EDITORIAL PREAMBLE: The first issue of Water Alternatives presents a set of papers that investigates the inherently political nature of water resources management. A Water, Politics and Development initiative was started at ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany) in 2004/2005 in the context of a national-level discussion on the role of social science in global (environmental) change research. In April 2005 a roundtable workshop with this title was held at ZEF, sponsored by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation) and supported by the NKGCF (Nationales Komitee fur Global Change Forschung/German National Committee on Global Change Research), aiming to design a research programme in the German context. In 2006 it was decided to design a publication project on a broader, European and international basis. The Irrigation and Water Engineering Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands joined as a co-organiser and co-sponsor. The collection of papers published in this issue of Water Alternatives is one of the products of the publication project. As part of the initiative a session on Water, Politics and Development was organised at the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2007, where most of the papers in this collection were presented and discussed. Through this publication, the Water, Politics and Development initiative links up with other initiatives simultaneously ongoing, for instance the 'Water governance ? challenging the consensus' project of the Bradford Centre for International Development at Bradford University, UK. At this point in time, the initiative has formulated its thrust as 'framing a political sociology of water resources management'. This, no doubt, is an ambitious project, methodologically, theoretically as well as practically. Through the compilation of this collection we have started to explore whether and how such an endeavour might make sense. The participants in the initiative think it does, are quite excited about it, and are committed to pursue it further. To succeed the project has to be a collective project, of a much larger community than the present contributors. All readers are invited to comment on sense, purpose and content of this endeavour to profile and strengthen critical and public sociologies of water resources management.

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Water, Politics and Development: Framing a Political Sociology of Water Resources Management

This paper offers a conceptual approach to explore the complex dynamics of floodplains as fully coupled human-water systems. A number of hydrologists have recently investigated the impact of human activities (such as flood control measures, land-use changes, and settlement patterns) on the frequency and severity of floods. Meanwhile, social scientists have shown how interactions between society and waters in deltas and floodplain areas, including the frequency and severity of floods, have an impact on the ways in which social relations unfold (in terms of governance processes, policies, and institutions) and societies are organised (spatially, politically, and socially). However, we argue that the interactions and associated feedback mechanisms between hydrological and social processes remain largely unexplored and poorly understood. Thus, there is a need to better understand how the institutions and governance processes interact with hydrological processes in deltas and floodplains to influence the frequency and severity of floods, while (in turn) hydrological processes co-constitute the social realm and make a difference for how social relations unfold to shape governance processes and institutions. Our research goal, therefore, is not in identifying one or the other side of the cycle (hydrological or social), but in explaining the relationship between them: how, when, where, and why they interact, and to what result for both social relations and hydrological processes? We argue that long time series of hydrological and social data, along with remote sensing data, can be used to observe floodplain dynamics from unconventional approaches, and understand the complex interactions between water and human systems taking place in floodplain areas, across scales and levels of human impacts, and within different hydro-climatic conditions, socio-cultural settings, and modes of governance.

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Towards understanding the dynamic behaviour of floodplains as human-water systems

The field of environmental justice emerged at a crossroads of social movements, public policy, and academic research ‐ what we call environmental justice praxis. Now, the field finds itself again at a crossroads as it expands to address new populations, problems, and places. In this article, we first outline the competing definitions of the problems of environmental inequality and environmental racism from the perspective of social movements, policy, and research. Second, we identify the expansion of the field in two key areas: new issues and constituencies and new places and sites of analysis ‐ specifically the relationship between the local and the global. This expansion leads to increasingly sophisticated spatial methodologies and social theories to examine problems of environmental injustice. Finally, we identify three promising trends in the field: refining the mechanisms and processes of environmental injustice, a renewed focus on the state and the environment as key actors, and a revitalized focus on the interactive and continually evolving relationship between scholarship and social movements.

Environmental Justice at the Crossroads

http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/pub/seager/Seager_etal_QSR.pdf

Blueprints for Medieval hydroclimate

Increasing human appropriation of freshwater resources presents a tangible limit to the sustainability of cities, agriculture, and ecosystems in the western United States. Marc Reisner tackles this theme in his 1986 classic Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Reisner’s analysis paints a portrait of region-wide hydrologic dysfunction in the western United States, suggesting that the storage capacity of reservoirs will be impaired by sediment infilling, croplands will be rendered infertile by salt, and water scarcity will pit growing desert cities against agribusiness in the face of dwindling water resources. Here we evaluate these claims using the best available data and scientific tools. Our analysis provides strong scientific support for many of Reisner’s claims, except the notion that reservoir storage is imminently threatened by sediment. More broadly, we estimate that the equivalent of nearly 76% of streamflow in the Cadillac Desert region is currently appropriated by humans, and this figure could rise to nearly 86% under a doubling of the region’s population. Thus, Reisner’s incisive journalism led him to the same conclusions as those rendered by copious data, modern scientific tools, and the application of a more genuine scientific method. We close with a prospectus for reclaiming freshwater sustainability in the Cadillac Desert, including a suite of recommendations for reducing region-wide human appropriation of streamflow to a target level of 60%.

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Reclaiming freshwater sustainability in the Cadillac Desert.

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Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West

Spanish irrigation organizations are well-known for their self- governance and efficacy, a result of their autonomous operation and the effectiveness of their resolutions, as well as the recogni- tion of the State, as argued in this essay that also explains their his- torical background. Legal recognition of collective management institutions, organized around self-government formulas, is fun- damental to ensure their continuity, autonomy and efficacy.

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Organizaciones tradicionales de gestión del agua: importancia de su reconocimiento legal para su pervivencia. El caso de España

Las organizaciones de regantes espanolas son conocidas por sus caracteristicas de autogobierno y eficacia, producto de su funcionamiento autonomo y de la ejecutividad de sus resoluciones y del reconocimiento del Estado, como se argumenta en este articulo, donde ademas se demuestra su raigambre historica. El reconocimiento juridico de instituciones de gestion colectiva, organizadas segun formulas de autogobierno, resulta fundamental para asegurar su continuidad, autonomia y eficacia.

En este articulo se presentan dos tipos de organizaciones que administran pequenos sistemas de agua potable: un comite de usuarios y un organismo operador. El objetivo es comparar la toma de decisiones y la situacion financiera de los sistemas San Miguel Tlazintla y El Cardonal. El primero esta a cargo de los usuarios, quienes realizan la operacion y el mantenimiento, eligen un comite para la administracion y establecen las cuotas que se cobran por el agua entubada. En el segundo, una junta de gobierno y un director general se encargan de contratar y dirigir al personal operativo y administrativo. Se concluye que el comite de usuarios cubre todos sus costos; por el contrario, el organismo operador recibe subsidios municipales.

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Toma de decisiones y situación financiera en pequeños sistemas de agua potable: dos casos de estudio en El Cardonal, Hidalgo, México

The irrigation districts water user associations (modulos) have features that differ from those of, also self-governed, traditional irrigation organizations. The first objective of this article is to characterize distinctive features. The second objective is to explore, in the modulos, the presence of informal local organizations. The comparative method (between types of organizations and between modulos) as well as the ethnographic method (at the modulos) is used. The results encompass characterization of distinctive features and fact based determination of presence of local organizations in the modulos. The case studies of modulos, in relation to the universe of irrigation districts, are limited. However, the approach is novel, few studies contrast organizational types and there are few ethnographies from the local viewpoint for the modulos. It is shown that there are substantive differences between the organizational types, and that despite the rigidity and centralization of the organizational design of the modulos, there is local organizational effervescence.

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Jacinta Palerm Viqueira

Papers

Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West

Organizaciones tradicionales de gestión del agua: importancia de su reconocimiento legal para su pervivencia. El caso de España

Organizaciones tradicionales de gestión del agua: importancia de su reconocimiento legal para su pervivencia. El caso de España

Toma de decisiones y situación financiera en pequeños sistemas de agua potable: dos casos de estudio en El Cardonal, Hidalgo, México

Caracterización de los módulos de los distritos de riego y presencia de organizaciones locales