scholarly journals Water Works in India

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roopali Phadke
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Peak Oil ◽  
International Media ◽  
Watershed Development ◽  
The Real ◽  
Water Flows ◽  
Water Problems ◽  
Global Water

India's water problems have long been portrayed by the international media as crises of poverty, desperation and corruption.  Drawing an analogy to the "peak oil" discourse, "peak water" adherents express an impending dystopia through images of overpumped aquifers in the world's breadbasket regions, excessive irrigation that is rapidly depleting rivers and deltas, neglected pollutants that are poisoning return water flows. This focus on global water scarcities overshadows the real gains in water governance that have been achieved at local and regional scales. This is particularly true in India, where over the last three decades watershed development has significantly matured as a concept, method and technology for improving livelihoods. This article describes a set of empirical cases from the region of Maharashtra that define and demonstrate how watershed development is working to meet vital ecological and socio-economic goals.  The focus is on how one particular social movement is tackling the most vexing issues faced by watershed planners: equity and landlessness.Key words: participatory watershed development, Maharashtra, social justice, ecologies of hope, India.

scholarly journals HESS Opinions "Urgent water challenges are not sufficiently researched"

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 905-912 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. van der Zaag ◽  
J. Gupta ◽  
L. P. Darvis
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Global Demand ◽  
The One ◽  
Water Problems ◽  
Alternative Solutions

Abstract. In this opinion paper we submit that water experts conduct comparatively little research on the more urgent challenges facing the global community. Five specific biases are identified. First, research in the field of water and sanitation is heavily biased against sanitation. Second, research on food security is biased in favour of conventional irrigation and fails to address the problems and opportunities of rainfed agriculture. Third, insufficient water research is dedicated to developmental compared to environmental issues. Fourth, too little research is conducted on adaptation to climate change by developing countries. And finally, research on water governance has a fascination for conflict but too little eye for cooperation and meeting basic needs. This paper illustrates these biases with bibliometric indicators extracted from the ISI Web of Science. There is a stark mismatch between the global demand for knowledge and the supply of it. This mismatch is identified here as a problem that we water scientists must confront and resolve. We still lack a full understanding why this divergence between demand and supply occurs and persists; an understanding that is required to guide us towards aligning our research priorities to societal demands. The paper, however, makes some inferences. On the one hand, we should promote the global South to create its own research biases and allow it to develop alternative solutions. Simultaneously we would benefit from critical examination of our own research practice. Although this paper addresses a critical challenge it does not aim to be exhaustive or definitive. We merely identify the persistence of intransigent water problems as a valid research object in itself.

scholarly journals Water saving through international trade of agricultural products

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. K. Chapagain ◽  
A. Y. Hoekstra ◽  
H. H. G. Savenije
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Virtual Water ◽  
Water Saving ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Green Water ◽  
Blue Water ◽  
Water Flows ◽  
Global Water ◽  
National Water

Abstract. Many nations save domestic water resources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. National water saving through the import of a product can imply saving water at a global level if the flow is from sites with high to sites with low water productivity. The paper analyses the consequences of international virtual water flows on the global and national water budgets. The assessment shows that the total amount of water that would have been required in the importing countries if all imported agricultural products would have been produced domestically is 1605 Gm3/yr. These products are however being produced with only 1253 Gm3/yr in the exporting countries, saving global water resources by 352 Gm3/yr. This saving is 28 per cent of the international virtual water flows related to the trade of agricultural products and 6 per cent of the global water use in agriculture. National policy makers are however not interested in global water savings but in the status of national water resources. Egypt imports wheat and in doing so saves 3.6 Gm3/yr of its national water resources. Water use for producing export commodities can be beneficial, as for instance in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Brazil, where the use of green water resources (mainly through rain-fed agriculture) for the production of stimulant crops for export has a positive economic impact on the national economy. However, export of 28 Gm3/yr of national water from Thailand related to rice export is at the cost of additional pressure on its blue water resources. Importing a product which has a relatively high ratio of green to blue virtual water content saves global blue water resources that generally have a higher opportunity cost than green water.

scholarly journals Public Participation of the River Chief System in China: Current Trends, Problems, and Perspectives

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3496
Author(s):  
Chenhui Wu ◽  
Maosen Ju ◽  
Longfei Wang ◽  
Xiangyi Gu ◽  
Cuiling Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Public Participation ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Effective Measure ◽  
Term Operation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Water Problems

The River Chief System (RCS) is an effective measure for China to solve complex water problems and maintain the health of rivers and lakes. It is an institutional innovation to improve the water governance system and ensure national water security. Guiding and encouraging the public to participate in the construction of the RCS can promote the improvement of the level of social governance. The RCS is an effective supplement and supervision to the performance of the river chief and related departments, which can effectively promote the transformation of the RCS from nominal to practical and efficient. This study summarizes the innovative models and practical effects of, and public participation in, the RCS, analyzes the prominent problems, and proposes some measures to maximize the influence of public participation. The study provides insights on how to ensure the long-term operation of the RCS, a reference for countries around the world as a suitable solution for the sustainable management of water environments.

‘Like an ox yoke’: Challenging the intrinsic virtuousness of a grassroots social movement

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna L. Chollett
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Control ◽  
Sugar Mill ◽  
Neoliberal Globalization ◽  
Models Of Democracy

Since the 1980s, neoliberal globalization fostered an upsurge of grassroots social movements in Latin America that sought alternatives to increasing poverty and social exclusion. Social movement scholars often interpret these movements as morally noble models of democracy given their claims to social justice and equity. My research examines the forced seizure of a closed Mexican sugar mill and establishment of a cooperative, worker-run factory by a grassroots movement whose cultural politics aimed at creating more democratic processes. Yet in 2009, after 11 years of success, movement leaders declared the mill bankrupt and shut it down. The façade of unity presented by activists obscured internal divisions and hierarchical control that beleaguered the movement. I argue that a more nuanced and critical analysis that takes into consideration the contradictions and paradoxes that may be present in grassroots struggles reframes essentialist conceptions regarding the intrinsic virtuousness of grassroots social movements.

scholarly journals Pipes and praxis: a methodological contribution to the urban political ecology of water

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucero Radonic ◽  
Sarah Kelly-Richards
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Water And Sanitation

This article contributes to the urban political ecology of water through applied anthropological research methods and praxis. Drawing on two case studies in urban Sonora, Mexico, we contribute to critical studies of infrastructure by focusing on large infrastructural systems and decentralized alternatives to water and sanitation provisioning. We reflect on engaging with residents living on the marginal hillsides of two rapidly urbanizing desert cities using ethnographic methods. In the capital city of Hermosillo, Radonic emphasizes how collaborative reflection with barrio residents led her to reframe her analytical approach to water governance by recognizing informal water infrastructure as a statement of human resilience in the face of social inequality, resource scarcity, and material disrepair. In the border city of Nogales, Kelly-Richards reflects on the outcomes of conducting community-based participatory research with technical students and residents of an informally settled colonia around the construction of a composting toilet, while also investigating municipal government service provision efforts. Our article invites readers to view these infrastructure alternatives as ways to explore how applied anthropology can advance the emancipatory potential of urban political ecology through a collaborative investigation of uneven urbanization and basic service provisioning. We emphasize everyday situated relationships with infrastructure in informally organized neighborhoods. Using praxis to collectively investigate the complex and entangled relations between large piped water and sanitation projects and locally developed alternatives in under serviced areas, the two case studies reveal lessons learned and illuminate grounded research openings for social justice and environmental sustainability.Key words: Applied anthropology, infrastructure, political ecology, praxis, water governance, social justice

scholarly journals Averting the Global Water Crisis: Three Considerations for a New Decade of Water Governance

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Cora Kammeyer ◽  
Ross Hamilton ◽  
Jason Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Global Water

The application of critical realism as a basis for agency in environmental education: The case of Roy Bhaskar

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-238
Author(s):  
Mehri Mirzaei Rafe ◽  
Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast ◽  
Afzal Sadat Hosseini ◽  
Narges Sajadieh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Real ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
Human Habitation

AbstractThis article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent basis for environmental education. The work of Bhaskar serves as an in-depth approach to understanding how to apply critical realism (the critical and the realist) to matters such as environmental education, because he concretely theorises the connections between science, social change and metaphysics. By mobilising key Bhaskarian motifs — that is, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the laminated system as a means to understand reality, the ways in which inquiry may be organised through the real, actual and the empirical, and the positive application of dialectics — this article constructs a new approach to environmental education and positions it in the field of environmental education by comparing it to posthumanism and the new materialisms. This article contains inquiry-based study outlines for enhanced thinking around: (1) climate change and social justice; (2) movements towards a carbon-free economy; (3) water, food and population; and (4) the future of human habitation.

scholarly journals UN–Water and its Role in Global Water Governance

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Baumgartner ◽  
Claudia Pahl-Wostl
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Global Water
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