Water governance and the politics of scale: How thinking critically about scale can help create better water governance

July 16th, 2012

Water governance and the politics of scale:

How thinking critically about scale can help create better water governance (pdf)

Dr. Emma S. Norman, Dr. Karen Bakker, and Dr. Christina Cook, University of British Columbia, Canada

Water is a flow resource which is constantly in motion via the hydrological cycle. This intensifies the likelihood of conflict between multiple users (e.g. industrial, agricultural, domestic), each of which may be able to draw on water at a different point: the classic ‘upstream versus downstream’ conundrum. Attempting to address these (and other) water conflicts is difficult, because political boundaries (e.g. parish, county, province, nation-state) do not overlap with hydrological boundaries ? most notably, the watershed, but also aquifer boundaries. The result? Many of the world’s most important rivers and aquifers are shared by at least two or more jurisdictions.

In fact, water management is often highly fragmented, despite the fact that water is one of the most interconnected flow resources on the planet. To give a simple example: some 20 departments in the Canadian federal government are responsible for some aspect of water management. When you add provincial and municipal water managers and regulators, as well as local users, the difficulty of managing water in a coordinated fashion becomes obvious.

This paper addresses one aspect of the broader water governance challenge: scale. Scale is a concept used by social scientists (especially geographers) to refer to the relationship between geographic (environmental) units and political (human) units of all sizes. Scale is important because the size of and relationships between natural and social units is critical to understanding and evaluating environmental governance, in general, and water governance in particular. A growing body of literature supports the argument that a scalar perspective is crucial for understanding water governance 1,2,3.

Why is scale an important issue for social scientists engaged with water issues? Because significant scalar reforms to water management have taken place in the past few decades. Although varied, these reforms often entail devolution to lower scales of management, increased citizen participation, new decision-making processes, and new types of community organisations (e.g. watershed committees)4, 5, 6. Indeed, one might argue that a global trend of rescaling of water management (and environmental management more broadly) is taking place, in which community management is advocated as a means of improving efficiency, access, and sustainability 7,8,9,10,11,12,13. This, in turn, is illustrative of a broader trend: the putative shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ in which non-governmental bodies, and particularly local community actors, play a more significant role in environmental management than in the past 14,15,16,17,18.

As noted above, systems currently in place to govern water follow (and often reify) political demarcations that have the effect of consolidating water management at a particular territorial scale. The complex interconnections of human-environmental issues exemplified by the interscalar and politically complex nature of flow resources such as water complicate and challenge governance. For example, the water-intensive mining industry illustrates the complexities of power dynamics across multiple scales. Decisions made in business headquarters far away from the site of extraction have direct and immediate impacts on the social and environmental conditions for the home community 19. Another classic example is the development of rivers for hydroelectric power. The benefits of power are “spreadable” across a wider community, however, the costs are often narrowly defined for the communities and ecosystems close to the river (see Vogel20 for discussion on Columbia River in North America and Sneddon and Fox3 on the Lower Mekong Delta inVietnam).

Attention to the process and practices which seem to fix scales (that is the units at which certain governance is undertaken) is an important part of this work. However, there is still great need both in the natural resource management sector, and within the academy, to continue to understand how the construction of these scales of governance impact water resources.

In response to this need, we edited a themed section in the journal Water Alternatives (in February 2012) that examines the intersection of the politics of scale and water governance in depth21. The themed section makes the following contributions: (i) analysis of the processes through which scale is socially constructed, which enables engagement with water governance beyond the fixity of territory; (ii) engagement with current processes of rescaling, and critical analyses of new scales such as the watershed (which have very real impacts while simultaneously being socially constructed); and (iii) an analysis of the changes wrought in power dynamics, organisations, institutions (understood in the sociological sense of rules, norms, and customs), and social networks via these rescaling processes. The papers present a critical realist perspective on scale ? fully aware of the nuances of the social construction of scale, yet cognisant of the very real, material impacts of scale and rescaling processes.

Each paper in the themed section highlights the need for continued engagement in discussions of water governance and the politics of scale. The papers show the need for closer attention to the processes and interrelationships between power and social networks in water governance, with particular reference to both institutional dynamics and scalar constructions. In closing, the observations that there is nothing inherent about scale 22 and nothing inherent about water politics 23 underscore the need to continue to refine our analyses of the water governance in all of its complexities.

In short, bringing conversations of water governance and debates of the politics of scale together reveals that “the unexamined use of scalar (or any other) categories is no substitute for the hard work of geo-historical synthesis” 24. That is, analyses of the politics of scale provide useful insights into understanding the complex dynamics of the governance of flow resources such as water; however, it is only a piece of the work in understanding water governance. Examining the politics of scale in water governance shows the need for closer attention to the inter-relationships between power and social networks in studies of water governance, with particular reference to both institutional dynamics and scalar constructions.

To see the full set of papers visit www.water-alternatives.org, Volume 5 (Issue 1) February 2012 (open-access).

References

1. Swyngedouw, E. (1999), Modernity and hybridity: Nature, Regeneracionismo, and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape, 1890 – 1930, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 89, No. 3, pp. 443-465.

2. Feitelson, E., and I. Fischhendler (2009), Spaces of water governance: the case of Israeland its neighbors, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 99, No. 4, pp. 728-745.

3. Sneddon, C., and C. Fox (2006), Rethinking transboundary waters: A critical hydropolitics of the Mekongbasin, Political Geography, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 181-202.

4. Bennett, V., S. Dávila-Poblete, and M. Nieves Rico, eds. Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America.Pittsburgh:University ofPittsburgh Press, 2005.

5. Castro, J.E. 2008. Water struggles, citizenship and governance in Latin America. Development 51(1): 72-76.

6. Boelens, R., D. Getches, et al., Eds. (2010). Out of the Mainstream. Water Rights, Politics and Identity.LondonandWashington,D.C., Earthscan.

7. Sabatier, P., W. Focht, M. Lubell, Z. Trachtenberg, A. Vedlitz, and M. Matlock (Eds.) (2005), Swimming Up-stream: Collaboration Approaches to Watershed Management The MIT Press,Cambridge,MA.

8. Conca, K. (2006), Governing Water: Contentious Transnational Politics and Global Institution Building MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

9. Agrawal, A., and M. Lemos (2007), A greener revolution in the making? Environmental governance in the 21st Century, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 36-45.

10. Plummer, R., and D. Armitage (2007), Crossing boundaries, crossing scales: The evolution of environment and resource co-management, Geography Compass, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 834-849.

11. Marshall, G. (2008), Nesting, subsidiarity, and community-based environmental governance beyond the local level, International Journal of the Commons, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 75-98.

12. Berry, K. A., and E. Mollard (2010), Social participation in water governance and management, Earthscan, London, UK.

13. Reed, M. (2010), Rescaling environmental governance, rethinking the state: A three-dimensional review, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 555-582.

14. Rhodes, R. (1996), The new governance: Governing without government, Political Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 652-657.

15. Pierre, J. (Ed.) (2000), Debating Governance: Authority, Steering, and Governance, New York.

16. Batterbury, S., and J. Fernando (2006), Rescaling governance and the impacts of political and environmental decentralization: An introduction, World Development Vol. 34, No.11, pp. 1851-1863.

17. Gunningham, N. (2009), The new collaborative environmental governance: The localization of regulation., Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 36, No.1, pp. 145-166.

18. Perreault, T., and G. Bridge (2009), Environmental governance, in The companion to environmental geography, edited by D. D. Castree, D.; Liverman, D. and Rhoads, B., pp. 475-397, Blackwell., Oxford, UK.

19. Budds, J., and L. Hinojosa (2012), Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: The co-production of waterscapes in Peru Walter Alternatives, Vol. 5, No.1, pp. 119-137.

20. Vogel, E. (2012), Parcelling out the Watershed: The Recurring Consequences of Organising Columbia River Management within a Basin-Based Territory.”Water Alternatives Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 161-90

21. Norman, E.S., Bakker, K., and Cook, C. (2012), Introduction to the Themed Section: Water governance and the politics of scale, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 52-61.

22. Brown, C.J., and M. Purcell. (2005), There’s Nothing Inherent About Scale: Political Ecology, the Local Trap, and the Politics of Development in the Brazilian Amazon.” Geoforum Vol. 36, No. 5, pp. 607-24.

23. Ingram, H. (1990), Water politics: continuity and change, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

24. Sayer, A. (1989), The ‘new’ regional geography and problems of narrative, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 253-276.

A printable and pdf version of the article is available here.

Dr. Emma S. Norman is an Assistant Professor of geography at Michigan Technological University (MTU). Prior to joining MTU, Emma was a faculty member in the Native Environmental Science Program at Northwest Indian College (Washington State) and was a post-doctoral fellow with the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on transboundary water governance, political ecology, and social justice. For more information contact her at Emma.Norman@ubc.ca (esnorman@mtu.edu after August 20, 2012) or visit www.EmmaNorman.net.

Dr. Karen Bakker is Professor, Canada Research Chair, and Director of the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia. Named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 in 2011, Dr. Bakker is a Rhodes Scholar with a PhD from Oxford University. Fluent in French and Spanish, and the author of over 100 academic publications (including sole-authored books with Oxford and Cornell University Press), Dr Bakker regularly advises international and non-governmental organizations on water policy. Her journal articles have appeared in top 10 ISI-ranked peer-reviewed journals in six fields: Development Studies, Economics, Environmental Studies, Geography, Political Science, and Urban Studies. Her current research interests include water privatization, transboundary water governance, water security, and social movement mobilization in Latin America. She can be reached at bakker@geog.ubc.ca.

Dr. Christina Cook completed her Ph.D. at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at UBC in 2011, where she was also a research fellow at the Program on Water Governance. Christina practiced law in Canada and the Middle East prior to commencing her doctoral studies. Her research interests include water security, jurisdictional fragmentation in water governance, water quality, and risk and water governance. She has published in Global Environmental Change and Water Alternatives. She can be reached at clcook@alumni.ubc.ca.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.

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