Beneath the surface: complexities and groundwater policy-making

Groundwater depletion is a worldwide phenomenon that has prompted calls for improved policy and management. A prominent policy recommendation, especially among economists, is the establishment of well-defined transferable groundwater rights and the promotion of water transfers or markets. Modelled effects and actual results in limited sites show promising potential, but progress has been slow, even in areas of significant need and capacity such as the western United States. This article identifies some of the complexities associated with defining groundwater rights and with managing groundwater aquifers. Those complexities may account to some degree for the incremental and limited progress toward transferable rights. Recent groundwater policy developments in California and other western states are reviewed briefly in light of those complexities.

Groundwater Policy and Ground Water Dependencies: Reflecting on the Evolving Socio-Environmental Dynamics in Peri-Urban Kathmandu Valley

Groundwater is an increasingly important source of water supply in Kathmandu Valley, ‘the hub of Nepal’s urbanisation’. Past studies have revealed that groundwater extraction in Kathmandu Valley exceeds its recharge, thus having negative consequences like drying of traditional water sources, decreasing yield of wells, and declining groundwater levels. The groundwater policy 2012 was formulated with the aim of managing groundwater use in the valley. Yet, with rapid urban growth, groundwater exploitation has continued increasing in the city and the peri-urban areas in Kathmandu Valley. But little is known regarding how urbanisation shapes increasing groundwater exploitation in the peri-urban settings. This study unfolds the underexplored socio-environmental dynamics underlying groundwater exploitation in peri-urban areas of Kathmandu Valley. The findings from the case study using qualitative research methods, conducted in peri-urban locations of Kathmandu Valley show increasing competition for water and growing use of as well as dependence on groundwater in these rapidly evolving peri-urban spaces, despite growing protests and worries about its consequences. However, the existing groundwater policy lacks attention to peri-urban dynamics of change and growth and does little to address the increasing groundwater use in peri-urban locations in the valley. The polarised views and local conflicts around groundwater exploitation emerging in peri-urban spaces are the outcome of multiple entanglements: sectoral divides and overlapping responsibilities in water institutions, weak governance and management; socio-economic transformations in peri-urban spaces, the invisibility of groundwater and ambiguity in the hydrological dynamics of conjunctive water use. Based on my findings, I stress on the need for addressing the existing macro-micro gaps (ground)water management by improving the understanding of local hydro-geological complexities and paying critical attention to the socio-economic, political and institutional drivers of increasing groundwater use.