handling rivers the clumsy way
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Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way. How to NOT filter out Uncomfortable Knowledge of Wicked Problems. Dipak Gyawali Nepal Academy of Science and Technology and Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, GPO Box 3971, Kathmandu, Nepal e-mail: [email protected]. National Water Policies - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way
Dipak Gyawali
Nepal Academy of Science and Technology and Nepal Water Conservation Foundation,
GPO Box 3971, Kathmandu, Nepale-mail: [email protected]
How to NOT filter out Uncomfortable Knowledge of Wicked Problems
Dipak Gyawali, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation
National Water Policies= Rain in Colorado Desert
Why?
Too much ‘Eagle Eye’ Science
Too little‘Toad’s Eye’ Science
Both are necessary but neither alone is sufficient:
ES lacks grounded roots while TS lacks perspective
Urban
UrbanRural DesakotaRegion
Desakota: the co-penetration of rural and urban systems
What technology? Whose technology? Hegemony of Runaway Technology??!!
August spring
July spring
Green water
Blue water
Blue water
Peak monsoon
Early monsoon
Monsoon rains fill the ‘water tower’ and create the buffer for the arid season that keeps rivers alive!!
Dry period water level
Foothill permanent spring
Foothill spring
‘Real’ versus ‘Imagined’ Himalayan Water Tower
DipakG based on MadhukarU “Ponds and Landslides”
Social Response to Groundwater Overdraft
State Hierarchism Resource Scarcity, Risk Management,
Public Goods
Voter/Consumer FatalismResource Lottery, Risk Absorption, Club Good
Market Individualism Resource Abundance, Risk Taking, Private Goods
Activist Egalitarianism Resource Depletion, Risk
Sensitization, Common Pool Goods
Source: D. Gyawali 2003. Rivers, Technology and Society, Zed Books, London
Rhine Cleanup
Mono-cultural Hierarchical Regime1946 Dutch Lead – 1950-1963 Intl Commission – 1976 1st AgreementNational position entrenchment : salt the only issue1986 Sandoz Spill
Dualism of Public-Private PartnershipDutch Minister Neelie Kroes and McKinsey ReportNot salt but environment becomes issueNon-binding objectives: implementation at lowest level
Clumsy Pluralism1993, 1995 FloodsNGO demand for restoration of floodplains: 1994 NGO observer status, 1997 NGOs to implement some of the ICPR programs
Wicked Problems examined with Uncomfortable Knowledge to find Clumsy Solutions
• Water problems, urban problems, climate change – are all wicked problems with nested layers of more trouble that won’t go away soon and cannot even be easily defined. Forget conventional “planning”!
• Uncomfortable knowledge generated from a plethora of “toad’s eye” to “eagle eye” views should be both listened to as well as responded to.
• Finding solutions means not just within neat procedural hierarchism, but also within the clumsiness of market individualism (more often than not very informal) and civic egalitarianism.
• It requires rethinking sustainability: understand how households perceive and believe what makes them sustainable over generations; replace sustainability with flexibility (that avoids “lock-ins”) and “below nation-state” security where decisions are being made anyway.