Through a comparison of two NGO coalitions in Cambodia and Vietnam advocating against the Xayaburi hydropower dam on the Mekong River, the book explores the intricate interactions of formal and informal rules and norms and how they...

The overall theme of this book concerns the multiplicity and complexities of discursive constructions of water in Western economies in relation to irrigation communities. The authors argue that the politics of place is given meaning in relation to local knowledges and within multiple and multiscalar institutional frameworks involved with the social, physical, economic and political practices associated with water. They are particularly concerned with water at the local level, including how it is exchanged, managed and given meaning.

Using case studies from Australia and the United...

Water has no respect for arbitrary, human-defined borders and institutions, and presents one of the most confounding governance challenges in contemporary natural resource management. This book proposes that sustainable water governance requires trans-jurisdictional water governance, defined as legal and policy responses to the conservation, management and use of water resources that cross administrative borders.

With considerable government, citizen and financial donor attention having been devoted to developing a range of international, transnational and national laws and policies to...

The provision of a safe and reliable water supply is a major challenge for the world's growing urban populations. This book investigates the implications of different developments in water technology and infrastructure for urban sustainability and the relationship between cities and nature.

The book begins by outlining a framework for analysing water technologies and systems, based on theories from critical urban geography, environmental philosophy and the philosophy of technology. It then analyses in detail what the sustainability implications are of different technical...

Rivers and their watersheds constitute some of the most dynamic and complex landscapes. Rivers have sustained human communities, and human societies have utilized and altered river flows in a number of ways for millennia. However, the level of human impact on rivers, and on watershed environments, has become acute during the last hundred years or so.

This book brings together empirical research on the changing conditions of a range of river basin environments in the contemporary world, including the history and culture of local societies living in these river basins. It provides...

The Nile River Basin supports the livelihoods of millions of people in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, principally as water for agriculture and hydropower. The resource is the focus of much contested development, not only between upstream and downstream neighbours, but also from countries outside the region. This book investigates the water, land and energy nexus in the Nile basin.

It explains how the current surge in land and energy investments, both by foreign actors as well as domestic investors, affects the hydropolitics in the region. It shows how the already strained...

The dramatic transformation of our planet by human actions has been heralded as the coming of the new epoch of the Anthropocene. Human relations with water raise some of the most urgent questions in this regard. The starting point of this book is that these changes should not be seen as the result of monolithic actions of an undifferentiated humanity, but as emerging from diverse ways of relating to water in a variety of settings and knowledge systems.

With its large population and rapid demographic and socioeconomic change, Asia provides an ideal context for examining how varied...

In recent years the water sector has undergone profound institutional, economic and political transformations. Some countries have encouraged privatization of water services, but in many cases this has provoked adverse reaction to such a neoliberal and market-based approach to this common shared but essential resource.

This book goes beyond the ideology of the public versus private water regime debate, by focusing on the results of these types of initiatives to provide better water services, particularly in urban settings. It provides numerous examples of alternative models, to...

River systems around the world are degraded and are being used unsustainably. Meeting this challenge requires the development of flexible regimes that have the potential to meet essential consumptive needs while restoring environmental flows. This book focuses on how water trading frameworks can be repurposed for environmental water recovery and aims to conceptualise the most appropriate role for law in supporting recovery through these frameworks.

The author presents a comprehensive study of the legal frameworks in four jurisdictions: the States of Oregon and Colorado in the western...