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Author: Sarah T Romano
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816538077
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
The most acute water crises occur in everyday contexts in impoverished rural and urban areas across the Global South. While they rarely make headlines, these crises, characterized by inequitable access to sufficient and clean water, affect over one billion people globally. What is less known, though, is that millions of these same global citizens are at the forefront of responding to the challenges of water privatization, climate change, deforestation, mega-hydraulic projects, and other threats to accessing water as a critical resource. In Transforming Rural Water Governance Sarah T. Romano explains the bottom-up development and political impact of community-based water and sanitation committees (CAPS) in Nicaragua. Romano traces the evolution of CAPS from rural resource management associations into a national political force through grassroots organizing and strategic alliances. Resource management and service provision is inherently political: charging residents fees for service, determining rules for household water shutoffs and reconnections, and negotiating access to water sources with local property owners constitute just a few of the highly political endeavors resource management associations like CAPS undertake as part of their day-to-day work in their communities. Yet, for decades in Nicaragua, this local work did not reflect political activism. In the mid-2000s CAPS’ collective push for social change propelled them onto a national stage and into new roles as they demanded recognition from the government. Romano argues that the transformation of Nicaragua’s CAPS into political actors is a promising example of the pursuit of sustainable and equitable water governance, particularly in Latin America. Transforming Rural Water Governance demonstrates that when activism informs public policy processes, the outcome is more inclusive governance and the potential for greater social and environmental justice.
Author: Sarah T Romano
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816538077
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Get Book Here
Book Description
The most acute water crises occur in everyday contexts in impoverished rural and urban areas across the Global South. While they rarely make headlines, these crises, characterized by inequitable access to sufficient and clean water, affect over one billion people globally. What is less known, though, is that millions of these same global citizens are at the forefront of responding to the challenges of water privatization, climate change, deforestation, mega-hydraulic projects, and other threats to accessing water as a critical resource. In Transforming Rural Water Governance Sarah T. Romano explains the bottom-up development and political impact of community-based water and sanitation committees (CAPS) in Nicaragua. Romano traces the evolution of CAPS from rural resource management associations into a national political force through grassroots organizing and strategic alliances. Resource management and service provision is inherently political: charging residents fees for service, determining rules for household water shutoffs and reconnections, and negotiating access to water sources with local property owners constitute just a few of the highly political endeavors resource management associations like CAPS undertake as part of their day-to-day work in their communities. Yet, for decades in Nicaragua, this local work did not reflect political activism. In the mid-2000s CAPS’ collective push for social change propelled them onto a national stage and into new roles as they demanded recognition from the government. Romano argues that the transformation of Nicaragua’s CAPS into political actors is a promising example of the pursuit of sustainable and equitable water governance, particularly in Latin America. Transforming Rural Water Governance demonstrates that when activism informs public policy processes, the outcome is more inclusive governance and the potential for greater social and environmental justice.
Author: Karen Bakker
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801467004
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Water supply privatization was emblematic of the neoliberal turn in development policy in the 1990s. Proponents argued that the private sector could provide better services at lower costs than governments; opponents questioned the risks involved in delegating control over a life-sustaining resource to for-profit companies. Private-sector activity was most concentrated—and contested—in large cities in developing countries, where the widespread lack of access to networked water supplies was characterized as a global crisis. In Privatizing Water, Karen Bakker focuses on three questions: Why did privatization emerge as a preferred alternative for managing urban water supply? Can privatization fulfill its proponents' expectations, particularly with respect to water supply to the urban poor? And, given the apparent shortcomings of both privatization and conventional approaches to government provision, what are the alternatives? In answering these questions, Bakker engages with broader debates over the role of the private sector in development, the role of urban communities in the provision of "public" services, and the governance of public goods. She introduces the concept of "governance failure" as a means of exploring the limitations facing both private companies and governments. Critically examining a range of issues—including the transnational struggle over the human right to water, the "commons" as a water-supply-management strategy, and the environmental dimensions of water privatization—Privatizing Water is a balanced exploration of a critical issue that affects billions of people around the world.
Author: Ed Barbier
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300240570
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
A radical new approach to tackling the growing threat of water scarcity Water is essential to life, yet humankind’s relationship with water is complex. For millennia, we have perceived it as abundant and easily accessible. But water shortages are fast becoming a persistent reality for all nations, rich and poor. With demand outstripping supply, a global water crisis is imminent. In this trenchant critique of current water policies and practices, Edward Barbier argues that our water crisis is as much a failure of water management as it is a result of scarcity. Outdated governance structures and institutions, combined with continual underpricing, have perpetuated the overuse and undervaluation of water and disincentivized much-needed technological innovation. As a result “water grabbing” is on the rise, and cooperation to resolve these disputes is increasingly fraught. Barbier draws on evidence from countries across the globe to show the scale of the problem, and outlines the policy and management solutions needed to avert this crisis.
Author: Leila M. Harris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113512504X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
The litany of alarming observations about water use and misuse is now familiar—over a billion people without access to safe drinking water; almost every major river dammed and diverted; increasing conflicts over the delivery of water in urban areas; continuing threats to water quality from agricultural inputs and industrial wastes; and the increasing variability of climate, including threats of severe droughts and flooding across locales and regions. These issues present tremendous challenges for water governance. This book focuses on three major concepts and approaches that have gained currency in policy and governance circles, both globally and regionally—scarcity and crisis, marketization and privatization, and participation. It provides a historical and contextual overview of each of these ideas as they have emerged in global and regional policy and governance circles and pairs these with in-depth case studies that examine manifestations and contestations of water governance internationally. The book interrogates ideas of water crisis and scarcity in the context of bio-physical, political, social and environmental landscapes to better understand how ideas and practices linked to scarcity and crisis take hold, and become entrenched in policy and practice. The book also investigates ideas of marketization and privatization, increasingly prominent features of water governance throughout the global South, with particular attention to the varied implementation and effects of these governance practices. The final section of the volume analyzes participatory water governance, querying the disconnects between global discourses and local realities, particularly as they intersect with the other themes of interest to the volume. Promoting a view of changing water governance that links across these themes and in relation to contemporary realities, the book is invaluable for students, researchers, advocates, and policy makers interested in water governance challenges facing the developing world.
Author: Peter Leigh Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351578499
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Water Crises and Governance critically examines the relationship between water crises and governance in the face of challenges to provide water for growing human demand and environmental needs. Water crises threaten the assumptions and accepted management practices of water users, managers and policymakers. In developed and developing world contexts from North America and Australasia, to Latin America, Africa and China, existing institutions and governance arrangements have unintentionally provoked water crises while shaping diverse, often innovative responses to management dilemmas. This volume brings together original field-based studies by social scientists investigating water crises and their implications for governance. Contributors to this collection find that water crises degrade environments, place untenable burdens on stakeholders, and produce or exacerbate social conflict, undermining ecological and social conditions that sustain effective collaboration. At the same time, water crises can promote institutional change that "resets" governance, promoting unusual and creative responses appropriate for local contexts. The studies in this volume provide evidence that, while water crises pose serious threats to environments and societies, they also provide opportunities to learn from experience and recraft water governance with coherent visions of more ecologically and socially sustainable futures. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Society & Natural Resources.
Author: David Groenfeldt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136241086
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
This book introduces the idea that ethics are an intrinsic dimension of any water policy, program, or practice, and that understanding what ethics are being acted out in water policies is fundamental to an understanding of water resource management. Thus in controversies or conflicts over water resource allocation and use, an examination of ethics can help clarify the positions of conflicting parties as preparation for constructive negotiations. The author shows the benefits of exposing tacit values and motivations and subjecting these to explicit public scrutiny where the values themselves can be debated. The aim of such a process is to create the proverbial 'level playing field', where values favoring environmental sustainability are considered in relation to values favoring short-term exploitation for quick economic stimulus (the current problem) or quick protection from water disasters (through infrastructure which science suggests is not sustainable). The book shows how new technologies, such as drip irrigation, or governance structures, such as river basin organizations are neither "good" nor "bad" in their own right, but can serve a range of interests which are guided by ethics. A new ethic of coexistence and synergies with nature is possible, but ultimately depends not on science, law, or finances but on the values we choose to adopt. The book includes a wide range of case studies from countries including Australia, India, Philippines, South Africa and USA. These cover various contexts including water for agriculture, urban, domestic and industrial use, the rights of indigenous people and river, watershed and ecosystem management.
Author: Amarjit Singh
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811327009
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375
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Book Description
The book is the first of its kind to deal with almost the entire swath of water resources assessment, development and sustainable management. The idea of the book crystallized during the long journey of the Editors on various facets of water issues in India and abroad during their extended association, at all levels with the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, as well as International Organizations dealing with water. Currently water-stressed, India is likely to become water scarce in not too distant a future. The global freshwater supply and its sustainable use for human consumption, and conservation of the ecosystem have never come under such a rigorous scrutiny before. The unplanned and reckless exploitation of this precious resource have led to a crisis situation, compounded by a real threat of climate change. This book is, therefore, timely and of particular relevance not only to India but the entire world. The book contains 20 chapters, beside the lead article by the Editors. The chapters are contributed by the eminent professionals, researchers, academicians and civil society representatives having an in-depth understanding of the issues. The contents of the chapters have been chosen to represent all aspects of water. The assessment of water resources using satellite data and in-depth analyses of groundwater sector like, the Aquifer Mapping Programme initiated by Government of India, application of gravity satellite data to assess the resource build up, artificial recharge of aquifers and its contamination, are dealt with by eminent experts. The articles on sustainable management of water through good governance by community participation and involvement of civil society are placed. Flood management both through a basin level approach as well as by building resilience in vulnerable areas is discussed. Other critical issues like water bodies management, constitutional provisions, water governance and financial issues, hydro-power and need of research and development in this sector are also dealt with aptly. In view of emerging crisis and complexities in this sector the future pathways and the paradigm shift that is required in administrative and policy level is also discussed.
Author: Dr Peter Scholten
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409484807
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 607
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Book Description
Water is becoming one of the world's most crucial concerns. A third of the world's population has severe water shortage, while three quarters of the global population lives in deltas which run the risk of severe flooding. In addition, many more face problems of poor water quality. While it is apparent that drastic action should be taken, in reality, water problems are complex and not at all easy to resolve. There are many stakeholders involved - industries, local municipalities, farmers, the recreational sector, environmental organisations, and others - who all approach the problems and possible solutions differently. This requires delicate ways of governing multi-actor processes. This book approaches the concept of 'water management' from an interdisciplinary and non-technical, but governance orientation. It departs from the fragmented nature of water management, showing how these lack cooperation, joint responsibility and integration and instead argues that the capacity to connect to other domains, levels, scales, organizations and actors is of utmost importance. Connective capacity revolves around connecting arrangements (such as institutions), actors (for instance individuals) and approaches (such as instruments). These three carriers of connectedness can be applied to different focal points (the objects of fragmentation and integration in water management). The book distinguishes five different focal points: (1) government layers and levels; (2) sectors and domains; (3) time orientation of the long and the short term; (4) perceptions and actor frames; (5) public and private spheres. Each contributor pays attention to a specific combination of one focal point and one connective carrier. Bringing together case studies from countries including The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Romania, Sweden, Finland, Italy, India, Canada and the United States, the book focuses on the question of how to deal with the various sources of fragmentation in water governance by organizing meaningful connections and developing 'connective capacity'. In doing so, it provides useful scientific and practical insights into how 'connective capacity' in water governance can be enhanced.
Author: Colin Chartres
Publisher: FT Press
ISBN: 0132181045
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
From cities to biofuels, competition for water is accelerating. Climate change threatens to intensify the onset and severity of the water crisis in several regions of the developing world: this is already happening throughout much of Asia, the Mediterranean, southwestern Australia, and the southwestern US. Along with water shortages, unsafe water becomes an increasingly widespread problem, too. As water crises trigger food and health crises, billions may slip further into poverty, leading to greater social and political unrest, new wars, and worsening national security. Out of Water doesn't just illuminate the coming global water crisis: it presents innovative solutions in agriculture, engineering, governance, and beyond, including state-of-the art techniques for integrated water management. This book will help raise the level of debate about water to the highest levels of government, and identify workable reforms and incentives to help water users utilize this crucial resource far more efficiently.
Author: Nicole J. Wilson
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3039215604
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.
