Water Resources Allocation and Agriculture: Transitioning from Open to Regulated Access
The book brings together a range of leading scholars and practitioners to compile an international account of water allocation policies supporting a transition to sustainable water use in regions where agriculture is the dominant water use. In Section 1, the collection canvasses five key cross-cutting issues shaping the challenge of sustainable water allocation policy, such as legal and economic perspectives, the role of politics, the setting of environmental flows, and the importance of indigenous rights. Section 2 presents 13 national, state and transboundary case studies of water allocation policy, covering cases from Europe, the Americas, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific region. These case studies highlight novel and innovative elements of water allocation regimes, which respond to the cross-cutting issues addressed in Section 1, as well as local challenges and social and environmental imperatives. The book provides a comprehensive account of water allocation in a range of international settings and provides a reference point for practitioners and scholars worldwide wishing to draw on the latest advances on how to design and implement sustainable water allocation systems.
ISBN: 9781789062779 (print)
ISBN: 9781789062786 (eBook)
ISBN: 9781789062793 (ePUB)
Chapter 14: What are we allocating and who decides? Democratising understanding of groundwater and decisions for judicious allocations in India
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Published:August 2022
Uma Aslekar, Dhaval Joshi, Himanshu Kulkarni, 2022. "What are we allocating and who decides? Democratising understanding of groundwater and decisions for judicious allocations in India", Water Resources Allocation and Agriculture: Transitioning from Open to Regulated Access, Josselin Rouillard, Christina Babbitt, Edward Challies, Jean-Daniel Rinaudo
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Abstract
India is the largest user of groundwater in the world. With current dependency on the resource, challenges pertaining to management and governance of groundwater in the country have increased tremendously. To address these challenges, various policy and programmatic interventions have been devised and implemented by state and non-state actors. In this chapter, we question the techno-managerial nature of these solutions and propose a socio-hydrogeological approach that integrates the multidisciplinary and decentralised nature of groundwater problems. To illustrate this, we draw on case studies that have emerged as part of our work on strengthening participatory processes of aquifer monitoring and mapping, decentralised groundwater allocation for agricultural decisions and management strategies that evolve through local institutions. Various programmes are underway in the country aimed at improving participation in governance of groundwater resources. If we are to achieve our goals of collectively and sustainably managing this invisible resource, there is a need to adopt approaches that move beyond the techno-managerial paradigm and embody local ways of knowing, using, and managing groundwater.