Dik Roth

Re-politicising water governance: exploring water re-allocations in terms of justice

Contemporary socio-economic transformations in South Asia are creating increasingly serious water problems (scarcity, flooding, pollution) and conflicts. Conflicts over water distribution, water-derived benefits, and risks often play out along axes of social differentiation like caste, wealth, and gender. Those with least power, rights, and voice suffer lack of access, exclusion, dispossession, and further marginalisation, resulting in livelihood insecurity or increased vulnerability to risks. In this paper we propose analysing these problems as problems of justice – problems of distribution, recognition, and political participation. Drawing on wider environmental justice approaches, a specific water justice focus needs to include both the specific characteristics of water as a resource and the access, rights, and equity dimensions of its control. We argue that recognising water problems as problems of justice requires a re-politicisation of water, as mainstream approaches to water resources, water governance, and legislation tend to normalise or naturalise their – basically political – distributional assumptions and implications. An interdisciplinary approach that sees water as simultaneously natural (material) and social is important here. We illustrate these conceptual and theoretical suggestions with evidence from India.

Stakeholder initiatives in flood risk management: exploring the role and impact of bottom-up initiatives in three ‘Room for the River’ projects in the Netherlands

In recent years stakeholder participation has become a popular topic in flood management. Little is known about how and under which circumstances local stakeholders initiate and develop successful flood management strategies and how governmental actors respond to them. Drawing on theories of social movements, stakeholder participation, and citizenship, this paper analyses how local stakeholder initiatives in the Dutch ‘Room for the River’ programme evolve and, in turn, influence such governmental plans and actions. The description and comparative analysis of the three cases leads to three conclusions: first, in all cases, forms of local self-organization play a role, but its impacts are highly dependent on the mix of strategies chosen. Second, forms of coproduction between local stakeholders and government actors are the most viable strategy to realize the positive impact of local initiatives. Third, government agencies tend to react to local initiatives defensively. Much depends on timing and connecting to the right people.

Property, legal pluralism, and water rights: the critical analysis of water governance and the politics of recognizing “local” rights

In this paper we assess the impact of Franz von Benda-Beckmanns work in the field of water rights. We argue that his contributions to understanding water, a field dominated by engineers and economists, cannot be overestimated. Over the years, Franzs nuanced and empathic anthropological attitude, his suspicion of universals, and his critical stance towards mainstream development thinking have developed into a rich conceptual repertoire for understanding how norms, rules, and laws co-shape water flows to produce highly uneven waterscapes. His ideas have been particularly influential in re-thinking water as property, opening up for investigation the relation between “the legal” and human behaviour through a layered conceptualization of property. There is now increasing recognition of the idea that water use situations are often governed by a plurality of rules, norms, and laws that come from different sources. The impact of such insights on engineering-dominated water studies is growing. Indeed, law and notions of legal pluralism are increasingly mobilized for the purpose of better regulation of water. The instrumental use of legal pluralism may, however, result in a watering down of descriptive-analytical concepts. These concepts may thus lose their analytical power and become linked to the very forms of identity-based politics, neoliberal ideologies, and modernist-legalist interventions that critical legal pluralism studies intend to challenge.

Informal privatisation of community taps: issues of access and equity

On the basis of a detailed case study this paper questions the equity of centralised piped drinking water supply systems installed by the government of Nepal in rural areas. The study shows how processes of socio-technical interaction and change alter the physical water supply infrastructure of the installed public water supply system, simultaneously altering patterns of access to taps and water. The analysis suggests that this happens through a process of “informal privatisation”, with community taps becoming appropriated by individuals over time, cutting off some families from their access to community tap water while reinforcing the water security of others. This process is deeply shaped by prevailing relations of power and cultural difference along axes of gender, caste and wealth.

Water rights, conflicts, and justice in South Asia

Water rights, conflicts, and justice in South Asia Dik Roth, Margreet Zwarteveen, K.J. Joy & Seema Kulkarni a Sociology of Development and Change Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands b Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands c Society for Promotion Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune, India Published online: 13 Oct 2014.

The Subak in Diaspora: Balinese Farmers and the Subak in South Sulawesi

The subak has a long history as an irrigators’ institution on Bali. It has also spread across Indonesia along with Balinese farmers who were resettled by colonial and post-colonial governments or who have migrated spontaneously since colonial times. While subaks have been much researched in Bali itself, little is known about subaks outside Bali. Luwu District in South Sulawesi is one of the areas where thousands of Balinese families settled in the last four decades. Based on research in this transmigration area, this paper analyzes the emergence and development of the subak in relation to the development of irrigation infrastructure of a state-built irrigation system. A comparison between two Balinese settlements in the same system shows that differences in infrastructural and managerial conditions and arrangements between parts of the irrigation system were major determinants of the institutional space allowed for the subak and ways in which the subaks developed.

Flows of change: dynamic water rights and water access in peri-urban Kathmandu

Urbanization and the changing climate are increasingly influencing people’s access to land and water. Changes in use of, and rights and access to, land and water are most acutely experienced in peri-urban areas. We analyze these changes in peri-urban Kathmandu, Nepal. Increasing pressures on land and growing water needs of an expanding population in Kathmandu Valley are creating new patterns of water use, water-related conflicts, and (in)securities. We use two case studies that are characteristic of these changes, with a focus on the microlevel redefinitions of, and struggles about, rights, access, and notions of legitimate water use, and what these mean for water security and water conflict in a socially and institutionally complex and dynamic environment. Our findings show that these water-related changes cause contestations and conflicts between peri-urban water users. Amid increasing competition for water, people are using new sources and technologies, searching for negotiated solutions based on local norms and rights, and co-opting other water users through cooperation to create access opportunities and avoid conflicts. Our cases show self-restraint in practices of claiming or accessing water, while avoidance of conflicts also derives from an awareness of unequal power relations between user groups, past experiences of violence used against protesters, and lack of active intervention to regulate increasing exploitation of peri-urban land and water resources.

Climates of urbanization: local experiences of water security, conflict and cooperation in peri-urban South-Asia

ABSTRACT This article explores changing water (in)securities in a context of urbanization and climate change in the peri-urban spaces of four South-Asian cities: Khulna (Bangladesh), Gurugram and Hyderabad (India), and Kathmandu (Nepal). As awareness of water challenges like intensifying use, deteriorating quality and climate change is growing, water security gets more scientific and policy attention. However, in peri-urban areas, the dynamic zones between the urban and the rural, it remains under-researched, despite the specific characteristics of these spaces: intensifying flows of goods, resources, people, and technologies; diversifying uses of, and growing pressures on land and water; and complex and often contradictory governance and jurisdictional institutions. This article analyses local experiences of water (in-)security, conflict and cooperation in relation to existing policies. It uses insights from the analysis of the case studies as a point of departure for a critical reflection on whether a ‘community resilience’ discourse contributes to better understanding these cases of water insecurity and conflict, and to better policy solutions. The authors argue that a community resilience focus risks neglecting important insights about how peri-urban water insecurity problems are experienced by peri-urban populations and produced or reproduced in specific socio-economic, political and policy contexts. Unless supported by in-depth hydro-social research, such a focus may depoliticize basically political questions of water (re) allocation, prioritization, and access for marginalized groups. Therefore, the authors plead for more critical awareness among researchers and policy-makers of the consequences of using a ‘community resilience’ discourse for making sense of peri-urban water (in-)security. Key policy insights There is an urgent need for more (critical) policy and scientific attention to peri-urban water insecurity, conflict, and climate change. Although a changing climate will likely play a role, more attention is needed to how water insecurities and vulnerabilities in South Asia are socially produced. Researchers and policy-makers should avoid using depoliticized (community) resilience approaches for basically socio-political problems.

Conflict, negotiations and natural resource management: a legal pluralism perspective from India, edited by Maarten Bavinck and Amalendu Jyotishi: Abingdon, Routledge, 2015, x + 200 pp., £95.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-83480-3, ISBN 978-0-203-50602-8 (ebook)

This edited volume is a timely and important contribution to the study of the role of legal pluralism in natural resources management and governance in India, and debates about legal pluralism and ...

Adapting to climate change: The introduction of water retention in Dutch and Hungarian water management

This paper analyses a transition in the Dutch and Hungarian water management. For centuries water management was dominated by actors aiming primarily at flood protection and river regulation, serving mostly the interests of large-scale agriculture. About fifteen years ago the opposition started to grow. Water retention and floodplain rehabilitation was introduced into water management to replace or complement the prevailing flood levee dominated engineering approached. In this paper we try to explain what happened in Hungary and the Netherlands in the period leading up to the breakthrough and in the following years when actors had to deliver on the new direction taken in water management. The paper looks specifically at the role of individuals and the strategies that they –consciously or unconsciously- used in bringing about policy change. Five strategies are explored: to develop new ideas, to build coalitions & sell ideas, to create and use windows of opportunity, to play multiple venues and to orchestrate and manage networks. We discuss the importance of each strategy and what individuals are behind it. Our analysis emphasises the importance of recognition of a new management concept at an abstract level by the responsible civil servants and avocation of the concept by a credible regional coalition. The recognition of a new approach, political attention following a number of major (near) floods and a new government coalition after national elections, provided a clear window of opportunity for changing water management and including climate change considerations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the difficulties faced when trying to mainstream adaptation and implement a new water management plan that runs counter to a nation’s long-established traditions. Ambiguity about the practical implementation of new concepts and the responsibility of different actors facilitated reaching consensus on a new water management plan but seriously hampers implementation in recent years