| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Baez Ullberg, Susann, 1968-
(författare)
-
Making the Megaproject : Water Infrastructure and Hydrocracy at the Public-Private Interface in Peru
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 12:3, s. 503-520
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To meet an increasing industrial and urban demand for water in a context of water scarcity in Peru, the state has invested heavily in hydraulic megaprojects to ensure water supply to citizens and corporations. The Majes Siguas Special Project (PEMS) in the Arequipa Region is an example of such a water infrastructure project. While the first stage of PEMS, built in the 1980s, was financed and run by the Peruvian government, the second stage that is currently underway is being co-financed and built by a private transnational consortium that will run the infrastructure for 20 years. This can be understood as a process of temporary commodification of the water infrastructure and places the hydraulic megaproject at the heart of tensions between seeing water infrastructure as public utility and seeing it as private provision. This article asks how this tension between public and private is played out in practice within the hydraulic bureaucracy and examines ethnographically how the Majes Siguas Special Project is made over time by way of the everyday practices of experts. The study finds that these experts anticipate the potential political effects of temporary commodification of water infrastructures to be both a risk and a distinct possibility. The article argues that building, maintaining and managing hydraulic megaprojects are far from straightforward processes, but should instead be understood as open-ended experimental reconfigurations that the hydrocracy deals with through contingent practices of knowledge.
|
|
| 3. |
- Barron, Jennie, et al.
(författare)
-
Valuing soft components in agricultural water management interventions in meso-scale watersheds : a review and synthesis
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 4:2, s. 145-155
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Meso-scale watershed management (1-10,000 km2) is receiving growing attention as the spatial scale where policy in integrated water resource management (IWRM) goes into operational mode. This is also where aggregated field-level agricultural water management (AWM) interventions may result in externalities. But there is little synthesised 'lessons learned' on the costs and benefits of interventions at this scale. Here we synthesise selected cases and meta-analyses on the investment cost in 'soft components' accompanying AWM interventions. The focus is on meso-scale watersheds in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. We found very few cases with benefit-to-cost evaluation at full project level, or separate costing of hard and soft components. The synthesis suggests higher development success rates in communities with an initial level of social capital, where projects were implemented with cost- and knowledge-sharing between involved stakeholders, and where one or more 'agents of change' were present to facilitate leadership and communications. There is a need to monitor and evaluate both the external and the internal gains and losses in a more systematic manner to help development agents and other investors to ensure wiser and more effective investments in AWM interventions and watershed management.
|
|
| 4. |
- Barron, Jennie
(författare)
-
Viewpoint - Sustainable and Equitable Growth in Farmer-led Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Will it Take?
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 12, s. 156-168
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rapid development of farmer-led irrigation is increasing agricultural productivity, incomes, employment and nutrition, but it might well not achieve its full potential. Small-scale irrigators tend to be younger, male and better-off. Women and resource-poor farmers - the majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa - are disadvantaged and often excluded from the numerous benefits to be gained from irrigation. Equity in access to water management technologies and practices is constrained by numerous factors, including high investment costs, absence of financial services, poor market integration, inadequate information services, and labour constraints. Lack of institutions for collective management of natural resources, such as water, further restricts access for resource-poor farmers, increasing inequity. In the absence of sustainable natural resources management approaches to agricultural intensification, this situation may become more acute as natural resources become increasingly valuable, and therefore contested. Realising the full potential of farmer-led irrigation requires contextualised policies, institutions and practices to improve equity, markets and sustainability and help ensure that sector growth is inclusive and beneficial.
|
|
| 5. |
- Blomkvist, Pär, et al.
(författare)
-
On the Need for System Alignment in Large Water Infrastructure : Understanding Infrastructure Dynamics in Nairobi, Kenya
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - : Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 10:2, s. 283-302
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article we contribute to the discussion of infrastructural change in Africa, and explore how a new theoretical perspective may offer a different, more comprehensive and historically informed understanding of the trend towards large water infrastructure in Africa. We examine the socio-technical dynamics of large water infrastructures in Nairobi, Kenya, in a longer historical perspective using two concepts that we call intra-systemic alignment and inter-level alignment. Our theoretical perspective is inspired by Large Technical Systems (LTS) and Multi-Level Perspective (MLP). While inter-level alignment focuses on the process of aligning the technological system at the three levels of niche, regime and landscape, intra-systemic alignment deals with how components within the regime are harmonised and standardised to fit with each other. We pay special attention to intrasystemic alignment between the supply side and the demand side, or as we put it, upstream and downstream components of a system. In narrating the history of water supply in Nairobi, we look at both the upstream (largescale supply) and downstream activities (distribution and payment), and compare the Nairobi case with European history of large infrastructures. We emphasise that regime actors in Nairobi have dealt with the issues of alignment mainly to facilitate and expand upstream activities, while concerning downstream activities they have remained incapable of expanding service and thus integrating the large segment of low-income consumers. We conclude that the present surge of large-scale water investment in Nairobi is the result of sector reforms that enabled the return to a long tradition – a 'Nairobi style' – of upstream investment mainly benefitting the highincome earners. Our proposition is that much more attention needs to be directed at inter-level alignment at the downstream end of the system, to allow the creation of niches aligned to the regime.
|
|
| 6. |
- Bossio, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
-
Water implications of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia’s agricultural sector
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 5:2, s. 223-242
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ethiopia is often highlighted as a country in which a lot of foreign land acquisition is occurring. The extent to which these investments also constitute significant acquisitions of water is the subject of this paper. It is apparent that water availability is a strong driver of the recent surge of investments in agricultural land globally, and in general the investments occur in countries with significant 'untapped' water resources. Ethiopia is no exception. We propose that the perception of unused and abundant water resources, as captured in dominant narratives, that drives and justifies both foreign and domestic investments, fails to reflect the more complex reality on the ground. Based on new collections of lease information and crop modelling, we estimate the potential additional water use associated with foreign investments at various scales. As a consequence of data limitations our analyses provide only crude estimates of consumptive water use and indicate a wide range of possible water consumption depending on exactly how foreign direct investment (FDI) development scenarios unfold. However, they do suggest that if all planned FDI schemes are implemented and expanded in the near future, additional water consumption is likely to be comparable with existing water use in non-FDI irrigation schemes, and a non-trivial proportion of the country’s water resources will be effectively utilised by foreign entities. Hence, additional water use as well as local water scarcity ought to be strong considerations in regulating or pricing land leases. If new investments are to increase local food and water security without compromising local and downstream water availability they should be designed to improve often very low agricultural water productivity, and to safeguard access of local populations to water.
|
|
| 7. |
- Brandshaug, Malene
(författare)
-
Water as More than Commons or Commodity: Understanding Water Management Practices in Yanque, Peru
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives-an Interdisciplinary Journal on Water Politics and Development. - 1965-0175. ; 12:2, s. 538-553
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global warming, shrinking glaciers and water scarcity pose challenges to the governance of fresh water in Peru. On the one hand, Peru's water management regime and its legal framework allow for increased private involvement in water management, commercialisation and, ultimately, commodification of water. On the other hand, the state and its 2009 Water Resource Law emphasise that water is public property and a common good for its citizens. This article explores how this seeming paradox in Peru's water politics unfolds in the district of Yanque in the southern Peruvian Andes. Further, it seeks to challenge a commons/commodity binary found in water management debates and to move beyond the underlying hegemonic view of water as a resource. Through analysing state-initiated practices and practices of a more-than-human commoning - that is, practices not grounded in a human/nature divide, where water and other non-humans participate as sentient persons - the article argues that in Yanque many versions of water emerge through the heterogeneous practices that are entangled in water management.
|
|
| 8. |
- Cleaver, Frances, et al.
(författare)
-
Knowing Groundwater : Embodied Encounters with a Lively Resource
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 16:1, s. 171-192
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is concerned with how water prospectors, well diggers, and irrigation farmers come to know groundwater. Drawing on cases from Tanzania and Zimbabwe, the paper shows that much knowledge is derived from the close encounters with groundwater that occur through hard physical work, mediated by the use of lowcost tools and technologies. In this paper we show how this knowledge is embedded in everyday livelihoods, landscapes, and moral ecological rationalities. Through empirical material of such close encounters with groundwater, we make two interrelated points. Firstly, we draw attention to the importance of embodied forms of knowledge in shaping engagements with groundwater. Frequent close physical interactions with groundwater generate rich and intimate understandings of the changing quality and quantity of water flows. These understandings become primary ways in which people in communities know water, which is lively and sometimes invisible. Secondly, we argue that, though apparently mundane, reliant on low-cost technology, and highly localised, these encounters significantly shape broader socio-natural relationships in emerging groundwater economies. Amongst other examples, our data show groundwater prospectors monitoring the depth of borehole drilling in a shared aquifer in an attempt to ensure equitable access for different users. In concluding the paper, we reflect on the extent to which the knowledge and relationships formed through close physical encounters with groundwater have the potential to shape trajectories of groundwater management.
|
|
| 9. |
- Cossio, Vladimir, et al.
(författare)
-
A paradigm confronting reality: The river basin approach and local water management spaces in the Pucara Basin, Bolivia
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - : WATER ALTERNATIVES ASSOC. - 1965-0175. ; 10:1, s. 181-194
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The current Bolivian water policy incorporates the IWRM paradigm adopting the river basin as the space for water management in the country. The linkage of water management with communal territories in the Andes challenges the application of the river basin approach, bringing water spaces into the discussion. Considering the example of the Pucara River Basin, the article uses space theory to identify characteristics of local spaces for water management and to contrast them with the river basin concept. The river basin concept is applied by water professionals, mostly taking the perceived dimension of this space into consideration and sometimes in abstract terms. In contrast, the lived dimension of space is more important in local water management spaces and it is not represented in abstract terms. Local water spaces are flexible and strongly related to local organisations, which allows them to respond appropriately to the needs and demands of peasant society in the area, characteristics that cannot be found in the river basin space.
|
|
| 10. |
- de Bont, Chris, 1990-, et al.
(författare)
-
Modernisation and African Farmer-Led Irrigation Development : Ideology, Policies and Practices
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Water Alternatives. - 1965-0175. ; 12:1, s. 107-128
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In both Mozambique and Tanzania, farmer-led development of irrigation is widespread, yet it is little recognised in irrigation policies and is under-supported by the government. This paper explores how this situation is exacerbated by modernisation ideas in irrigation policy and professional thinking. By means of a historical review, we trace modernisation thinking in irrigation development from the colonial period onwards, and analyse how this thinking continues to play out in contemporary irrigation policies in both countries. We then examine the relationship between modernisation thinking and practices of farmer-led irrigation development, drawing on policy documents, field studies, and interviews in both countries. Based on this analysis, we argue that the nature of farmer-led development of irrigation is consistent with many of the goals identified by state agricultural modernisation programmes, but not with the means by which government and state policies envisage their achievement. As a consequence, policies and state officials tend to screen out farmers’ irrigation initiatives as not relevant to development until they are brought within state-sanctioned processes of technical design and administration.
|
|
