The reconfiguration of hydrosocial territories in rural Uzbekistan: Evidence from Samarkand Province

Madina Gazieva
School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland; madina.gazieva2@mail.dcu.ie

ABSTRACT: In recent years, Uzbekistan has embarked on an expansive agricultural modernisation programme, cast under the banner of the 'Green Economy'. Within the agriculture sector, this has entailed an overhaul of the former cotton-centred production model in favour of high-value crops and vertically integrated clusters that are irrigated using the most up-to-date technologies. This paper argues that such a process entails 'hydrosocial re-territorialisation', which is characterised by a shift from horizontal, socially mediated surface-flow interdependencies to vertical and individualised groundwater access. Using the case of the pseudonymised village 'Dostlik' in Samarkand Province, the paper looks at local manifestations of Uzbekistan’s current hydro-agrarian overhaul, arguing that hydrosocial re-territorialisation – by facilitating water grabbing – becomes the locus of agrarian change, experienced as 'slow violence' by rural residents. The effects are felt most acutely by scattered, informal homestead farmers who must continually dig deeper wells to irrigate their plots.

KEYWORDS: Political ecology of water, hydrosocial territories, slow violence, Green Economy, homestead farmers, Uzbekistan

Feeding Istanbul: The Melen water transfer project and the anatomy of a silent environmental conflict

Çisem Kırcı
Boğaziçi University, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey; cisem.kirci@gmail.com

Cem İskender Aydın
Boğaziçi University, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey; cem.aydin@bogazici.edu.tr

ABSTRACT: Istanbul is Turkey’s economic and cultural capital. With a population approaching 16 million, it uses resources, particularly water, from far beyond its borders. The city’s persistent water scarcity, exacerbated by its exponential growth, has necessitated large-scale infrastructural interventions, including interbasin water transfer projects such as the Great Melen Project (GMP). This project, the nation’s second largest water transfer scheme, entailed the displacement of numerous rural communities via urgent expropriation decisions by the government – a procedure designed for use only in extreme circumstances such as war or natural disasters. This study investigates the social ramifications of this project, focusing on the 2014 evacuation of Ortaköy village in the basin. Through in-depth interviews with diverse stakeholders, particularly former residents, the researchers examine the project’s impact on local people’s lives and livelihoods. The project has been hailed as a technological and engineering marvel; however, the findings demonstrate how readily the Melen region is being sacrificed for the sake of the nation’s economic growth ideals. These are embodied in an idealised ‘modernisation’ narrative that justifies prioritisation of the needs of Istanbul as the country’s economic and cultural engine and thereby produces consent among the villagers.

KEYWORDS: Interbasin water transfers, political ecology, environmental justice, Istanbul, Great Melen Project, Turkey

Destabilising waters, uneven adaptation: Shifting hydrosocial relations among agropastoralists in the Tiva River Basin of Kenya

Ruben V. Weesie
Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; r.v.weesie@vu.nl

Melanie Rohse
Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom; melanie.rohse@aru.ac.uk

Johanna Koehler
Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; johanna.koehler@wur.nl

Marlies H. Barendrecht
Department of Geography, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom; marlies.barendrecht@kcl.ac.uk

Moses Mwangi
Department of Hydrology and Aquatic Sciences, South Eastern Kenya University, Kitui, Kenya; mmwangi@seku.ac.ke

Anne F. van Loon
Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; anne.van.loon@vu.nl

ABSTRACT: Seasonal rivers in East Africa’s drylands have become destabilised by climatic disruption and landscape changes. Despite widespread adaptation practices and interventions, recurrent droughts and floods continue to damage the agropastoral livelihoods dependent on these rivers. Few studies have explored how destabilising rainfall, river flows and adaptations have transformed hydrosocial relations among agropastoralists living near seasonal rivers. This paper reports on a case study in the Tiva River Basin in Kenya, exploring how agropastoralists have experienced changing river flows, rainfall and adaptation processes over the past 75 years. Based on storytelling workshops and a survey, we find that river flows and rainfall have been experienced as increasingly unpredictable and damaging. Water’s perceived role has shifted from being rhythmic and regenerative to being an erosive force and scarce resource to be captured and mobilised. Adaptation has materialised in multiple forms, each of which has, and continues to, reshape reshape the ways in which water is perceived and used. This requires attention from adaptation research with regard to policy and practice in agropastoral drylands. First, public hydraulic infrastructures inscribe norms for capturing and controlling water, while the limits of their functionality are layered into existing arrangements for accessing water. Second, the spread of private irrigation along seasonal rivers supports adaptation, but is only accessible for a small group and leads to inequalities in water access and adaptive capacities. Third, many agropastoralists pursue bottom-up adaptive practices to retain water, but face various hindrances in sustaining their efforts.

KEYWORDS: Dryland, seasonal river, water, agropastoralist, adaptation, Kenya

Narratives of water disconnection: Navigating regulatory tensions in the Netherlands

Samara López-Ruiz
Institute of Sustainable Processes, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain; Department of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology, School of Industrial Engineering, University of Valladolid, Spain; samaralr@uva.es

Klaas Schwartz
IHE-Delft, Delft, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; k.schwartz@un-ihe.org

Gabriela Cuadrado-Quesada
IHE-Delft, Delft, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; g.quesada@un-ihe.org

ABSTRACT: This article examines how Dutch water utilities implement and justify disconnection policies under the conflicting imperatives of cost recovery and the human right to water. Based on 12 semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis, it identifies 3 dominant narratives – technocratic, socially engaged, and human rights-based; it then maps these along two dimensions: the framing of water and the interpretation of non-payment. Despite operating within a uniform legal framework, utilities interpret and apply practices differently, reflecting variations in organisational contexts and discursive understandings of responsibility and vulnerability. The analysis shows how actors engage in discursive manoeuvring, using strategic ambiguity to reconcile regulatory obligations with social concerns. These findings challenge assumptions of technocratic neutrality and demonstrate how discretion and institutional discourse shape regulatory practice. The study contributes to regulatory governance debates by showing how formal compliance can coexists with informal adaptation in the provision of essential services.

KEYWORDS: Discursive institutionalism, human right to water, policy implementation, regulatory governance, water disconnections, the Netherlands

Older women’s leisurely engagement with water: A 'wetrospective'

Nicole K. Dalmer
Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; dalmern@mcmaster.ca

Meridith Griffin
Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; griffmb@mcmaster.ca

Vera Gallistl
Department of Gerontology and Health Research, Karl Landsteiner University for Health Sciences, Krems, Austria; vera.gallistl@kl.ac.at

Kim Sawchuk
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; kim.sawchuk@concordia.ca

ABSTRACT: Water is a vital but underexplored dimension of older women’s leisure. While aquatic activity is often framed through health promotion or 'active ageing' discourses, such framings can obscure the complex entanglements of embodiment, gender, environment and social life. This paper presents findings from a scoping review of 36 peer reviewed studies that examined older women’s engagements with water across diverse contexts and activities including swimming, aqua aerobics, surfing, rowing and wild swimming. Four clusters of meaning emerged: water as supporting physical and mental well-being; water as a medium for identity and agency; water as a site of belonging, memory and spirituality; and water as context for social connection and mutual support. These practices illuminate water’s role not only as a therapeutic resource but also as an agentic, affective and political force. By foregrounding older women’s watery leisure, we highlight tensions of safety and autonomy and of inclusion and exclusion, and we call for a hydrological turn in gerontology that is attentive to joy, risk and belonging.

KEYWORDS: Water, older women, scoping review, embodiment, water-based leisure