Water Conflicts and Resistance

Water Conflicts and Resistance
Author: Venkatesh Dutta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2021-07-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000408272

This book presents a systematic study of transboundary, regional and local water conflicts and resistance across several river basins in South Asia. Addressing hydro-socio-economic aspects in competing water sharing and transfer agreements, as well as conflicting regimes of legal plurality, property rights and policy implementation, it discusses themes such as rights over land and natural resources; resettlement of dam-displaced people; urban–rural conflicts over water allocation; peri-urbanisation, land use conflicts and water security; tradeoffs and constraints in restoration of ecological flows in rivers; resilience against water conflicts in a river basin; and irrigation projects and sustainability of water resources. Bringing together experts, professionals, lawyers, government and the civil society, the volume analyses water conflicts at local, regional and transboundary scales; reviews current debates with case studies; and outlines emerging challenges in water policy, law, governance and institutions in South Asia. It also offers alternative tools and frameworks of water sharing mechanisms, conflict resolution, dialogue, and models of cooperation and collaboration for key stakeholders towards possible solutions for effective, equitable and strategic water management. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of development studies, environment studies, water studies, public policy, political science, international relations, conflict resolution, political economy, economics, sociology and social anthropology, environmental law, governance and South Asian studies. It will also benefit practitioners, water policy thinktanks and associations, policymakers, diplomats and NGOs.

Water Conflicts in Northeast India

Water Conflicts in Northeast India
Author: K. J. Joy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1351685945

Northeast India, apart from being the rainiest in India, is drained by two large river systems of the world – the Brahmaputra and the Barak (Meghna) – both transnational rivers cutting across bordering countries. The region, known for its rich water resources, has been witnessing an increasing number of conflicts related to water in recent years. This volume documents the multifaceted conflicts and contestations around water in Northeast India, analyses their causes and consequences, and includes expert recommendations. It fills a major gap in the subject by examining wide-ranging issues such as cultural and anthropological dimensions of damming rivers in the Northeast and Eastern Himalayas; seismic surveys, oil extractions, and water conflicts; discontent over water quality and drinking water; floods, river bank erosion, embankments; water policy; transboundary water conflicts; and hydropower development. It also discusses the alleged Chinese efforts to divert the Brahmaputra River. With its analytical and comprehensive coverage, 18 case studies, and suggested approaches for conflict resolution, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of development studies, governance and public policy, politics and international relations, water resources, environment, geography, climate change, area studies, economics, and sociology. It will also be an important resource for policymakers, bureaucrats, development practitioners, civil society groups, the judiciary, and media.

Water and Conflict: Incorporating Peacebuilding Into Water Development

Water and Conflict: Incorporating Peacebuilding Into Water Development
Author: Jason Gehrig
Publisher: Catholic Relief Services
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2009-08-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 161492029X

Water is a simple but necessary part of life. Yet much of the world's population lacks adequate clean water, either because of physical scarcity or because they are denied equitable access to water resources. Such conditions inevitably breed conflict. Water-related violence is common in many parts of the world and is generally expected to increase in the years ahead.This document is intended to assist water development practitioners, civil society peacebuilders and human rights advocates seeking to integrate water and peacebuilding in their work. The purpose is twofold: to furnish a conceptual framework for understanding problems of scarcity and equity, and to provide practical guidance and tools for action.The text distills an extensive literature on water, conflict, and cooperation produced in recent years by researchers and development practitioners. Case studies and reflections are included to keep theory grounded in reality.

Water

Water
Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2013-07-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1626160120

This is a pioneering study about the relationship between fresh water, peace, and security in Asia from the Middle East to Siberia but with a special focus on South and Southeast Asia. Asia is home to many of the world's great rivers and lakes, but its huge population and booming economies make it the most water-scarce continent on a per capita basis. Over extensive irrigation, pollution, and global warming add to the demographic and economic pressures on Asia's fresh water supplies. The location of the sources for much of South and Southeast Asia's fresh water is in the Chinese controlled Tibetan Plateau, and China's increasing exploitation of these water sources have created growing geopolitical tensions that could boil over into conflict. India is reliant on fresh water from Tibet, which gives the Chinese uncomfortable leverage over India and further exacerbates their unsettled border disputes. Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other countries of the region also find themselves in similarly vulnerable positions where water is scarce and the sources are increasingly being exploited and polluted upstream by the continent's most powerful country. Brahma Chellaney proposes strategies to avoid conflict and more equitably share and preserve Asia's water resources.

Water Conflicts

Water Conflicts
Author: Mark Zeitoun
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0190864095

Water Conflicts applies cutting-edge thinking to identify pathways that can transform complex water conflicts. It challenges existing power-blind and politics-lite analysis that is very deeply-held and recurring in debates that suggest causal links between scarcity and violence-or peace. This book presents a much needed revision of transboundary water analysis, leading to a rethink on the way water is used and contested, with a focus on harm experienced both by the most vulnerable water users and the environment. Recognizing that conflicts are never static, Mark Zeitoun, Naho Mirumachi, and Jeroen Warner's "transformative analysis" provides multi-disciplinary tools and perspectives to understand and address the complexities involved. The approach is stress-tested through dozens of examples around the globe, and it incorporates collective evidence and knowledge of the London Water Research Group. The insights on water diplomacy will be most welcome by analysts, activists, diplomats, and all others tackling water conflicts. Seeking to motivate improvement of transboundary water arrangements towards further equity and sustainability as a practical agenda, the book is a fresh antidote to the detached role that researchers and policymakers often play.

Renewing Destruction

Renewing Destruction
Author: Alexander A. Dunlap
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2019-06-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786610671

Renewing Destruction examines how wind energy projects impact people and their environments. Wind energy development, in Mexico and most countries, fall into a ‘roll out’ neoliberal strategy that is justified by climate change mitigation programs that are continuing a process of land and wind resources grabbing for profit. The result has been an exaggeration of pre-existing problems in communities around land, income-inequality, local politics and, contrary to public relations stories, is devastating traditional livelihoods and socio-ecological relationships. Exacerbating pre-existing social and material problems in surrounding towns, wind energy development is placing greater stress on semi-subsistence communities, marginalizing Indigenous traditions and indirectly resulting in the displacement and migration of people into urban centers. Based on intensive fieldwork with local groups in Oaxaca, Mexico, this book provides an in-depth study, demonstrating the complications and problems that emerge with the current regime of ‘sustainable development’ and wind energy projects in Mexico, which has wider lessons to be drawn for other regions and countries. Put simply, the book reveals a tragic reality that calls into question the marketed hopes of the green economy and the current method of climate change mitigation. It shows the variegated impacts and issues associated with building wind energy parks, which extends to recognizing the destructive effects on Indigenous cultures and practices in the region. The book, however, highlights what to consider or, more importantly, what to avoid if one is working with industrial-scale wind energy systems.

Water Conflicts in India

Water Conflicts in India
Author: K.J. Joy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2020-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000084108

Water conflicts in India have now percolated to every level. They are aggravated by the relative paucity of frameworks, policies and mechanisms to govern the use of water resources. Based on the premise that understanding and documenting different types of water conflict cases in all their complexity would contribute to informed public debate and facilitate their resolution, Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, a collaborative initiative of the WWF project ‘Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment’, documented a number of such case studies. One of its kind in India, this book brings together an impressive sixty-three case studies – summarized status of the conflicts, the issues involved and their current position – and gives us a glimpse into ‘the million revolts’ that are brewing around water. While recognizing that each conflict is a microcosm of wider conflicts, the editors have classified these cases into eight broad themes that try to capture the dominant aspect of the conflict. These are: contending water uses; dams and displacement; equity-access-allocations; micro-level conflicts; water quality; trans-boundary conflicts; privatization; sand excavation and mining. With a mix of academics and activists as contributors, the book makes an important contribution to a new discourse on water in general, and water conflicts and conflict resolution in particular.

Subnational Hydropolitics

Subnational Hydropolitics
Author: Scott Moore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190864109

It's often claimed that future wars will be fought over water. But while international water conflict is rare, it's common between subnational jurisdictions like states and provinces. Drawing on cases in the United States, China, India, and France, this book explains why these subnational water conflicts occur - and how they can be prevented.

Water Wars

Water Wars
Author: Vandana Shiva
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2016-07-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1623170737

Acclaimed author and award-winning scientist and activist Vandana Shiva lucidly details the severity of the global water shortage, calling the water crisis “the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.” She sheds light on the activists who are fighting corporate maneuvers to convert the life-sustaining resource of water into more gold for the elites and uses her knowledge of science and society to outline the emergence of corporate culture and the historical erosion of communal water rights. Using the international water trade and industrial activities such as damming, mining, and aquafarming as her lens, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of rights to a precious common good. Revealing how many of the most important conflicts of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, are in fact conflicts over scarce but vital natural resources, she calls for a movement to preserve water access for all and offers a blueprint for global resistance based on examples of successful campaigns. Featuring a new introduction by the author, this edition of Water Wars celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities throughout history and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and livelihoods worldwide.