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