Critical issue: Water

Globally, billions lack access to safe water and sanitation. Despite widespread recognition that the situation is unacceptable, the tragedy of this failure persists. The STEPS Centre’s work on water and sanitation, headed by Lyla Mehta, examines the politics and pathways of mainstream water and sanitation policy and practice in the context of climate change in order to develop alternative approaches to sustainable, socially just and equitable water and sanitation practices. Practices that are able to embrace complex local dynamics, and to promote decision-making processes and institutional arrangements that embrace diversity and meet the priorities of poorer disenfranchised groups.

The interplay between the social, technological and ecological dimensions of water and sanitation needs greater recognition and are being explored in the Centre’s research. This includes water access on the peri-urban fringes of growing cities, the water-energy-food nexus, water security and dam-building and how people deal with uncertainty about the climate, disease or natural disasters like floods in relation to water.

Analysis of water politics by Jan Selby illustrates that formal agreements can entrench domination instead of cooperation as evidenced by the Israeli-Palestine water agreement. Other research has critiqued populist and policy ideas about water wars, showing that water scarcity is more often a result of conflict than the cause.  Research on riverine water and groundwater resources show that while the likely intensification of heavy rainfall under climate change is likely to exacerbate floods, it may also bring benefits of increased groundwater recharge. Increased use of groundwater may therefore be a logical adaptation strategy in the water sector in many tropical and sub-tropical regions. However, utilising such climate information for real-world decision making and planning in the water resource sector remains a substantial challenge.

Multi-disciplinary research at Sussex is seeking to develop methodologies to integrate these scenarios of future hydro-climatic conditions with other socio-economic and ecological drivers of change in both water supply and demand, using the ‘Pathways’ analysis approach pioneered at the STEPS Centre.

Experts

• Jeremy Allouche, STEPS Centre Research Fellow, IDS Research Fellow
• Lyla Mehta, STEPS Centre water and sanitation convenor, IDS Research Fellow
• Jan Selby, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, School of Global Studies
• Martin Todd, Professor in Climate Change, School of Global Studies

Resources

Water and Justice: Peri-urban pathways in Delhi, a STEPS Centre short film

Eldis Guide on Climate Change and Water

Climate Change, Hydro-Conflicts and Human Security CLICO research on water-climate-conflict issues in Cyprus and Sudan as well as Israel-Palestine.

Publications

• Allouche, J. (2009) Water and State Formation, in J. Warner and K. Wegerich (eds) The Politics of Water, London: Routledge
• Allouche, J. (2008) Water Sector Evolution Scenarios: The Case of Europe (with M. Finger and P. Luis-Manso), Water Policy, 10.3: 221-238
• Allouche, J. (2007) Water and Liberalisation: European Water Scenarios, (edited with M. Finger and P. Luis-Manso), London: IWA Publishing [European Commission Community Research]
• Allouche, J., Nicol, A. and Mehta, L. (2011) 'Water Security: towards the human securitization of water?', The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations No 1.Vol 12:153 – 171
• Andersson, L., Wilk, J., Todd, M.C., Hughes, D., Kniveton, D., Layberry, R., and Savenije, H.H.G., 2006. Scenarios of the impact of changes of climate and water use on water flow in the Okavango River. Journal of Hydrology, 331, 43-57
• Mehta, L. (2006) Water and human development: capabilities, entitlements and power, UNDP Human Development Resource Office occasional paper
• Mehta, L. (2005) The Politics and Poetics of Water: Naturalising Scarcity in Western India, Delhi: Orient Longman
• Mehta, L., Marshall, F., Movik, S., Stirling, A., Shah, E., Smith, A. and Thompson, J. (2007) Liquid Dynamics: challenges for sustainability in water and sanitation, STEPS Working Paper 6, Brighton: STEPS Centre
• Mehta, L. and Movik, S. (2011) Shit Matters: The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation, Rugby: Practical Action Publishing
• Mehta, L., Thompson, L. and Nleya, N. (2010) 'Water Rights and State Management in India and South Africa' in Thompson, L. and Tapscott, C. (eds), Citizenship and Social Movements: Perspectives from the Global South, London: Zed Books
• Movik, S. and Mehta, L. (2009) 'Going with the Flow? Directions of Innovation in the Water and Sanitation Domain', STEPS Working Paper 29, Brighton: STEPS Centre
• Nicol, A. and Kaur, N. (2009) 'Adapting to Climate Change in the Water Sector', ODI Background Notes , London: Overseas Development Institute
• Nicol, A. Mehta, L. and Allouche, J. (2012) ''Some for All?' Politics and Pathways in Water and Sanitation', IDS Bulletin 43.2, Brighton: IDS
• Osman-Elasha, B. (ed) (2009), ‘Managing Africa’s water in a changing climate’, Joto Afrika 2, Arid Lands Information Network and IDS: Kenya and Brighton
• Selby, J. Water, (2002) Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; IB Tauris, 2003
• Selby, J. (2003) . 'Dressing up domination as ‘cooperation’: the case of Israeli-Palestinian water relations'. Review of International Studies, 29 , pp 121-138
• Selby, J. & Hoffmann, C. (2011). 'Water, conflict and migration in the Eastern Mediterranean’. Case Study 12, UK Government Office of Science, Foresight Migration and Global Environmental Change (London: GoS, 2011).
• Taylor, R.G and co-authors. Dependence of groundwater resources on extreme rainfall: evidence from East Africa. Nature Climate Change (in review)
• Todd M.C. and co-authors, Uncertainty in climate change impacts on basin-scale freshwater resources – preface to the special issue: the QUEST-GSI methodology and synthesis of results, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 1035-1046, 2011