This project
saw the publication of the following volumes:
Rethinking
the Mosaic: Investigations into Local Water Management
The
Fluid Mosaic: Water Governance in the Context of Variability, Uncertainty and
Change.
Emerging water problems in South Asia represent a major threat to the
environment and society. Water scarcity, groundwater overdraft, flooding
and a host of other related issues directly affect the daily lives of rural
and urban residents throughout the subcontinent. Practical proposals for
solving problems are few and far between. The objective of ISET's collaborative
project was to raise the level of informed dialogue and catalyze the implementation
of innovative and practical solutions to water management needs.
Identification of innovative solutions to water scarcity and pollution is essential in order to reduce conflict and avoid deadlock as pressure on available water resources increases throughout South Asia. Models for doing this based on either decentralized participatory approaches or centralized governmental approaches have proved insufficient and new approaches are essential. In contrast to existing models, we view social and institutional change as emerging from a contested terrain in which many actors (individuals, communities, businesses, NGOs, local government organizations and the State) compete to protect their economic, political and other interests. This competition occurs at multiple levels within the frameworks created by markets, laws and social norms. It often results in deadlock. Change and effective action may, however, be possible to catalyze by enabling social auditors -- civil society organizations that advocate social equity -- through the provision of information and new insights. This was the target of our project.
The project involved close collaboration on research, capacity building and dissemination between ISET and four organizations in South Asia (Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Madras Institute of Development Studies, The Institute of Development Studies in Jaipur and VIKSAT in Ahmedabad). Results of initial research were presented in the volume published in 1999, Rethinking the Mosaic: Investigations into Local Water Management. This highlights critical social and institutional as well as technical issues that must be addressed in order to resolve water management issues in each of the study areas. In particular, demand-side management and innovative avenues of supply enhancement (such as conjunctive management and groundwater banking) are the technically most promising avenues for effective water management. Each of these avenues faces an important array of social, institutional and economic constraints that limit progress on the physical problems. As a result, the Local Water Management project investigated the core social, institutional and economic factors blocking or enabling effective action. Beyond this, however, Rethinking the Mosaic, and the synthesis paper published in 2003, The Fluid Mosaic: Water Governance in the Context of Variability, Uncertainty and Change, emphasize the dynamic, evolutionary and contested nature of water management needs and approaches. Effective management is not just a process of identifying technically effective responses to current problems and overcoming social and institutional obstacles. Instead, it depends on creating the capacity for institutions and society to evolve and adapt as conditions and management needs change. It also depends on some degree of social consensus regarding management needs and approaches. Hence, the project concentrated on developing and documenting the basic understanding of problems required for "social consensus" and approaches or frameworks that encourage adaptive management in dynamic and contested contexts.
In the model we proposed, the critical point of leverage for catalyzing change lies in the identification of potential solutions and the development of frameworks for dialogue that enable stakeholders to clearly understand problems and alternative courses of action. While many in South Asia seek to do this, their efforts have been hampered by the divergence between approaches based on technical analysis of water resource systems (paradigms emerging from engineering and natural science) and approaches emerging from socioeconomic and institutional perspectives (paradigms emerging from social science and activism). In most cases, these two schools of thought do not overlap in any meaningful way. Technical analyses often reflect poor appreciation of the socioeconomic or institutional dimensions of water use and management. Furthermore, they tend to focus on the engineering aspects of water supply systems or the hydrologic dynamics of rivers and aquifers rather than addressing the multiple dimensions of water use that determine aggregate demand. Equally important, socioeconomic and institutional analyses often reflect an extremely limited understanding of the physical nature of problems or management opportunities. As a result, much of the socially focused research has floated above the practical limitations on what actually can be done to address water problems. Analytical frameworks that allow supply and demand to be quantitatively modeled are key to overcoming these gaps. They represent an avenue to link social and technical perspectives. They can also serve as frameworks for dialogue on which agreement can be built between stakeholders concerning management needs and courses of action.
Core research objectives of the project were: