Disputed water: Competing knowledge and power asymmetries in the Yali Alto basin,Chile

Hydrological information – which plays a crucial role in resolving conflicts over water allocation and distribution – is commonly seen as apolitical. However, this type of information is seldom objective and free of biases. Instead, it is used to position arguments and interests in accordance with the prevailing political agendas. Information is structured by complex and conflicting networks of public and private stakeholder interests, further reconstituted in different periods of time and place. Based on a study of the upper Yali basin in the municipality of San Pedro de Melipilla, Chile, we show how knowledge about water is produced, circulated and applied in the context of water scarcity and emerging conflicts over access to groundwater. Building on the notion of the hydrosocial cycle, the qualitative study shows how the production of hydrological reports and its application in political decision-making have reinforced asymmetrical relationships between the stakeholders locked in water conflicts. The lack of capacity of local farmers and community organizations to translate experiences into codified hydrological knowledge further exacerbates these asymmetries. Agro-industrial companies operating in the basin use hydrological assessments to locate and shift the water scarcity problems to the users, whereas locals blame them for accumulating disproportionately large concentrations of water extraction rights. Results contribute to the existing literature on environmental knowledge, arguing that discourses on water scarcity are not objective but shaped by socio-political contingencies. Overemphasising on data and techno-science based information to support certain decisions may be misleading without first unveiling the knowledge production processes operating across power-laden landscapes.     

Natural mineral waters,curative-medical waters and their protection

In Europe different types of water are marketed, each strictly defined by EC Directive 80/777 (Natural Mineral Water, Spring and Table Water) or 80/778 (Drinking Water). In Germany, an additional type of water is common in the market: curative/medical water. Product quality and safety, registration as medicine, and pharmaceutical control are defined by the German Federal Medicine Act. A medical water is treated as any other medicine and may be sold only in pharmacies. The use of any water in Germany is controlled and strictly regulated by the Federal Water Act (Fricke 1981). The following requirements are set by the act: (1) No water use without a permit, which is limited in time and quantity. (2) No single or juristic person may own water. (3) Water resources of public interest and their recharge areas are to be protected by the definition of water protection zones. (Natural mineral water is not of public interest and therefore is not required to be protected by the definition of water protection zones, although it represents a market value of more than US$2 billion. Medical water is of public interest). The definition of water protection zones impacts private property rights and has to be handled carefully. In order to protect water resources, sometimes the economic basis of a traditional industrial and/or agricultural infrastructure is destroyed. The concerns and needs all citizens, including industry, must be considered in analyzing the adequacy of water protection zones.     

河西走廊疏勒河流域水资源管理问题分析

从水资源管理体制、配置程序、市场化管理等方面探讨了河西走廊疏勒河流域水资源管理及存在的问题。目前流域已建成较健全的用水者协会体系,水价和水权在不断调整以适应水资源管理的需求。其管理存在以下问题：受地方行政、企业等多方权力博弈的影响,地表水和地下水处于双线管理状态,未能实现流域水资源的全面统一管理;用水者协会的职能未得到充分发挥,公众参与水资源管理不积极;流域内水价、水权制度不完善。建议如下：应在甘肃省水利厅和酒泉市政府之间形成协调机制,以协调各相关方的权益,完善流域管理局和地方政府统一协调的水资源管理体系,实现流域水资源的集成管理;加强流域机构立法,实现流域水资源的统一管理与调配;将协会的职责和义务融入到村委会的职务中,并完善水价制度,建立水权交易市场,以调动公众的自我管理和实现水资源的高效利用。     

Challenges of an integrated water resource management for the Distrito Federal, Western Central Brazil: climate, land-use and water resources

Land-use/cover change (LUCC) and climate change are major controlling factors for water resources in the Distrito Federal in Western Central Brazil. Dynamic LUCC in the region has severe impacts on water resources, while climate changes during the last three decades is thought to have only moderate effects. LUCC affects water quantity mostly during base flow conditions. River basins with substantial expansion of agriculture since the end 1970s show a dramatic decrease of base flow discharge by 40?C70%, presumably due to irrigation. In contrast, the effects of urbanization on runoff are less distinct, since factors controlling runoff generation might be more variable. For water quality, we found urban areas to have a strong influence on the parameters CSB, NH₄ ⁺, and suspended solids. In addition, we assume emerging pollutants, e.g. organic (micro)pollutants, might play a major role in the future. The project IWAS-áGUA DF focuses on creating the scientific base to face these problems in frame of an IWRM concept for the region. Results of our study will be a contribution to an IRWM concept for the Distrito Federal and will help to maintain high standards in water supply for the region.     

Influence of gender and type of school on environmental attitude of teachers in Iran and India

The present study reports on secondary school teacher’s environmental attitude in India and Iran. One thousand and four teachers were selected through the stratified random sampling technique from 103 secondary schools of Mysore city (India) and Tehran city (Iran). Subjects consisted of 505 male and 499 females. They were assessed using the Taj Environmental Attitude Scale (TEAS) developed by Hasseen Taj (2001). Results revealed that there are significant differences between Indian and Iranian teachers in their level of environmental attitude. Also there are significant differences between them in environmental attitude across and within two groups with regard to their gender. Also in overall, type of school management (Government and private) is not a factor, which can affect teachers environmental attitude.     

(Re-)Conceptualizing water inequality in Delhi, India through a feminist political ecology framework

This article demonstrates how a feminist political ecology (FPE) framework can be utilized to expand scholarly conceptualizations of water inequality in Delhi, India. I argue that FPE is well positioned to complement and deepen urban political ecology work through attending to everyday practices and micropolitics within communities. Specifically, I examine the embodied consequences of sanitation and ‘water compensation’ practices and how patterns of criminality are tied to the experience of water inequality. An FPE framework helps illuminate water inequalities forged on the body and within particular urban spaces, such as households, communities, streets, open spaces and places of work. Applying FPE approaches to the study of urban water is particularly useful in analyzing inequalities associated with processes of social differentiation and their consequences for everyday life and rights in the city. An examination of the ways in which water practices are productive of particular urban subjectivities and spaces complicates approaches that find differences in distribution and access to be the primary lens for viewing how water is tied to power and inequality.     

Back to the Future? Privatisation and the domestication of water in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, 1900-2000

In Zambia’s Copperbelt as in most of the developing world, the water sector is undergoing reforms targeted at promoting an active participation of the private sector. Conventional wisdom suggests that the private sector will be better able to achieve universal access as opposed to the public sector which hitherto has failed to deliver. Using archival materials from the Copperbelt Province, this paper however argues that in countries like Zambia where economic enterprise was driven by private capital, access to water has always been tied to an active involvement of the private sector. The full story of failure to provide universal access to potable water cannot be told without examining this historical role of the private sector and its relationship with the public sector. At the same time, contemporary policy debates can benefit from the resonance of historical debates around economic efficiency, demand management, health and access in the production and consumption of water.     

Observation of isotopes in the water cycle—the Swiss National Network (NISOT)

The Swiss National Network for the Observation of Isotopes in the Water Cycle (NISOT) includes eleven precipitation, seven surface water (river) and three groundwater stations, where tritium, deuterium and oxygen-18 are monthly measured in composite samples. The network provides a good overview of the characteristic isotope signatures in recharge waters in Switzerland and of the relations between isotopes and altitude, orography and the amount of precipitation. Mixing of air water vapour and surface waters can be observed along a NW/SE cross section through the Alps. With increasing length of the data series, the network provides a valuable contribution for national and international scientific and practical applications in surface and subsurface hydrology, climatology and biology. The Swiss Geological Survey at the Federal Office for Water and Geology operates the isotope network within the legal framework of the Federal Law on the Protection of Waters and guarantees quality, access and distribution of the isotope data.     

Quality assessment of potable water in the town of Kolasib,Mizoram (India)

The potable water for the residents of the town of Kolasib in Mizoram state, India, is supplied by the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) of the Government of Mizoram without any notable treatment. The source of water is the Tuichhuahen River, flowing from north to south in the area. Water samples were analyzed for their physicochemical and bacteriological characteristics in order to obtain the current quality level of the potable water in the twon. The samples were collected from two different sources, i.e., the supply from the government agency (PHED) and from the naturally occurring springs (tuikhurs). The results suggest that the water supplied by the PHED is better than that from the tuikhurs; however, the quality of water from both sources, which are used for drinking and domestic purposes, were found to be more or less within the tolerance limits.     

跨地区调水对水成本的影响分析:一个类比

就跨区域调水引起的水价问题按照全成本定价的划分项目进行定性分析,通过将跨区域调水和排污权交易中的泡泡法进行类比,为详细考察提供了一个经济分析方面具有一般性的框架。分析表明,跨区域调水对相关区域的每项水资源成本都发生影响,在合适的调水量之下,两地水资源成本互相趋近而总成本减少,与排污权交易导致的污染治理成本变化类似。跨地区调水建立的地区水资源联系打破了原来水资源成本项目的划分,使调出区原来过剩的水因为存在与调入区交易的可能而产生机会成本,并因调水后水供给与两地水需求更一致而提高了水资源的周转率,等同于增加了可用水资源量并因此降低了水成本。在此显示了水资源价值中时间因素的影响。分析证明水资源潜在的产权因为跨地区调水工程而变成可交易更完整的产权之后,提高了水资源配置效率,这与科斯定理完全一致。调入区的获益在短期和长期内有所不同。     

Trickle Down? Private sector participation and the pro-poor water supply debate in Jakarta, Indonesia

Private sector partnerships (PSPs) have been increasingly advocated as an instrument of ‘pro-poor’ water supply policies. This article examines the performance of the private sector with respect to network connections for poor households in Jakarta, Indonesia, drawing on three sources: data collected through a household survey of poor households in six Jakarta neighbourhoods in 2005; data provided by the two private concessionaires and the Jakarta municipal government; and interviews with water supply managers, government officials, and NGO representatives in 2001 and 2005. The analysis concludes that the Jakarta PSP contract has not been pro-poor: new connections were preferentially targeted at middle and upper-income households over the period 1998-2005, and the numbers of new connections have been lower than the original targets. The paper argues that the failure to connect the poor is not solely attributable to the private operators, and identifies disincentives to provide individual network connections to poor households on the part of the municipality, the private concessionaires and poor households. The paper concludes by questioning the long-term ability of private sector operators to supply water to the poor.     

Are people willing to pay for river water quality, contingent valuation

Now a day’s water pollution has caused incoveriences for people whom live near the Pavana river in Pune city, India. The river water quality has deteriorated by major water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and phosphates level. In present study it is tried to find people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for improvement of river water quality. Contingent valuation method (CVM) was utilized for valuation of river water quality in Pavana river. Five categories of users have been chosen and then interviewed: households, farmers, fishermen, washing clothes women, bath taking people. One kilometer from each side of river was covered by researchers for sampling. Mean of willingness to pay was estimated at Rs 17.6 (45 Indian Rupees=$ 1) per family per month. This research shows CVM applicablity and the importance of river quality for Pune city and can effectively be used in developing countries.     

基于初始二维水权的流域水资源调控框架初析

为推动中国水权制度建设进程与落实最严格水资源管理制度提供技术支撑,基于二维水权概念与内涵等现有研究成果,结合对国内外初始水权分配相关研究进展与需求实践的系统梳理,从供水管理视角提出了包括"初始分配"、"优化调控"和"实时调控"3项内容在内的基于初始二维水权的流域水资源调控理论框架,详细阐述了各组成部分的实现途径、支撑技术、建模步骤及其之间的工作关系。     

Through the aqueduct and the courts: An analysis of the human right to water and indigenous water rights in Northwestern Mexico

This article examines the relationship between the human right to water and indigenous water rights as articulated in the legal strategies of indigenous Yaqui (Yoemem) leadership in Mexico, and in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System. Accelerated urban growth and climate change in the area of study are rekindling historical water conflicts between rural indigenous communities and state authorities encouraging urban development. This configuration is not unique to Northwestern Mexico and, thus, offers an instructive case for exploring contradictions and alignments between indigenous right claims and the human right to water. This article addresses the following questions: What role does the human right to water play in the competing claims of state authorities and indigenous Yaqui leadership in Mexico? To what extent can the human right to water be reconciled with the collective rights of indigenous peoples? And in particular, what can be learned from international jurisprudence in this regard? Through content analysis of legal documents and media sources I show that even when Yaqui claims over water are advanced in the arena of international human rights, the human right to water does not have a primary role in framing their demands. In fact, I show that the human right to water was primarily mobilized to uphold rural-to-urban water transfers and undermine indigenous opposition to large-scale infrastructure development. This article produces new empirical knowledge to contribute to scholarship examining what a human right to water means in practice. This line of research is particularly timely as the human right to water becomes institutionalized in the context of growing public debate and legal discussions on collective indigenous rights.     

Resource conflict,policy change and practice in Canadian fisheries management

The Canadian marine fisheries are presently in the midst of a grave crisis. On both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, fish stocks have been depleted through overfishing. Fish habitats are being damaged or permanently destroyed through industrial development. Gross overcapacity exists in both the primary and secondary sectors of the fishing industry, which is primarily attributable to the common property status of the resource. Many fishermen and processors have been or are in states of near bankruptcy as increasing energy costs, high product inventories and market weakness have crippled operations. A lack of alternative employment opportunities for many participants coupled with a high regional and community dependence on depressed resource-based industries has confounded attempts by government to introduce measures leading to more rational fisheries management. The outcome has been a strategy characterized as ‘incremental ad hocery’. Major inquiries were conducted into both the Atlantic and Pacific fisheries in the early 1980s. Conflict between and among the federal and provincial governments, various sectors of the commercial fishery, Indian and recreational usergroups, fishery interests and other industries, as well as Canada and other nations, has made it difficult to implement needed reforms. Stock and habitat maintainence and improvement; user regulations, coupled with tenure rights for fishermen; and marketing research and promotion are accepted as key components of any long-run fishery management strategy. In the short-run, the need is to develop approaches that are implementable in the context of diverse conflicting and vested interests.     

Institutional forces behind water conflict in the Ganga plains

With increased upstream withdrawal of Ganga waters for irrigation and urban industrial uses, Ganga's dry season flow is declining. The heavily populated but marginalised north Indian State of Bihar with its capital at Patna expects the Union government in Delhi to curb the appetite of upstream States; but Delhi's water bureaucracy, having grown within a culture of ‘construction’ rather than ‘water management’, is reluctant to do so. Adding to Patna's anxiety is a new fear in the form of the 1996 Farakka Treaty between India and Bangladesh, an international obligation that Patna fears will further curtail its water rights. Delhi, however, is able to placate Patna with promises of a Kosi High Dam in Nepal on the major tributary of the Ganga closest to Bihar. Because both bureaucracies belong to a social solidarity of hierarchic procedures that would make similar technological choices, Patna is pacified. On the other hand, activist groups in Bihar belonging to a different solidarity, that of egalitarian equity, point to the dismal consequences of past technological choices (embankments) on the land and its poor and continue to oppose this new choice as well. The hierarchic discourse between Patna and Delhi, however, filters out this activist critique and pursues a business-as-usual program of new high dam construction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional background behind such rigid, single-mission policies and the costly surprises and impasse they are prone to. The paper argues that sagaciously providing space for constructive engagement among differing perspectives of the state, market and civil society on Bihar's water problems may minimize this risk. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Discharge areas as a useful tool for understanding recharge areas, study case: Mexico Catchment

At present, demographic growth is a significant issue related to environmental damage due to an excessive use of water and forest. Governments are now interested in formulating new strategies that might help to reach a sustainable development. Thus, the Mexican Federal Government initiated an Environmental Hydrological Services Payment Programme in 2003 to preserve its forest territory, specifically to keep its groundwater recharge potential. However, the application of this programme was not supported by hydrogeological studies defining the physical media, rainwater and groundwater flows through proper identification of recharge areas as well as probable impacts to groundwater or to other components of the environment. Wide-view system studies still need to be incorporated. This work highlights the importance of including groundwater flow system investigations as a basis to support environmental projects where a clear understanding of groundwater functioning in relation to a zone receiving payment for hydrological environmental services is required. Stable isotopes and chemical characteristics of non-evaporated groundwater in discharge areas allow the computation of the altitude of recharging precipitation from where possible recharge area location is proposed. Finally, this paper puts forward groundwater flow system definition as a basic tool to support recommendation for an adequate water and environmental management.     

The pending ‘water crisis’

An apparent abundance of water on earth would indicate that the quantity of water available for human use is meeting the needs of society. However, recent investigations conclude that there are many areas where the demands are growing beyond water availability and problems arise from intensive withdrawals, mismanagement, or simply low availability. Water resources planners in the next century are very likely to encounter a new and different kind of scarcity; a scarcity that cannot be solved by engineering measures but calls for finding an intricate balance between the interests of a number of actors involved. Water demand is no longer a vital necessity but is one of the claims to be subjected to (political) decision making. Managing the demand of water in the framework of the objectives of a national socio-economic development plan is a challenge in the water planning process. Many technical, legislative and institutional tools are available to support this process. Such planning requires strong mechanisms and political involvement at the national level and a strong social support at the local level.     

Conservation planning in the west, problems, new strategies and entrenched obstacles

The United States is often considered the progenitor of conservation planning in the world, the first to establish a vast public domain, for example. But with continued population growth, conservation planning on private lands—rural and at the urban fringe—continues to be a substantial challenge due to a tradition of local home rule in land use planning and strong private property protection afforded by the US Constitution. New “bottom-up” collaborative approaches, as well as other innovative strategies seem to be emerging. How effective these will be given pressures for growth and high property values remain to be seen without a rethinking of ideas of nature, a rebalancing of the role of property in American local fiscal regimes, and of private property rights.     

应急调水效益补偿的博弈分析

应用博弈论原理与方法求解应急调水的合理补偿量,解决调水各方的利益冲突.提出了水权交易、行政调节、流域协商3种补偿的方式,用博弈原理对这3种方式进行了分析,求解在纳什均衡条件下,利用水权交易方式和行政调节方式实现水资源配置目标的补偿量方案,并对流域协商方式的博弈特性进行了分析,并给出算例,分别解出两种补偿方式的补偿方案.不同的补偿方式对应着不同的补偿量,在实际应用中可根据应急调水的实际情况,选择一种方式或多种方式联合应用,为管理者的决策提供参考.