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Lecture notes — Water Politics and Governance (AM1192) [ERM]
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This document contains notes of all the lectures given in the course 'Water Politics and Governance' (AM1192) in the year
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ArBoLecture notes --- Water Politics and Governance
1. 1TUE Setting the stage of Water Governance ....................................................................................................... 1
2. 1WED Neoliberalism, and critical perspectives .................................................................................................. 3
3. 1FRI Water politics & multilevel water governance.......................................................................................... 4
4. 2TUE Rural water governance, commons and river basins coordination................................................ 6
5. 2WED International cooperation, conflict and water grabbing.................................................................... 8
6. 2FRI Adaptive water governance: ideas and application .............................................................................. 10
7. 3TUE Documentary presentations & Fatini ........................................................................................................ 10
8. 3WED Global virtual water trade, water grabbin, water war and peace ................................................ 10
9. 3FRI Water law and water rights ............................................................................................................................. 12
1. 1TUE SETTING THE STAGE OF WATER GOVERNANCE
Part 1
Water can be seen as blessing (resource) or as a danger (hazard).
1973 Santiago: democratically elected president gets killed by bombing by upcoming dictator
(Pinochet). One of Pinochets firsts reforms was the water sector;
2016: standing rock, fact that oil company could have been allowed to lay pipeline in sacred and
ecologically fundamental watersheds. Movement repressed by police/military;
2018, Action water decade.
Societal challenges: human-water crises symptoms (too little; too much). Notion of capital extremes.
Impact of a certain type of human activity which is produced through a capitalistic system of
consumption and production. Water wars prophecy:
Key dimension of water: Food (70% agriculture); Energy; People (drinking, sanitation, recreation);
Economic development and equity (Transportation, Industry); Water related hazards; Ecosystem;
Climate change; Transboundary basins (148 have international basins within their territory). Global
trade (virtual water). A good book: rivers of empire
Global water challenges: Meeting human needs; Securing food supply; Respecting ecosystems;
Sharing water resources; Managing risks; Valuing water; Governing water wisely
Different perceptions: Sacred commodity; Heritage; A social, economic or political good; Security
issue; hydrological entity; ecosystem medium; shared commodity, etc.
Governance, no agreed definition. Governance is NOT government: defining governance is a political
statement! Statements about governance are e.g. interactions rather than a formal regime;
alternatives through top-down hierarchies; complex process that considers multi-level participation
beyond the state
At first, governance was the act of the government. However, after a historical transitions in the 80s,
the importance of the state reduced, embedding more actors such as CSO and the private sector,
shaping other dynamics.
Environmental governance by Lemos & Agrawal (2006) is the tripot of state, community and market
(interface: co-management, PPPs and private-soecial partnerships. It happens in the hybride
interface between the actors.
Water governance =
comprising all social, political, economic and administrative organizations and institution, as well as
their relationships to water resources development and management.
this definition means everything and nothing.
Page 1 of 14
, Lecture notes --- Water Politics and Governance Lecture 1
It includes political, economic and social processes and institutions through which governments,
private sector and civil society make decisions about how best to use, allocate and distribute water.
It compromises mechanisms, processes and institutions, through which all involved stakeholders,
including citizens and interest groups, articulate, their priories, exercise their legal rights, meet their
obligations and mediate their difference (participation and deliberative decision making).
The difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ are the neoliberal reforms.
UNDP and OECD no reference or contestation. However, there will always be issues with
contestations whenever handling water policy. Rival comes from riparian (river): notion that you
were rivals when your were on the other sides of the river.
Local arenas are nested within basins, which is nested within authorities, which are nested in the
disciplines of the ministry. As an analyst, you focus on a focal area, but it is just the matter of how
much you are zooming in or out. These dynamics are always interdependent. Curious
Part 2
1. What are the different ellements that are reviewed by woodhouse, essential in the concept of water
governance?
Before the neoliberal ideas, water management focused on infrastructure and infrastructure
development. Now in a new water governance area: governance rather than infrastructure to
manage water and water as collectively managed, as in sector.
IWRM principles: water as an economic finite resource, participation and river basin-scale. It is a
paradigm in water management.
Scales: Previously on a water basin level, but as these are not focused on problem or decision making
level, nowadays people try to address at a problem-scale level. In the neoliberal agenda, the water
basin level was at first seen as a success, as it tried to solve problems at an ecological level. The
notion of watershed is contested, as people do not leave the water shed. Transboundary level.
Page 2 of 14
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