Urban Water Conflicts: Unesco-Ihp

ISBN-13: 9780415498630 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 344 str.

BERNARD BARRAQUE

Opis

Urban water conflicts, manifested first in Europe in the 19th century and observed nowadays in various forms in developing countries; characterize complex socioeconomic and institutional issues related to urban water management. The public versus private debate is frequently associated with conflicts over water and sanitation services. The less considered issue of centralization versus decentralization also needs to be taken in the same context as these are often intertwined. Therefore, a critical examination in a holistic way is important for better understanding urban water conflicts.

Urban Water Conflicts the output of a project by UNESCO 's International Hydrological Program on "Socioeconomic and Institutional Aspects in Urban Water Management" presents a collection of essays on socioeconomic and institutional aspects of urban water management, focusing on water and sanitation services. The book examines interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and analyzing urban water conflicts manifested in different ways and levels. Conflict analysis is addressed in some essays by taking into account economic, environmental, social dimensions of sustainability. The issue of institutional conflicts between different levels of government in relation to urban water management is also discussed in some case-studies.

O autorze

Bernard O. Barraqué is a French civil engineer holding a city planning degree from Harvard University, and a PhD in urban socio-economic issues from Paris University. He started his career as a consultant in urban environment policies, and progressively turned to research and teaching. He now is full time Research Director in the CNRS (French Science Centre), with the rank of professor, in environmental policies, in particular water. He is attached to CIRED, Centre International de Recherches sur l’Environnement et le Développement, which is co-tutored by AgroParisTech, PontsParisTech, Univeristy of Paris-Est and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and associated to the CNRS. Due to his inter-disciplinary profile, he also was the chair of the French National Committee of the UNESCO International Hydrological Program until 2010. He recently co-ordinated a collaborative project on payments for ecosystem services by water utilities to farmers in France and other developed countries (EVEC, acronym for Eau des Villes, Eau des Champs). He now co-ordinates EAU&3E, a research project on the sustainability of water and sanitation services in large cities in France, in particular with the city of Paris: environmental, economic, social and governance dimensions (see http://eau3e.hypotheses.org). He is member of the editorial boards of Water Policy, Espaces et Sociétés and Water Alternatives.