Your search found 14 records
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048053)
(0.88 MB)
This paper describes how urbanization processes and urban expansion intersect with social and power relations to reduce the access of periurban communities to common property resources (CPRs). Unequal power structures mean that certain groups are deprived of access to village CPRs. Processes of urban expansion further reduce access to CPRs, as the latter are acquired to support urban expansion. Though rural–urban transformations are characterized by the emergence of new sources of irrigation such as wastewater, not all are able to benefit from them. The acquisition of common property grazing lands to support the drinking water needs of the city affects the livelihood of livestock dependent population, that shift to casual labor. This also translates into a shift from grazing, the domain of men in the household, to stall-feeding, the domain of women, and thereby creating additional responsibilities for women in natural resource collection. The demise of CPRs such as village ponds with the increased pressure on groundwater resources increase the drudgery of women and marginalized groups in accessing water.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048835)
(0.94 MB)
Recent studies that emphasize the contested nature of resource allocation address the politics of periurban development. However, the issue of conflicts and cooperation in periurban contexts continues to remain weakly studied. Based on the study of periurban Gurgaon in North-West India, this paper unravels the different types of conflicts and cooperation that have emerged around land and water, drawing insights from conflict/cooperation studies and urban political ecology. We focus on how changes in land-use bring about changes in water use, access and practices in periurban Gurgaon, giving rise to new forms of conflicts, conflicts of interest and cooperation. Conflicts over land and water are linked to the changing characteristics of land and water appropriation that has occurred in the aftermath of neoliberal reforms. Drawing insights from urban political ecology perspective, we show how periurban areas are systematically undermined through the acquisition of land and water to serve urban expansion and growth. We conclude that periurban conflicts are rooted in the issue of land-use change and are fundamentally tied to the politics of urbanization and its impact on periurban areas. These processes give rise to conflicts of interest and explicit conflicts, whilst creating new forms of cooperation. Cooperation is exemplified by emerging forms of collective action over the use of wastewater and groundwater. The paper distinguishes between conflict and cooperation but concludes that these are in fact not mutually exclusive; rather points along a continuum.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048885)
(1.97 MB) (1.97 MB)
This article examines the power interplay that shapes the transboundary water interaction in the Brahmaputra River basin. The article provides two key insights based on data sharing and bilateralism aspects. First, the lack of a standard, hydrological data-sharing mechanism has created a sense of mistrust between riparians. Second, bilateralism and power asymmetry between the riparian countries has created a sense of unilateral control over the Brahmaputra River. This article concludes that due to regional geo-politics, issues of sovereignty, and unequal power, negotiation for a multilateral basin-wide treaty at this moment is a non-starter in the Brahmaputra basin.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048952)
(0.32 MB)
Countries sharing the Brahmaputra River have for decades deliberated on formulating and implementing cooperative strategies to develop the potential of the basin. Yet, little progress has been made so far at the government-to-government track 1 level in achieving regional cooperation due to the diverse national interests of the riparian countries. This has led to tension and friction among co-riparian nations and mistrust at political level. Drawing from the Brahmaputra Dialogue, this paper aims to highlight the merit of multi-track and multilateral dialogue processes for building trust and confidence between the riparian countries – paving a way towards transboundary cooperation. The paper concludes that given the geo-politics and the national interests of each riparian nation, negotiation for a treaty for cooperation through track 1 diplomacy, in the Brahmaputra River Basin (BRB), is a non-starter. Multi-track and multilateral dialogues can provide a platform to pursue positive interactions and can be viewed as an extension to existing state-diplomacy in BRB, to bring about sustainable change in the basin management.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049462)
(0.36 MB) (372 KB)
Urbanising cities of India are engulfing the peri-urban land and water resources. Informal water sellers, who transfer water from peri-urban to urban areas, meet the growing water demand in Hyderabad, one of the fastest growing cities in India. This article qualitatively explores how informal water tankers are changing the flows of water, posing challenges to water access for peri-urban residents. We conclude that apart from the state's infrastructural and capacity challenges to provide piped water, power interplay between actors is responsible for the mushrooming of informal water markets. The transfer of water has contributed to groundwater depletion as well as to the water insecurity of peri-urban residents.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049843)
(2.35 MB) (2.35 MB)
This article shows how Bangladesh and India intentionally maintain the status quo for the Brahmaputra River at the transboundary level, using material and ideational resources. Results show that India wants to reduce its hegemonic vulnerabilities and Bangladesh aims to maintain its control over the Brahmaputra river, simultaneously building its technical and negotiation skills. We conclude that the underlying processes of maintaining the status quo can be comprehended as ‘non-decision making’. The analysis presented will help policy actors to push towards a forward-looking climate change adaptation planning for the Brahmaputra River.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050160)
(0.93 MB) (948 KB)
Freshwater scarcity has increased in the cities of the global South due to rapid urban agglomeration and changing climate. Alternative water resources such as treated wastewater can play a significant role to reduce the water supply-demand gap. In the recent past, wastewater has been used solely for irrigation and other allied agriculture purposes, with limited focus on reuse for other purposes within the cities. Despite the progress in wastewater treatment technology and various policy frameworks, in low income and lower-middle-income countries, limited progress has been made. Through this article, we compare three aspects, representing the wastewater paradigms in India and the Netherlands. The three elements are 1) framing, 2) policy goals, and 3) technical and financial instruments. Using policy document analysis and interviews, we compare water and related policies prepared in India and the Netherlands. We found that the wastewater paradigms have evolved in the two countries. In India, the wastewater paradigms have realized paradigm changes from ‘water resource to meet a basic human need’ to ‘water as an engine of economic growth’ and then to ‘water scarcity and beautification of cities’. In the case of the Netherlands, the wastewater paradigms have changed from an emphasis on ‘public health and environmental concerns’ to the ‘circular economy of wastewater’. Although the Netherlands has to still meet the water quality targets of the European Water Directive Framework with regards to micropollutants, the country has made significant progress towards wastewater treatment and reuse in the last four decades. On the contrary, the Indian wastewater policy domain has room for improvement in terms of designing appropriate financial instruments and governance strategies to increase the urban wastewater treatment capacity and reuse. This article concludes that the use of the concept of wastewater paradigm is useful to show the progress and challenges in the two countries.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050224)
(0.74 MB) (756 KB)
South Asia is a region uniquely vulnerable to climate-related impacts. Climate change adaptation in India and Bangladesh evolves using powering and puzzling approaches by policy actors. We seek to answer the question: how do powering and puzzling approaches influence the climate change adaptation policy design and implementation processes in Bangladesh and India? We adopted two strategies to collect and analyze data: semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis. We found that adaptation policymaking is largely top-down, amenable to techno-managerial solutions, and not inclusive of marginalized actors. In Bangladesh, power interplays among ministerial agencies impair the policy implementation process and undermine the success of puzzling. Local-scale agencies do not have enough authority or power to influence the overall implementation processes occurring at higher scales of governance. The powering of different actors in Bangladesh is visible through a duality of mandates and a lack of integration of climate adaptation strategies in different government ministries. The powering aspect of India’s various adaptation policies is the lack of collective puzzling around the question of differentiated vulnerability by axes of social difference. Paradoxically, India has a puzzling approach of hiding behind the poor in international negotiations. Moving forward, both countries should strive to have more inclusive and equitable adaptation policymaking processes that enable the participation of marginalized populations and represent their anxieties and aspirations. Identifying policy-relevant insights from South Asia using the powering and puzzling approaches can foster adaptation policy processes that facilitate empowerment, the missing piece of the adaptation policymaking puzzle.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050389)
(0.50 MB) (508 KB)
This study is based on hydrogeochemical and biological parameters and calculation of Water Quality Index (WQI) to assess water quality of a rural tract in five districts of Garhwal and Kumaon district of Uttarakhand, India. The drinking water quality parameters are pH, Total Hardness, Alkalinity, Turbidity, Iron (Fe), Chloride (Cl), Fluoride (F), Dissolved Solids (TDS), Sulphate (SO4), Nitrate (NO3), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Arsenic (As), conductivity, Total Coliform, Fecal Coliform and Total Residual Chlorine. It was observed that the physicochemical properties were as per BIS standards and found suitable for drinking purposes. However Bacteriological parameters i.e. Total coliform and Fecal coliform of some sampling sites ranged from 20 to 300 CFU/100 ml, which were higher than permissible limit (0 CFU/100 ml) as per BIS standards. Statistical analysis had been used to calculate the correlation coefficient of different parameters with WQI and the study showed significant linear relationship and the high correlation coefficient between different pairs of water quality parameters. The correlation matrix shows that total iron concentration, total coliform, and faecal coliform have a significant effect on Water quality index. Among these parameters, TDS has the highest correlation with conductivity, sulphate, and chloride ion concentration whereas turbidity significantly correlates with the presence of nitrate in drinking water.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051046)
(3.35 MB) (3.35 MB)
Extant systematic literature reviews on the topic of climate smart agriculture (CSA) have mainly focused on two issues: reviewing framing of the CSA discourse in the academic and policy literature; and policy initiatives in the Global South that enhance the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices. Yet, there is little systematic investigation into how international organizations can help smallholder farmers manage agricultural systems to respond to climate change. Analyzing these organization's priorities and highlighting their knowledge gaps are crucial for designing future pathways of CSA. We intend to use this article to identify overarching CSA themes that can guide large international organizations to focus their CSA agenda in the hope of achieving goals associated with food security and sustainable intensification. We specifically ask the following question: How have the key CSA topics and themes emerged in the gray literature of international organizations between 2010 and 2020? We adopted a topic modeling approach to identify how six international organizations engaged with several topics related to CSA. Following the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) approach, we identified eight topics in the documents, representing four overarching themes: gender research, weather and climate, CSA management and food security. We found that there is insufficient discussion on the issues relating to governance measures and gender mainstreaming, with a larger focus on techno-managerial measures of CSA. We conclude that research and training related to CSA must offer opportunities for marginalized and disproportionately vulnerable populations to participate and raise their voices and share innovative ideas at different levels of governance.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051200)
(2.26 MB) (2.26 MB)
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an important discourse among national governments in Africa and international policy circles to increase food productivity, build smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate change, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Despite presenting several potential economic and environmental benefits to farmers, its adoption among African smallholder farmers is low. Two important aspects that influence the adoption of CSA are inclusion and exclusion of farmers’ local knowledge and how CSA is upscaled among smallholder farmers in Africa. This article uses a systematic review methodology to demonstrate that the existing literature (between 2010-2020) on CSA has substantially addressed issues that hinder its upscaling in Africa, such as heterogeneous farming systems, limited finance, high cost of agricultural inputs, and technology. However, only eight of 30 articles included in the systematic review indicate challenges pertaining to inclusion or exclusion of local knowledge in CSA practices and technologies. Policymakers and academics need to rethink how smallholder farmers’ local knowledge can enhance opportunities and fulfil the potential to upscale CSA in Africa.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051786)
(1.07 MB) (1.07 MB)
Science and technology studies and urban political ecology have made important contributions to the understanding of water provision in the Global South. In this article we develop insights from these fields with the aim to understand the blurring boundaries of urban water regimes and their power relations mediated by actors, institutions and technology. Furthermore, we explore how urban water regimes can form a critical interface which is a form of institutional–actor space where formal and informal water regimes encounter each other through conflict and cooperation.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052726)
(7.67 MB) (7.67 MB)
Transboundary water decision-making takes place in a power-loaded environment. Apart from conflicts or cooperation-based outcomes, partial or complete status quo is also possible outcome in transboundary water interactions. Literature in the last two decades has primarily focused on conflicts and/or cooperation only, with a limited understanding of the status quo and its various forms. Drawing from the work of Bacharach and Baratz and other power scholars from sociology, international relations, and public policy, this article presents tactics for non-decision making and non-action, leading to a status quo. Specifically, we address the question: how can non-decision making and non-action shape the status quo in transboundary waters? Conceptually, based on various strands of literature, we develop a typology of status quo comprised of (1) renunciation; (2) abstention; (3) non-participation; and (4) non-action and showing that the status quo is a significant intermediary (at times temporally extended) outcome in transboundary water interaction. Like conflicts and cooperation, we posit that the status quo is often purposefully maintained due to the political, social, cultural, economic, and biophysical aspects of the river basins. We illustrate this by the example of three transboundary river basins: Brahmaputra, Maritsa, and Euphrates-Tigris. Our empirical analysis also identified an additional type of status quo, ‘non-significant deliberation’ in a multi-track diplomacy setting. This tactic refers to not purposefully allowing informal negotiations to transform or influence the highest level of political deliberation (i.e., track-1 diplomacy).
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052887)
(9.19 MB)
This paper contributes to the critical hydropolitics literature by introducing the power–interests–identity nexus framework and addresses how it shapes decisions and (re)actions to transform or maintain water conflicts. The framework is investigated using the Helmand/Hirmand river basin, shared by Afghanistan and Iran. It elucidates which factors led to the transformation of Iran–Afghanistan water conflicts and the signing of the 1973 Treaty, as well as the influential factors that have contributed to its maintenance in the 2020s. The results demonstrate using the framework provides comprehensive insight by identifying the influential latent factors of transboundary water arrangements.
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