water (un)control and water (in)security
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Water (un)control and water (in)security; theorising an infrastructural framework for water apportionment and access
Bruce Lankford
Oxford Water Security, Risk and Society
Conference. April 2012.
available reliable supply rates: past,
current & future
own demand usage, impact & plans;
ratio of supply to net/gross demand;
productivity/efficiency;
nearby/distant neighbours’ usage,
ratios & recursive impact;
combined behaviours on the system
and environment;
ability to adapt/contribute/’save’
Water security and water sharing
The problem of matching a varying (when diminishing)
supply to rising demand over space and time is magnified
when sharing this dynamic matching between competing
users who have limited awareness of their:- I am using very
little water. It’s
your turn soon. But how do I know?
Look at all this paddy
rice… and now the
rains have stopped…
Equitable, reasonable, timely, efficient,
telegraphed water distribution between uses
and users, at medium to large scales, is
difficult, when not at height of rainy season.
To what extent does existing infrastructure
mediate this water distribution task?
Research problem voiced by Bos (1987);
“water management in future irrigation
schemes could be improved if systems
were designed in such a way that their
proper management would be as easy as
the mismanagement of existing systems.”
Infrastructure and security
In a world with growing water demand, closing river basins,
insufficient recording/measurement and climate &
meteorological variability/change:
Does water sharing define water security?
In other words, water securitisation via normative supply
augmentation (storage or water transfer) for one particular
set of uses/users or regions may:
Not remove wider water insecurities
Exacerbate shortage induced (perceived) inequities.
Never meet unlimited demand
Not fix underlying transparency & knowledge gaps
Water security and water sharing
Water control in the manner implied by Bolding et al, 1994: ‘Water control’ is central to the political economy
of water distribution…
Not a social pejorative: as in the political capture of water.
Water metacontrol is scalar architecture of water supply,
demand and sharing infrastructures, hierarchically and
spatially designed to produce water control outcomes
Water security outcomes: equitable, reasonable, timely,
efficient, telegraphed water apportionment to competing
users in face of rising demands & a limited variable supply.
Draws from irrigation design-management interactions and
applies to river basin scale.
Water share management alongside water demand and
supply management.
Water metacontrol and water
security
Automation, modernisation
Aggrandisation & high storage & transfer
Miniaturisation (Micro-storage/harvesting)
Environmentalisation (wetlands, soil moisture)
Facing a relative lack of water control/security
Attempting to enhance water control/security
Traditionalisation (form)
Simplification (function)
Current water infrastructural solutions (‘hydromentalities’)
Poor integration, unstructured and somewhat fashion driven: Across different water sectors over the river basin or aquifer – enables relative water grabbing?
Structuration and conjunctive designs
Applied to supply and demand mgt
Supply-share management = Over time to even
out periods of deficit by storing then sharing
surpluses (dams).
Supply-share management = Over space to even
out locations of deficits by moving surpluses.
(canal & pipe transfers & connections).
Demand-share management = reducing net or
gross demand via a variety of means (e.g. caps,
efficiency, metering, pipe density, leak repair).
Supply and demand infrastructure
contribute towards water sharing
Share infrastructure: To switch flows, to apportion water
to land & people, to determine patterns of distribution &
allocation; to raise or reduce water levels
Ministries of Environment &
Tourism / Power & Water
Ministry of Agriculture
Irrigation system
intake: Ministries
meet at head-
works: Water rights
legislation
embodied in this
structure
• Division operability • Division-flow sizing • Division-ratio sizing
• Hierarchies • Arrays/sequences • Densities
Architectural design of sharing – individual and collective/ cumulative
Supply-demand-share infrastructure selection
Share
infrastructure
Water metacontrol
architectures for
water sharing
Supply-share
infrastructure
Demand-share
infrastructure
Hierarchies, scales, nestedness
Meshing water sectors
& communities
Overcoming / selecting
water engineering
fashions
Sharing water properties &
benefits – volumes, timing,
depths, temperature
ranges, nutrients & silt
Sharing risks: floods,
pollution, severe drought
Fit to property rights / institutions
Iterative,
retuned,
revisited
Automation, modernisation
Aggrandisation & high storage & transfer
Miniaturisation (Micro-storage/harvesting)
Environmentalisation (wetlands, soil moisture)
Facing a relative lack of water control/security
Attempting to enhance water control/security
Traditionalisation
Simplification
Where are the Ford Model T and Formula One cars?
Automobiles: more than two designs possible. (Also conceive of cars for sharing road/urban spaces for people & environment)
In ‘water’; poor choice of mixed technologies ‘to fit’ through obscure consumer choice & market place or limited expert knowledge.
Structuration and conjunctive designs
Water metacontrol implies the design of infrastructure to
apportion water over a range of flows to meet complex
patterns of demands in localities and sectors within a
region/ basin/ aquifer at different scales of time, season
and space.
Water metacontrol influences the productivity, accuracy,
transparency, flexibility, equity and adequacy of water
distribution
The combination of demand, supply and share
management in parallel with institutions and infrastructure
hierarchically placed gives the means to apportion water
supply and drought to multiple spatially diverse water
uses/users.
Conclusions
Bolding, A., Mollinga, P.P. and Van Straaten, K., 1995. Modules for
Modernisation: Colonial Irrigation in India and the Technological
Dimension of Agrarian Change. The Journal of Development
Studies, Vol.31, No.6, pp.805-844.
Bos, M. G., 1987. Water management aspects of irrigation system
design, in Irrigation design for management Asian regional
symposium, Volume II, Discussions and Special Lectures, Kandy,
Sri Lanka, 16-18 February 1987. Hydraulics Research,
Wallingford, UK, pp.67-76.
References
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