda emerging out of the PFESTS framing.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, infrastructure, restoration ecology, praxis, USA

Removing mill weirs in France: The structure and dynamics of an environmental controversy

Regis Barraud
University of Poitiers, RURALITES Research Team (EA 2552), Poitiers, France; regis.barraud@univ-poitiers.fr

ABSTRACT: In France, as in many other parts of Europe and North America, the vast increase in the number of dam removals in order to restore ecological continuity has led to a large number of local conflicts, resulting in a significant ecological controversy. Most of these hydraulic works were connected to former water mills. This article will suggest new analytical methods to help understand and interpret this controversy through the use of two complementary approaches. The first is based on a geohistorical approach. It allows us to identify the development of the meanings and values associated with mill weirs and also to trace the development, since the 19th century, of state involvement in dealing with their ecological impact. Our second method, based on political ecology, attempts to decipher the current state of the controversy. Taking this as our objective we have undertaken a qualitative analysis of the discourse produced on a national level and also of the network of actors who make up the oppositional base to dam removal. The affective and emotional dimensions of the controversy, and also the attachment to local places, both of which are often crucial in the expression of opposition on the local scale, can be identified in the discourse. Yet, the discourse we have analysed reveals argumentative poles which translate both the opposition based on rational arguments and also an alternative vision of the development of rivers (heritage status, green and local power production). The oppositional argument which has been developed notably includes a discussion of the knowledge and scientific expertise upon which the process of dam removal is based. It also includes a critique of local consultation and decision-making methods.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, environmental controversy, heritage, political ecology, France

Beyond mandatory fishways: Federal hydropower relicensing as a window of opportunity for dam removal and adaptive governance of riverine landscapes in the United States

Brian C. Chaffin
W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA; brian.chaffin@umontana.edu

Hannah Gosnell
College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; gosnellh@oregonstate.edu

ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades dam removal has emerged as a viable tool for ecological restoration of riverine landscapes, partially as a result of changing societal values toward the ecological trade-offs associated with dammed rivers. Dam condition, purpose and ownership are key factors that determine the legal and political processes that lead to dam removal in most cases. In the United States removals of small, privately owned dams are most common, although the most high-profile removals are associated with large hydropower dams subject to a federal relicensing process. Scholars cite this legal process for periodic re-evaluation of hydroelectric dams as an important window of opportunity for institutionalising adaptive environmental governance toward the renegotiation of social and ecological values associated with rivers. It is clear, however, that this policy process alone is not sufficient to facilitate large-scale dam removal and larger transitions toward adaptive governance. In this paper we review several high-profile cases of dam relicensing and removal in the Pacific Northwest region of the US to better understand the combination of factors that couple with dam relicensing policy to present a window of opportunity for adaptive governance and social-ecological restoration. Examples from the Pacific Northwest reveal patterns suggesting the critical role of endangered species, Native American tribes, local politics and economics in determining the future of large hydropower dams in the United States.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, social-ecological restoration, adaptive governance, hydropower, FERC, Pacific Northwest

Transdisciplinary research in water sustainability: What’s in it for an engaged researcher-stakeholder community?

Laura Ferguson
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; fergusla@onid.oregonstate.edu

Samuel Chan
Oregon Sea Grant, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; samuel.chan@oregonstate.edu

Mary V. Santelmann
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; mary.santelmann@oregonstate.edu

Bryan Tilt
Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; bryan.tilt@oregonstate.edu

ABSTRACT: This study uses semi-structured interviews and an online survey to explore the structure, challenges and outcomes of a five-year National Science Foundation-funded water scarcity modelling project in the Willamette River Basin of Oregon, USA. The research team chose to facilitate broader impacts by engaging stakeholders from the study’s inception (e.g. developing grant proposal, study implementations, defining model run scenarios) through its completion and extension of findings. The team used various engagement formats (field trips, small and large group meetings) and encountered many challenges, including the lack of a shared vision, different professional languages, research complexities and project management. Through stakeholder engagement the team overcame challenges, facilitated learning, and improved and extended the research process and results. Participation in engagement events was positively correlated with beneficial broader impact outcomes. We compare these outcomes with NSF’s five broader impact criteria: advance scientific discovery and understanding, broaden participation of underrepresented groups, enhance research infrastructure, broadly disseminate results, and benefit society. We show that stakeholder engagement is one method to achieve the five original NSF criteria and suggest that a sixth criterion can be achieved through stakeholder engagement – that of developing the research community.

KEYWORDS: Broader impacts, climate change, modelling, stakeholder engagement, Willamette River Valley

Rethinking water corporatisation: A ‘negotiation space’ for public and private interests, Colombia (1910-2000)

Kathryn Furlong
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada; kathryn.furlong@umontreal.ca

Tatiana Acevedo Guerrero
UNESCO-IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands; t.acevedo@un-ihe.org

Jeimy Arias
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada; jeimy.alejandra.arias.castaao@umontreal.ca

Camila Patiño Sanchez
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada; c.patino.sanchez@umontreal.ca

ABSTRACT: As part of neoliberal reforms to public service delivery, the corporatisation of water supply has been of increasing concern since the late 1990s. Typically, both promoters and detractors frame it within neoliberal theory: it is the next best (or worst) thing to privatisation, enabling the ostensibly independent, commercial and technical management of utilities. In Colombia, however, city-owned water supply corporations are far from new. They were adopted across the country’s main cities at the beginning of the 20th century. Colombia’s century-long experience with corporatised water supply is instructive. The case reveals a model that emerged in the context of challenges common to Southern cities, rather than as a 'solution' imposed from the North, the deep inter-linkages between public and private sectors in the evolution of publicly owned corporations and thus the limited nature of utility autonomy under corporatisation. In sum, corporatisation – imagined as a technology for the 'government of government' – cannot escape the shifting social realities in which it is immersed. It therefore emerges as a technology not for the excising of government authority but for the negotiation of public and private interests in (and influence over) utility services in contexts of relatively limited government autonomy from the private sector.

KEYWORDS: Public utilities, public and private interests, water supply, corporatisation, cross-subsidisation, neoliberalisation, Colombia

Groundwater, the state, and the creation of irrigation communities in Llanos del Caudillo, Spain

Alvar Closas
International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Cairo, Egypt; and (at the time of the research) School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; a.closas@cgiar.org

ABSTRACT: This article explores the creation of new groundwater-based irrigation communities as a result of the internal colonisation projects of Franco’s government in the 1950s in La Mancha, Central Spain. The literature on Spain’s hydraulic mission has mainly focused on the use and mobilisation of large surface water projects as part of a state-driven modernisation mission promoting irrigation and water management infrastructure without much contextualisation or focus on its operationalisation at the local level. This paper complements this body of work by examining the local socio-political development of government-led irrigation plans in the colonisation town of Llanos del Caudillo. Moreover, the study of Spain’s hydro-politics and colonisation efforts usually focuses on surface water infrastructure while the public promotion of groundwater use has always been relegated to a second place, as it was mainly driven by private initiative. This paper substantiates the role of groundwater within Spain’s hydraulic mission and production of state-sponsored irrigated landscapes.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater, hydraulic mission, irrigation, colonisation, Spain

Reconceptualising water quality governance to incorporate knowledge and values: Case studies from Australian and Brazilian indigenous communities

Kate A. Berry
Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA; kberry@unr.edu

Sue Jackson
Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia; sue.jackson@griffith.edu.au

Laurel Saito
The Nature Conservancy, Reno, NV, USA; laurel.saito@tnc.org

Louis Forline
Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA; forline@unr.edu

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the significance of knowledge and values for water quality and its governance. Modernist approaches to the governance of water quality in rivers and lakes need to be reconceptualised and overhauled. The problems include: perceiving water only as a physical and chemical liquid, defining quality in narrow terms, rendering water knowledge as invisible, boiling down water values to uses of presumed economic importance and limiting how and by whom objectives are set or actions taken. In addressing the need to reframe water quality governance, and as a counter to the objectification of water quality, we propose a framework that explicitly recognises the significance of knowledge and values relating to water. While our framework could apply to other contexts under the influence of modernist water-management regimes, here we pay particular attention to the relevance of the water knowledge, values and governance of water quality by Indigenous people. In the second half of the paper we address issues related to Indigenous water-quality governance in two countries, Brazil and Australia, showing some of the ways in which, despite enormous obstacles, Indigenous communities re-work governance structures through their engagements with water quality and pay attention to water knowledge and values.

KEYWORDS: Indigenous peoples, water quality management, Australia, Brazil

The paradox of social resilience: Explaining delays in water infrastructure provision in Kathmandu

Leong Ching
Institute of Water Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore; ching@nus.edu.sg

ABSTRACT: One of the enduring puzzles within the management of water and other environmental resources is the sustained under-investment despite their critical importance. This paper brings together two emerging lines of research in answering this puzzle: first, that the blame-averse nature of governments leads them to avoid tackling issues which are perceived to have low payoff, and second, that the paradox of social resilience by which acts of coping with natural disasters and adverse events have led to a self-perception of resilience. While the motivations behind blame aversion are well researched, how the paradox of social resilience contributes to and interacts with such bureaucratic motivations remains little understood. Using a quantitative investigation of narratives of a more than 10-year delay to the Melamchi Water Supply Project in Kathmandu, Nepal, this paper reveals the dynamics of this interaction; it finds that a self-perception of resilience leads to narratives of low emotional intensity or 'valence', which in turn feed the perception of low payoffs for governments. This accentuates motivations of blame aversion, thus creating a vicious cycle of inaction. In Kathmandu, the self-perception of resilience is partly due to the coping mechanisms provided by a large, informal water-vending market. This paper suggests that one way of breaking the cycle is to increase the emotional intensity of the narratives by focusing on the true cost of coping with the delay in water supply. Our study further predicts that this vicious cycle is generally extant in policies with low negative valence – that is, in most environmental policies.

KEYWORDS: Water policies, public perceptions, social resilience, Q methodology, Kathmandu

Urban planning, water provisioning and infrastructural violence at public housing resettlement sites in Ahmedabad, India

Renu Desai
Centre for Urban Equity, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India; renu.desai@cept.ac.in

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the links between urban planning and the politics of water provisioning and violence and conflict in people’s lives by drawing upon research in a low-income locality in Ahmedabad, India. By focusing on public housing sites constructed to resettle poor and low-income residents displaced from central and intermediate areas of the city for urban development projects, the paper looks beyond poor, informal neighbourhoods to explore the dynamics of water provisioning and inequalities in the city. A close examination of the water infrastructure at the sites and their everyday workings is undertaken in order to unravel the socio-material configurations which constitute inadequate water flows, and the ways in which urban planning, policies and governance produce infrastructural violence at the sites. It also traces the various forms of water-related deprivations, burdens, inequities, tensions and conflicts that emerge in people’s lives as a result of their practices in the context of this infrastructural violence.

KEYWORDS: Water, infrastructural violence, urban planning, public housing, resettlement, India

The waterways of Tangail: Failures to learn from flood-control efforts in the Brahmaputra Basin of Bangladesh

Crelis F. Rammelt
Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; c.f.rammelt@uva.nl

Zahed Md. Masud
AITAM Welfare Organisation, Janata Co-operative Housing Society, Dhaka, Bangladesh; masud@agni.com

Arvid Masud
Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, The State University of New York, Buffalo, United States; arvidmasud@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: Traditional non-structural approaches to water management and flood protection in Bengal disappeared almost entirely under colonial and national water planning. The 1950s saw the rise of permanent and centrally regulated infrastructures for flood control, drainage and irrigation (FCD/I). A nationwide Flood Action Plan (FAP) in the 1990s reinforced this structural approach and included as one of its flagships of the FAP-20 component in the Tangail District. While essentially remaining a form of FCD/I, FAP-20 attempted to pay attention to social and ecological concerns. During its implementation (1991-2000), however, FAP-20 became highly controversial on both accounts. Eventually, it was phased out and not replicated elsewhere. Revisiting this particular project is as relevant as ever for several reasons. First, the article shows that its negative impacts are felt long after the project ended. To better understand these impacts, the present article provides a historical and contextual perspective on water governance in Bangladesh. Second, there seems to have been little learning from the FAP-20 experience. The project was not adequately evaluated, and lessons are therefore not assimilated by the design of subsequent water-sector projects (e.g. the Blue Gold plan). The article argues that a thorough evaluation is needed and can provide valuable insights for the development of more adaptive and inclusive approaches to water management.

KEYWORDS: Flood control, evaluation, Flood Action Plan, Blue Gold, Tangail, Bangladesh

Discourse analysis of the debate on hydroelectric dam building in Brazil

Antonio Aledo Tur
Department of Sociology I, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain; antonio.aledo@ua.es

Hugo García-Andreu
Department of Sociology I, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain; hugo.andreu@ua.es

Guadalupe Ortiz
Department of Sociology I, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain; guadalupe.ortiz@ua.es

Jose Andres Domínguez-Gomez
Department of Sociology, Social Work and Public Health, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain; andres@uhu.es

ABSTRACT: In recent years new hydroelectric dam projects in Brazil have led to intense debate across society. A range of different social actors have been engaged in these controversies, all of them deploying different discourses to legitimise their postures. This paper addresses the study of the discourses emerging around this debate in the case of two hydroelectric projects in the Cuenca del Alto Paraná River, and examines the way the multiple arguments emanating from the social actors are grouped together. On the basis of a content analysis of qualitative interviews a factor analysis was carried out to identify the groups of arguments. One of the main outcomes of this analysis highlighted the discursive isolation of a single social group – the people affected by the construction of the dams – in contrast to the other actors, who shared arguments grounded in techno-economic rationales. As opposed to this, those affected by the dam projects used arguments based on their emotions, identities and daily experiences of place; their perspectives were absent from the discourses of other actors.

KEYWORDS: Discourse analysis, storylines, hydropower, social impact, Brazil

"We need more data!" The politics of scientific information for water governance in the context of hydraulic fracturing

Michele-Lee Moore
Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Canada; mlmoore@uvic.ca

Karena Shaw
School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada; shawk@uvic.ca

Heather Castleden
Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada; heather.castleden@queensu.ca

ABSTRACT: Proposed and actual developments of hydraulic fracturing, as a high-volume water user, have proven contentious in recent years. However, one point of agreement has emerged amongst all actors with regards to water use and hydraulic fracturing: we need more data. This consensus fits with a longstanding reification of the role of data in water governance, and yet we argue it hides a politically contested terrain. Based on a literature review, an empirical Delphi study and a workshop with a diverse array of participants from across Canada, we explore the data needs related to water governance and hydraulic fracturing. We then investigate three areas of deficiency that point to a lack of trust and oversight as well as the exclusion of community and Indigenous knowledge. We argue that in an era of neoliberal approaches to water governance, issues of trust, accountability and transparency all link back to a diminished role for data management within existing water governance arrangements. The challenge is that simply collecting more data will not help decision-makers navigate the complexity of water governance. Our findings suggest a growing call by participants for greater engagement by governments in data collection and knowledge management, new funding mechanisms for data collection and re-thinking how and what to monitor if including multiple ways of knowing and values.

KEYWORDS: Hydraulic fracturing, neoliberalism, Indigenous peoples, water governance, accountability, data, science policy, Two-Eyed Seeing, Canada

Deliberative democracy in Canadian watershed governance

Margot Hurlbert
Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada; margot.hurlbert@uregina.ca

Evan Andrews
School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; e3andrew@uwaterloo.ca

ABSTRACT: Bottom-up watershed governance that features citizen engagement in decision-making is touted as a panacea for better social and environmental outcomes. However, there is limited agreement on how exactly this engagement occurs, and how it can be assessed. Water decision-making may result in better social outcomes when decision-making is deliberative and democratic. This article brings together a cross-disciplinary framework to assess deliberative democratic practices in local water councils (LWCs) in the Prairie Provinces, Canada. We apply this framework to assess and compare LWCS, using data from a review of secondary sources and semi-structured qualitative interviews with members of LWCs. Our framework was useful for identifying strengths and shortcomings of deliberative democracy within and across LWCs. The strengths of the Manitoba model are its significant mandate and stable tax funding. Alberta’s strengths are in the areas of community representation and significant contested deliberation. Saskatchewan’s strengths are its interconnectedness with other organisations, sectors, and governments. While LWCs have made important contributions to local watershed governance, a consideration and comparison of deliberative democratic practices offers options for policy change strengthening the deliberative democratic practices of LWCs.

KEYWORDS: Deliberative democracy, watershed, water governance, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Canada

Wastewater governance and the local, regional and global environments

Marianne Kjellén
Scientific Programme Committee of the World Water Week, United Nations Development Programme, Stockholm, Sweden; marianne.kjellen@undp.org

ABSTRACT: This paper introduces the themed section featuring selected papers from the 2017 World Water Week. The Week focused on 'Water and waste: reduce and reuse', in line with a circular economy, and embraced a broad set of perspectives relating to the challenges of water, sanitation and waste management. This paper reflects on the World Water Week theme and selected papers in the context of broader socio-environmental transitions, and how the governance of wastewater plays out at the local, regional and global levels. The papers explore the construction of engineering knowledge and its implication in pollution management, the monitoring of accountability in the provision of sanitation and water services and the way the equitable distribution of these services can improve girls’ educational attainment. This introductory paper reviews trends in water use, wastewater and reuse, and situates these within an environmental transition framework, showing how pollution burdens and risks are displaced onto the poorest or more distant populations. While these socio-environmental transitions are fuelled by economic growth, it is the policy actions or the overarching framework of governance that set the direction. Broader political alliances can put the necessary regulation in place and channel investments towards the cleaning or protection of the local, regional and potentially also the global environment. Lessening the burdens on disadvantaged people, by extending services, and fragile ecosystems, by curbing pollution, would be the purpose of a socially inclusive, circular, green economy.

KEYWORDS: Wastewater, reuse, sanitation, governance, environmental transitions

Disaster capitalism? Examining the politicisation of land subsidence crisis in pushing Jakarta’s Seawall Megaproject

Thanti Octavianti
School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford, United Kingdom; thanti.octavianti@ouce.ox.ac.uk

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

ABSTRACT: This paper offers an analysis of 'disaster capitalism', in which fear of disaster is exploited to facilitate the entry of a capitalist project, with regard to Jakarta’s flood policy. After a major flood hit the city in 2013, the Indonesian government launched a flagship megaproject, the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD), as the solution for the city’s sinking problem. The plan involves closing Jakarta Bay by means of a 32-kilometre (km) offshore sea wall and reclaiming 5100 hectares (ha) of land. Following a corruption scandal in a related reclamation project (for 17 artificial islands), the NCICD plan was evaluated for six months in 2016. Although many criticisms of the plan surfaced during the evaluation period, they were not able to bring about radical change, i.e. cancellation of the project. Informed by the concept of 'critical juncture' (an analytical approach focusing on a short period of time in which actors’ decisions have a higher probability of affecting the particular outcome), we analyse the extent to which the framing of the sinking crisis by political actors can explain such a 'near-miss' critical juncture, where change is both possible and plausible but not achieved. Drawing data from newspaper discourse, interviews, and policy documents, we find that the project’s proponents have eloquently framed the sinking crisis in order to ensure preference for the seawall policy, including the project concerning the 17 islands that was claimed by the critics as the capitalist part of the project. It can be concluded that the 'disaster capitalism' notion played a significant role in this 'near-miss' outcome.

KEYWORDS: Seawall, land subsidence crisis, critical juncture, disaster capitalism, Jakarta, Indonesia

Pursuing the state’s hydraulic mission in a context of private groundwater use in the Izmir Province, Turkey

Selin Le Visage
Paris Nanterre University, UMR LAVUE; and UMR G-EAU, Cirad, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; s.levisage@gmail.com

Marcel Kuper
G-EAU, Cirad, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; and IAV Hassan II, Rabat, Morocco; marcel.kuper@cirad.fr

Jean-Philippe Venot
G-EAU, IRD, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; WRM Group, Wageningen University; and RUA, Cambodia; jean-philippe.venot@ird.fr

Murat Yercan
Department of Agricultural Economics, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey; murat.yercan@ege.edu.tr

Ela Atış
Department of Agricultural Economics, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey; ela.atis@ege.edu.tr

ABSTRACT: Since the 2008 global food crisis there has been renewed interest in irrigation infrastructural development, which has sometimes been taken up by the same agencies that developed large-scale surface irrigation in the 20th century. This article presents a case study of the recent '1000 small dams in 1000 days' programme in Turkey to analyse the continuities and ruptures in the way the development of surface irrigation infrastructure is conducted by the state. The comparison of two small dam projects in the dynamic agricultural province of Izmir shows how the irrigation administration is pursuing its hydraulic mission, sustaining its expertise and strengthening its authority. The development of infrastructure goes beyond irrigation objectives, as it materialises the iconic power of the state in rural areas by rapidly providing visible results. However, the development of public irrigation is taking place in a very different context from that of the 20th century. The state faces farmers who are already using groundwater for irrigation and hence challenge the hierarchical organisation of public surface irrigation schemes. Although the irrigation administration continues to dictate the terms of irrigation development, it acknowledges these changes by engaging in pragmatic discussions with farmers, who are no longer mere 'beneficiaries' but actively engage in negotiations to play a significant role in the management of newly built irrigation infrastructure.

KEYWORDS: Small dams, conjunctive use, irrigation associations, irrigation cooperatives, bureaucracy, control, Turkey

Global assessment of accountability in water and sanitation services using GLAAS data

Alejandro Jiménez
Stockholm International Water Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; alejandro.jimenez@siwi.org

John Livsey
Stockholm International Water Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; and Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden; john.livsey@natgeo.su.se

Imenne Åhlén
Stockholm International Water Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; and Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden; imenne.ahlen@natgeo.su.se

Cecilia Scharp
UNICEF, New York, USA; cscharp@unicef.org

Marina Takane
Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health (PHE), World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; takanem@who.int

ABSTRACT: The Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) is one of UN-Water’s regular reports. Its focuses include aspects of investment and the enabling environment for the delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene services. Accountability refers to the mechanisms through which duty bearers, elected officials and service providers report to rights holders and other stakeholders within the service delivery framework. Accountability contributes to good sector performance and the overall sustainability of services. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of accountability in the drinking-water and sanitation sector globally, based on the available data from the GLAAS survey of 2014. To achieve this, accountability was defined from a human rights perspective, and particularised for water and sanitation. Next the quantitative and open-ended questions from the GLAAS survey that related to this definition were analysed for all 94 responding countries. Comparisons were drawn between water and sanitation services in urban and rural settings, and regional trends were identified. The results show higher levels of accountability for water than sanitation services, and limited information on wastewater. Potential means to strengthen accountability in water and sanitation globally are seen to include improving access to information on the services provided, enacting participation policies and increasing the capacity of regulatory institutions. Particular attention should be paid to rural services. The GLAAS survey could be modified for a better understanding of the accountability mechanisms for WASH service provision.

KEYWORDS: Accountability, water, sanitation, urban, rural, global, GLAAS, regulation, information, participation, human rights, WASH

Viewpoint – Pouring money down the drain: Can we break the habit by reconceiving wastes as resources?

Michael Bruce Beck
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College, London, UK; mbrucebeck@gmail.com

Michael Thompson
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; and Institute for Science Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford, UK; thompson@iiasa.ac.at

Dipak Gyawali
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; and Academician (Pragya), Nepal Academy of Science and Technology; dipakgyawali.dg@gmail.com

Simon Langan
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; langan@iiasa.ac.at

JoAnne Linnerooth-Bayer
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; bayer@iiasa.ac.at

ABSTRACT: As water-sector professionals re-discover the value in the 'waste' conveyed in 'waste'water, this Viewpoint argues that the theory of plural rationality (also known as Cultural Theory) may accelerate the switch from waste management to resource recovery. Accordingly, it extends the framing of plural rationality, from its traditional applications in matters of governance and social and economic analysis, to the beginnings of a set of plural schools of engineering thought. This sounds controversial. Indeed, we hope it is. For all too often ways to resolve water issues end up in the impasse of two deeply entrenched positions: the 'technocratic reductionism' of the 'quick engineering fix' to problem solving; and the 'participatory holism' of the 'local, socially sensitive, integrationist' approach. Plural rationality sees this is an impoverished duopoly. Our very strong preference is to find ways of promoting the creative interplay among plural (more than two), mutually opposed, contending ways of framing a problem and resolving it. This, we argue, should not only expand the portfolio of possible alternatives for technology-policy interventions, but also lead to the chosen alternative being preferable — in social, economic, and environmental terms — to what might otherwise have happened. Such solutions are called 'clumsy' in plural rationality theory. We use a synopsis of a case history of restoring water quality in the River Rhine in Europe, within a wider account of the sweep of resource recovery spanning two centuries (late 18th Century through early 21st Century), to illustrate how clumsiness works. This, however, does not extend to our elaborating our proposed set of plural schools of engineering thought beyond just its very beginnings. Our Viewpoint allows us merely to start framing the challenge of developing, and eventually applying, such a notion.

KEYWORDS: Circular economy; clumsiness, Cultural Theory, lock-in, nutrient recovery, plural rationality, plural schools of engineering thought, Rhine restoration, technological invention and innovation, urban metabolism

Gender differences related to WASH in schools and educational efficiency

Dorice Agol
Independent Consultant, Nairobi, Kenya; agoldorice@hotmail.com

Peter Harvey
UNICEF, Copenhagen, Denmark; pharvey@unicef.org

ABSTRACT: Understanding Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools from gender perspectives is fundamental in development. This paper tests the hypothesis that improved WASH in schools can lead to educational efficiency and progression especially for teenage girls. The hypothesis was tested using quantitative data collected through an Education Management Information System (EMIS) for just over 10,000 schools in Zambia, Southern Africa. Relationships between WASH provision in schools and repetition and drop-out ratios were investigated, disaggregated by gender and grade. The analysis revealed that lack of WASH leads to high rates of repetition and dropout in school for girls, compared to boys especially from the age of 13 and in grades 6, 7 and 8. This affirms the importance of providing adequate supply of WASH facilities in schools to facilitate educational efficiency and progression of girls.

KEYWORDS: WASH in schools, education, gender, Zambia