Volume 6, Issue 1, 2016.Cdr
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SAWAS JOURNAL Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2016 South Asian Water Studies Special Issue “Urbanization & periurbanization: Challenges for water governance in south Asia” Guest Editor Dr. Vishal Narain Public Policy and Governance at MDI, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. Dr. Vishal Narain is Associate Professor, Public Policy and Governance, MDI, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He holds a PhD from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. His academic interests are in the inter-disciplinary analyses of water policy and institutions, urbanization and rural- urban transformations, water rights and irrigation reform. His research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals like Water Policy, Water International, Environment and Urbanization and Mountain Research and Development. Managing Editor Sumit Vij Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands Chief Editor Anjal Prakash International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Nepal SAWAS JOURNAL South Asian Water Studies Editorial Fluid Governance: water flows and rural-urban transformations in South Asia V - VI Vishal Narain, Sumit Vij Critical Review Understanding and governing the peri-urban: some critical reflections 01 - 06 Dik Roth Down the drain: the tragedy of the disappearing urban commons of Bengaluru 07 - 11 C Hita Unnikrishnan, Seema Mundoli, B. Manjunatha, Harini Nagendra Original Articles Governance of flooding risks in informal settlements in satellite cities in the 12 - 27 O Mumbai region Nidhi Subramanyam, Charlotte MacAlister Urbanization, climate change, and water (in)security in peri-urban areas of post- 28 - 41 earthquake Kathmandu valley N Anushiya Shrestha, Rajesh Sada Urban political ecology of water in Darjeeling, India 42 - 57 Gopa Samanta, Kaberi Koner T Rural to urban groundwater market: demand management option vs. 58 - 74 environmental sustainability Prakash Nelliyat E Knowledge incompatibilities and decline of common property resources: a case 75 - 84 study of rainwater harvesting systems in urban Bikaner Anushree Singh Applicability of decentralized, small-scale vs. centralized, large-scale Sewage 85 - 97 N Treatment Plants for urban sanitation: a case study from Sri Lanka S. Thrikawala, M. I. Sudasinghe, L.W. Galagedara, E.R.N. Gunawardena, N.C. Narayanan Commentary T Recognizing sustainability frontiers in the peri-urban 98 - 102 Fiona Marshall Institutional approaches to peri-urban research: added value and conceptual 103 - 108 approach S Sharlene L. Gomes , Leon M. Hermans The waterscapes of governance 109 - 113 Sahil Patni, Kala Bada SAWAS JOURNAL South Asian Water Studies Book Reviews New slow city- living simply in the world's fastest city 114 - 116 Denise Fernandes Conflicts over natural resources in the global south: conceptual approaches 117 - 119 Nihar Gokhale Neoliberalism and water: complicating the story of reforms in Maharashtra 120 - 121 C Aditya Kumar Singh O N T E N T S www.sawasjournal.org SAWAS JOURNAL Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2016 South Asian Water Studies Fluid Governance: water flows and rural-urban transformations in South Asia Dr. Vishal Narain Public Policy and Governance MDI, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. Sumit Vij Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands This special issue of the SAWAS (South Asian urbanization reallocates water from rural to Water Studies) journal is devoted to the theme urban purposes. 'Urbanization and peri-urbanization: challenges for water governance in South Asia.' The Analytically, this research has come to be located contributions in this issue explore the various in a wide range of intellectual traditions: political challenges that urbanization and peri- economy, urban political ecology, the urbanization processes have posed for water institutional analysis and development governance in the region. framework, discursive analyses, and the analysis of rights, entitlements, and legal pluralism, which SAWAS, which is the flagship journal of is reflected in the contents of this special issue. SaciWATERs (South Asian Consortium for Inter- disciplinary Water Resources Studies) seeks to Using these diverse intellectual traditions, this foster debate on critical water issues of research has explored the reallocation of water contemporary relevance with a special focus on from rural to urban purposes, raising questions inter-disciplinary analyses. The journal aligns about water rights, equity, and justice. These with SaciWATERs' mandate to challenge the processes are seen as creating peri-urban water technocratic focus of water management, while insecurity, often aggravated by other stressors promoting junior researchers, especially women, and processes, such as climate change, globalization, to undertake research that integrates the and commodification. What is interesting is the physical with the social and institutional regional scale of some of this research in which dynamics of water management and SaciWATERs itself has been involved in an governance. intellectual leadership role, while catalyzing support for policy reform and institutional These aspects are reflected in the contents of this innovation. issue. There is wide geographical representation in the articles and contributions featured. While Several contributions in this volume -by Dik Roth, there are specific contributions from Leon Hermans & Sharlene Gomes, and Anushiya Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka, several Srestha and Rajesh Sada- explore the issue of contributions draw on research projects that peri-urban water security in the context of rapid have a regional focus. At the same time, there are urbanization. Coupled with other stressors like several contributions from junior researchers at climate change and earthquakes, this process doctoral or Masters' level, with a large number of leads to a deepening of differential them being women. vulnerabilities, as demonstrated in the work of Anushiya and Rajesh. Over the years, there has been an upsurge of scholarship exploring rural-urban relationships A peri-urban context is fertile ground to study and transformations around water. This institutional transformation. Both statutory and research has served to challenge the non-statutory institutions co-exist. Social conventional dichotomy between rural and transition and heterogeneity mean that urban water supply in water resources planning groundwater management institutions can be in and research, urging researchers, policy-makers, flux. Sharlene Gomes and Leon Hermans use the and development practitioners to take a peri- New Institutional Economics framework to urban conceptual lens, that is, looking at how explore these interactions in the Gangetic deltas of India and Bangladesh. Dik Roth's contribution www.sawasjournal.org SAWAS JOURNAL Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2016 South Asian Water Studies points to the need for understanding the ways in issues of urbanization and peri-urbanization. which issues of urbanization, climate change, and They see this as a process unfolding parallel to water security are framed. the commodification of water. Hita Unnikrishnan and her co-authors explore the Sunil Thrikawala and his team suggest changes implications of the disappearance of urban water that are desired within the infrastructure of commons around Bangalore, while Prakash sewage treatment plants - especially on the lines Nelliyat explores the dimensions of rural-urban of institutional challenges in SriLanka. Fiona water transfers in Chennai. Both these processes Marshall raises the level of the debate and highlight the relationship between land redefines the peri-urban discourse arguing that ownership and water access, and human security there is a need to re-imagine the peri-urban not and well-being. only as a heterogeneous mosaic of ecological, institutional, and social transition, but as a In some cases the relationships are more subtle. context for studying technological and This is brought out in Anushree Singh's analysis of institutional innovation as well. the demise of traditional water harvesting systems in Bikaner. With the onset of modern The three book reviews presented in this special technologies and urbanization, the relationship issue are by junior researchers –re-enforcing the between ecology, technology, and institutions growing interest in the subject among future was eroded. Ansuhree's analysis suggests a close water professionals. Nihar Gokhale's ‘A review of relationship between ecological, technological, conflicts over natural resources in the global and institutional dimensions of water commons, South: conceptual approaches’ provides an and how urbanization can erode this coherence. exposition of the growing literature on conflict and cooperation over natural resources. It points Two papers located geographically at the ends of to the wide diversity of conceptual and a spectrum -on Mumbai in Western India and theoretical approaches used by scholars to study Darjeeling in the North-East- explore issues of these dynamics, and the continuum between m a r g i n a l i z a t i o n w i t h i n c i t i e s . N i d h i conflicts and cooperation. Aditya's review of Subramanyam and Charlotte MacAlister look at ‘Neoliberalism and water: complicating the story such issues within informal settlements in of reforms in Maharashtra’ is a timely critique of Mumbai, focusing on the high vulnerability of neo-liberalism, since it has impacted urban water these communities to climate change and urban governance. flooding.