The politics of flood insecurity Framing contested river management projects Jeroen F. Warner Promotoren: Prof. Dr. Ir. D.J.M. Hilhorst Hoogleraar Humanitaire Hulp en Wederopbouw Prof. Dr. Ir. C. Leeuwis Hoogleraar Communicatie en Innovatie Studies Promotiecommissie Prof. Dr. J.A. Allan King‟s College, London Prof. Dr. H.J.M. Goverde Wageningen Universiteit / Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Prof. Dr. Mr. B.J.M. van der Meulen Wageningen Universiteit Prof. Dr. J.H. de Wilde Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Dit onderzoek is uitgevoerd binnen de onderzoeksschool CERES – Research School for Resource Studies for Development. The politics of flood insecurity Framing contested river management projects Jeroen F. Warner Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor op gezag van de rector magnificus van Wageningen Universiteit, prof. dr. M.J. Kropff, in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 18 maart 2008 des namiddags om 16.00 uur in de Aula. Jeroen F. Warner The politics of flood insecurity Framing contested river management projects ISBN 978-80-8504-897-8 Table of Contents List of Figures, Tables and Boxes List of Abbreviations 1. Introduction: The politics of floods and fear 1 2. Midnight at Noon? The dispute over Toshka, Egypt 31 3. Resisting the Turkish pax aquarum? The Ilısu Dam dispute as a multi-level struggle 57 4. Turkey and Egypt – tales of war, peace and hegemony 83 5. Death of the mega-projects? The controversy over Flood Action Plan 20, Bangladesh 111 6. The Maaswerken project: Fixing a hole? 145 7. Public Participation in emergency flood storage in the Ooij polder – a bridge too far? 173 8. The Jubilee River: flood alleviation or flood creation scheme? 189 9. The politics of six river interventions – a Synthesis 217 10. The securitization of flood events: implications for security analysis 255 End notes 267 Bibliography 289 Summary 311 Samenvatting 315 Author Biography 319 vii THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY Acknowledgments ‗You can drown but you still survive‘ New Musik – This World of Water This thesis has shown me the true meaning of risk and creative destruction. If curiosity kills cats, this most curious of projects must have claimed eight out of its statutory nine lives. But here it is! Hats off to my indispensable Dissertation Life Supports – in a moral, practical and/or financial sense – without whom the project would surely have drowned for good. Noëlle Aarts, Khorshed Alam, Tony Allan, Katrina Allen, Eelco van Beek, Frédéric Bereyziat, Marijn Beuling, Alex Bolding, Eg & Alice, Emily Crook, Marwa Daoudy, Hilde van Dijkhorst, Tjeerd Dijkstra, Sandra Fraser, John Gardiner, Sem van Gelder, Govert Geldof, Colin Green, John Handmer, Thea Hilhorst, Charlotte Hill, Fred Hoffmann, Peter Hough, Nabiul Islam, Bard Jansen, Clare Johnson, Ayşegül Kibaroğlu, Jan Kooiman, Mathijs van Leeuwen, Cees Leeuwis, Rens de Man, Richard Meissner, Dennis Parker, Mark Pelling, Bert Raven, Michel Riksen, Dik Roth, Lennart Roubos, Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Leo Santbergen, Erik van Slobbe, Spinvis, Steve Torrance and Madeleine Drake, Justin Taplin, Paul Thompson, Julie Trottier, Shohreh and Andrew Tunnicliff, Tony Turton, Hans van der Veen, Anne Cris de la Vega Leinert, Annemiek Verhallen, Kees, Iet and Marijke Warner and Marry Ridder, Anne Wesselink, Kai Wegerich, Flip Wester, Madelinde Winnubst, Mark Zeitoun, Margreet Zwarteveen. - the Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University - the Centre for Sustainable Management of Resources, Radboud University Nijmegen, - Communication and Innovation Studies, Disaster Studies, the Irrigation and Hydrology groups, Wageningen University and Research Centre, - the London Water Issues Group, University College London (SOAS/KCL). - the Thales intervision group (KIvI) Advisors, believers, colleagues, friends, guardian angels, housemates, interviewees, librarians, MScs and PhDs, opponents, professors, referees, resource persons.… thank you so much. Last but not least, in praise of long-suffering university secretaries: Mirjam Cevat, Trudy Freriks, Gerda de Fauw, Kathy Ingrey, Josie (Giuseppina) Joyce, Maarit Junikkala, Maria Pierce, Helen Rollason, Lucie van Zaalen. All errors of fact and judgment are, as ever, my sole responsibility ... Since you asked: yes, I have indeed shaken hands with HRH Prince William Alexander (twice) but we didn´t make conversation. I did get to discuss water issues with HRH Queen Elizabeth and HRH Prince Philip, though. THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY viii ix THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY x List of Figures, Tables and Boxes FIG. 1.1 Stream and social intervention continuum FIG. 1.2 A ladder of compliance, after Held (1984). FIG..1.3 Logics of securitised and non-securitised policy making FIG. 2.1 Schematic overview of Egypt‟s New Civilization FIG. 2.2 Location of New lakes supplied by Toshka project FIG. 2.3 Nile River Basin FIG. 5.1 Location of Tangail and Dhaleswhari Closure FIG. 5.2 Tangail District FIG. 6.1A,B Location of the Grensmaas FIG. 6.2 Maaswerken project decision-making up trajectory to 1995: four rounds (Teisman, 1995) FIG. 6.3 Institutional framework for water management in the Netherlands (Based on Havekes, 2005) FIG. 6.4 Semantic sliding scale of „security‟ which comprises stricter (more severe) and looser interpretations of security FIG. 6.5 Difference between thinking between opposition and decision-makers on Maas project FIG. 7.1 Areas in white are proposed flood storage polders FIG. 7.2 The Ooij polder FIG. 7.3 How to counter calamity in a participatory way? A „participatory security governance‟ matrix. FIG. 8.1A,B Jubilee River project area FIG. 8.2 Transition landscape (Geels 2004) FIG. 9.1 Conceptual model underlying this study TABLE 1.1 Horizontalisation and verticalisation of governance TABLE 1.2 List of case studies discussed in this book TABLE 2.1 Chronology of domestic and basin events on the Nile TABLE 2.2 Water Resource Use in Egypt, 2002/03 TABLE 2.3 Area of the states of the Nile Basin (FAO, 1997) TABLE 3.1 GAP Project chronology TABLE 3.2 Overview of dams along the Euphrates and Tigris TABLE 3.3 Discursive framing moves and countermoves in different security domains TABLE 3.4 Control chronology: Type of strategies at multiple levels; challenges in italics TABLE 4.1 Basin hegemons in the Middle East and their riparian position TABLE 4.2 Summary of the Three Meta-Narratives TABLE 4.3 A comparison of Governance models affecting water project, Turkey and Egypt TABLE 4A.1 Relations in the hydro-security complex TABLE 5.1 FAP Project history and rationale TABLE 5.2 Flood Action Plan Proposals TABLE 5.3 The four main nationally active political parties (out of 130) in Bangladesh, their claim to fame and their main delegitimising characteristics in 2001. TABLE 5.4 Contrasting concepts of flood control: different dimensions TABLE 5.5 Risk, Responsibility and Blame: Who/what caused the floods? TABLE 5.6 Expanded set of flood problem frames TABLE 6.1 The Maaswerken in brief TABLE 6.2 Striking difference between Maaskaden (fast-tracked emergency measures) and Maaswerken (post-emergency measures) TABLE 6.3 Chronology of the Maaswerken TABLE 6.4 Is there question of a security issue on the Maas? xi THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY TABLE 7.1 Resistance to controlled flood storage: actors and their strategies TABLE 8.1 Chronological development of flood management and river management TABLE 8.2 Green and Warner‟s (1999) chronology of four flood responses TABLE 8.3 MWEFAS/Jubilee River, Project chronology TABLE 8.4 Key actors in the UK flood regime TABLE 8.5 The five options for proposed Datchet channel TABLE 8.6 Arnstein‟s Ladder of participation TABLE 8.7 Competing flood narratives TABLE 9.1 Three disaster narratives TABLE 9.2 Non-securitisation applied to flood management in the six cases TABLE 9.3 Countersecuritised values overlap sectors TABLE 9.4 Outcome of politicisation for project TABLE 9.5 Acceptance of securitised and non-securitised interventions TABLE 9.6 Acceptance of securitised and non-securitised interventions TABLE 10.1 Securitisation and countersecuritisation in ten easy steps TABLE 10.2 Three approaches to security studies TABLE 10.3 Three modes in which policy problems are treated TABLE 10.4 Four types of (security) policy problems BOX 1.1 Risk and uncertainty BOX 4.1 Cochabamba‟s water war BOX 6.1 Maaswerken: How about the Belgians? BOX 7.1 Attending a Luteijn Commission meeting, March 2002 THE POLITICS OF FLOOD INSECURITY xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ABB - Asea Brown Boveri – major European construction company ABI - Association of British Insurers BBC - British Broadcasting Company BOT - Build Operate Transfer, a mode of partial project outsourcing BCAS - Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, an NGO BCM, Bn m3- Billion cubic meters BELA - Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association BOM – Vereniging Bewoners Overleg Maasvallei, citizen platform engaging with the Maaswerken project BPSC - Bangladesh People´s Solidarity Centre, Amsterdam BWDB - Bangladesh Water Development Board CBA – Cost Benefit Analysis, also known as Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) CBO - Community Based Organisation CDA - Christen Democratisch Appel, centrist Christian party, Netherlands. Ch. – Chapter CIDA - Canadian International Development Agency CIWEM - Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, London CPO – Compulsory Purchase Order, issued to enable essential public works CPP – Compartmentalisation Pilot Plan, Bangladesh, also known as FAP-20 DEFRA - Department for Environment, Food and