The South Asia region is one of the most unstable in the world, having experienced multiple wars. In recent years, water disputes have intensified between this region's countries, including Pakistan ...and India, as water is intertwined with their security and has been securitized. Indeed, securitization is one of the strategies that has the power of representation of water as a security issue. The study examines how Pakistan has represented the Indus transboundary waters as a security issue through linguistic constructs, especially to motivate domestic audiences.
Dutch flood management policy was for a long time dominated by a protection-oriented approach. However, in the last 10 years a more risk-oriented approach has gained ground, denoted by the ...introduction of the concept of multilayered safety in 2009 in the National Water Plan. Since then, the dominant policy coalition focusing on resistance has found itself competing with a growing community that emphasizes the importance of resilience. In this paper we analyze the process of policy learning in Dutch flood risk management toward a more resilient paradigm, and the resulting outcomes in terms of regime change and stability. To understand the actual degree of change we unpack the mechanisms of path dependency characterizing the current flood policy regime and how they influence the impact of policy learning in terms of regime change. We conclude that specific mechanisms of path dependency, for example, the existing power asymmetries between competing coalitions and the intricate complexity of flood policies, prevent institutional change, but cannot prevent ideas about resilience slowly gaining more impact.
We develop a Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index (SeVI) for climate change affected communities in seven unions11Lowest tier of Local Government in Bangladesh. of Koyra upazilla22Sub-district. in ...south-western coastal Bangladesh. We survey 60 households from each union to collect data on various vulnerability domains and socioeconomic indicators. The SeVI aggregate these collected data using a composite indicator index, where a relative weight is assigned to each indicator with a view of obtaining weighted average index scores for different vulnerability domains in different unions. Results suggest that southern and south-eastern unions are relatively more vulnerable, which are the most exposed to natural hazards and mostly surrounded by the mangrove forest Sundarbans. Furthermore, social, economic and disaster frequency are found as more influential indicators to adaptive capacity, sensitivity and exposure respectively in Koyra. This pragmatic approach is useful to figure out and monitor socioeconomic vulnerability and/or assess potential adaptation-policy effectiveness in data scarce regions by incorporating scenarios into the SeVI for baseline comparison.
•We present the first empirical study on index by obtaining weights for each indicators on basis of local people and scholars’ opinion.•Our results suggest that high dependency on nature for livelihood propagates socioeconomic vulnerability more in hazard-prone areas.•The proposed methodological-framework of socioeconomic vulnerability index is capable to assess the vulnerability status between and within areas in a broader spectrum of a region.
Reports predict frighteningly serious escalations of the controversy between Afghanistan and its neighbours over transboundary waters. However, a postulated future is not empirical evidence. This ...paper focuses on Afghanistan’s relations with Iran. It aims to examine the evolution of the hydropolitical relations between Afghanistan and Iran over the Helmand River Basin and to identify where and how changes in the relationship occurred over the past century. The Transboundary Waters Interaction NexuS (TWINS) model is used to map the evolution of hydropolitical relations between the two riparian states. The paper also explores the dynamics of the political relations between the states in order to understand the potential for greater cooperation. While there is a complete disconnect between the two sides in terms of water management, the paper’s historical analysis shows that the frightening claims are not backed by facts on the ground and that they misrepresent the hydropolitical relations as they exist within the broader geopolitical context. The paper concludes that for both Afghanistan and Iran over the period of Western intervention and civil war, the water controversy has constantly been overshadowed by other priority concerns such as security, economy, and the quest for the stabilisation of Afghanistan. Enhanced water cooperation therefore depends on a change in the nature of geopolitical relations between the two countries and on the creation of a collective identity by Afghanistan and Iran over the Helmand River Basin.
In the absence of a transboundary water agreement between riparian states of Harirud River Basin, downstream states—Iran and Turkmenistan—have adopted a resource-capturing policy through the ...construction of Doosti Dam in the lower Harirud River Basin when the upstream state—Afghanistan—was engaged in social unrest during 1980s to the early 2000s. While Doosti Dam has a high potential of supplying water for major cities in Turkmenistan and Iran, its flow has declined due to climate changes and drought in the basin. The paper found that Iran accuses Afghanistan of blocking the flow of water through the construction of Salma Dam, whereas some Afghan and Iranian scholars critique Iran’s water management approach for water shortages through construction of dams and employment of unsustainable irrigation approaches in the lower Harirud River Basin. Additionally, the hydro-hegemony theory was critiqued as the theory under-estimates the broader role of outside basin players in influencing and reshaping the hydro-politics of a shared watercourse. Finally, it was concluded that the rapid drawdown of the US forces from Afghanistan along with the establishment of a fragile, weak, and politically unrecognized government-Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan—under Taliban administration—helped Iran to reinforce its hydro-hegemonic potential in the basin.
Abstract
This synthesis paper explores the reasons hindering water cooperation between India and Pakistan on the Indus River Basin. It argues that both domestic and international-level elements ...narrow the size of the ‘win-sets’ which make water cooperation between the two states highly challenging. Not only state actors but also the domestic actors in both India and Pakistan have repeatedly played ‘water games’. Further, due to long-standing geopolitical and territorial conflicts between India and Pakistan, the strategies pursued so far by these states including ‘securitization’, ‘issue-linkage’ and ‘alliance strategies’ as leverage mechanisms, have also contributed to the lack of cooperation in their water realm.
This article shows how Bangladesh and India intentionally maintain the status quo for the Brahmaputra River at the transboundary level, using material and ideational resources. Results show that ...India wants to reduce its hegemonic vulnerabilities and Bangladesh aims to maintain its control over the Brahmaputra river, simultaneously building its technical and negotiation skills. We conclude that the underlying processes of maintaining the status quo can be comprehended as 'non-decision making'. The analysis presented will help policy actors to push towards a forward-looking climate change adaptation planning for the Brahmaputra River.
This edited volume examines the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands of Africa, the Middle ...East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia. Changes in drylands are happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of often common land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. At the same time, powerful narratives about the drylands as ‘wastelands’ and their ‘backward’ inhabitants continue to hold sway, legitimizing interventions for development, security, and conservation, informing re-emerging frontiers of investment (for agriculture, extraction, infrastructure), and shaping new dryland identities. The chapters in this volume discuss the politics of change triggered by forces as diverse as the global land and resource rush, the expansion of new Information and Communication Technologies, urbanization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of violent extremism. While recognizing that changes are co-produced by differently positioned actors from within and outside the drylands, this volume presents the dryland’s point of view. It therefore takes the views, experiences, and agencies of dryland dwellers as the point of departure to not only understand the changes that are transforming their lives, livelihoods, and future aspirations, but also to highlight the unexpected spaces of contestation and innovation that have hitherto remained understudied. This edited volume will be of much interest to students, researchers, and scholars of natural resource management, land and resource grabbing, political ecology, sustainable development, and drylands in general. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
In the past decades Dutch flood defence infrastructure has met with a growing societal awareness of landscape and cultural values, of the importance of local livelihoods, and increasingly strong ...claims and demands for active citizen involvement in decision-making and planning processes that change people's life-worlds. These have wrought important political and institutional changes in the flood security domain: participatory and environmental procedures are now part and parcel of flood defence decision making. This article points at the contradictions in Dutch-style inclusive decision-making. Water problems, it is assumed, are better tackled by more inclusive decision-making processes, while more integrated regional land-use planning is explored to accommodate multiple interests. Yet, greater scope for participation seems to go with a strong tendency towards depoliticization. In the process the stakes may become so fuzzy that participants risk losing interest in participating and may ‘exit’ or ‘voice’ in different fora. In some cases, participatory processes were still in train when a decision had already been taken. Echoing the concerns of Chantal Mouffe and others, we will argue that ‘the political’ may also be obscured at the peril of turning out self-defeating. This calls into question whether in the case of the Netherlands ‘inclusive governance’ is always progress. We focus on how these processes have been and are governed, what this means in terms of ‘stakeholder involvement’, and whether ‘inclusiveness’ is always the solution. We review a number of experiences in Dutch coastal, lake and river landscapes — the River Meuse, the Overdiepse polder, and the IJsselmeer — with a special focus on the ‘governance’ aspects in relation to the issue of inclusiveness in the decision-making processes involved.
•The article discusses inclusive flood risk management in the Netherlands.•It focuses on stakeholder involvement in planning and decision-making.•Depoliticised approaches are not conducive to inclusive development.•We argue for participation that takes ‘the political’ as point of departure.
Climate change adaptation creates significant challenges for decision makers in the flood risk‐management policy domain. Given the complex characteristics of climate change, adaptive approaches ...(which can be adjusted as circumstances evolve) are deemed necessary to deal with a range of uncertainties around flood hazard and its impacts and associated risks. The question whether implementing adaptive approaches is successful highly depends upon how the administrative tradition of a country enable or hinder applying a more adaptive approach. In this article, we discern how the administrative tradition in the Netherlands, England, and New Zealand impact upon the introduction of adaptive flood risk management approaches. Using the concept of administrative traditions, we aim to explain the similarities and/or differences in how adaptive strategies are shaped and implemented in the three different state flood management regimes and furthermore, which aspects related to administrative traditions are enablers or barriers to innovation in these processes.
摘要
在英国、新西兰和荷兰引入适应性洪水风险管理：行政传统的影响
气候变化适应为洪水风险管理政策领域的决策者创造了重要挑战。考虑到气候变化的复杂特征, 适应性措施（可随情况的发展进行相应调整）被视为处理一系列关于洪水灾害不确定性、灾害影响以及相关风险的必要手段。适应性措施的实施是否是成功的？这高度取决于一个国家的行政传统如何帮助或阻碍应用更具适应性的方法。笔者在本文中识别了荷兰、英国和新西兰地区的行政传统如何影响适应性洪水风险管理措施的引入。通过应用行政传统概念, 笔者致力阐述适应性策略在三个不同国家的洪水管理制度下是如何形成和实施的, 以及这一过程出现的相似点和不同点, 并解释了与行政传统相关的哪些方面促进或阻碍了这些过程的创新。
Resumen
Introduciendo la gestión adaptativa de riesgos de inundación en Inglaterra, Nueva Zelanda y Países Bajos: El impacto de las tradiciones administrativas
La adaptación al cambio climático crea cambios significativos para los que toman decisiones en el sector de política de gestión de riesgos. Dadas las características complejas del cambio climático, los acercamientos adaptativos (que pueden ser ajustados según la evolución de las circunstancias) se consideran necesarios para lidiar con el rango de incertidumbre en el tema de los peligros de inundación y sus impactos y riesgos asociados. La pregunta de si el implementar acercamientos adaptativos es exitoso depende de cómo la tradición administrativa de un país habilita o dificulta el utilizar un acercamiento más adaptativo. En este artículo discernimos cómo la tradición administrativa en países bajos, Inglaterra y Nueva Zelanda tienen un impacto en el uso de aproximaciones adaptativas de gestión de riesgos de inundación. Al utilizar el concepto de las tradiciones administrativas, buscamos explicar las similitudes y/o diferencias en cómo las estrategias adaptativas obtienen su forma y son implementadas en tres diferentes regímenes de manejo de inundaciones estatales y asimismo, qué aspectos relacionados a las tradiciones administrativas son habilitadores o barreras para la innovación en estos procesos.
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