Open AccessThe Politics of Water in South Asia
Author(s) -
Douglas Hill
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
trans/forming cultures ejournal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1833-8542
DOI - 10.5130/tfc.v1i2.255
Subject(s) - diversification (marketing strategy) , industrialisation , agriculture , politics , groundwater , geography , water resources , south asia , environmental planning , political science , water resource management , business , environmental science , sociology , ecology , engineering , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , marketing , law , biology , ethnology
Disputes over water are central to the political economy of development in South Asia. This paper looks at the way that the allocation of water is mediated by different kinds of state-society relations in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan by examining common property resource management issues from three different spatial scales: international, intra-national and intra-community. By doing so, we can begin to appreciate the complexity of problems in the management of water and the likely trends throughout the region. We do this by examining the contestations over rivers, canals, dams and groundwater. The role of agricultural change in contributing to the intensification of water usage in the rural areas is emphasised. Despite some diversification into non-agricultural activities in the rural areas and limited industrialisation in the urban areas, 70-80 percent of the region’s fresh water is utilised for agriculture at the present juncture