Controlling the Water Matching Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Management in India and Nepal

Irrigation has a long history and important developmental role in India and Nepal. Even then it is faced with critical challenges as new scarcities and environmental stresses emerge, for which understanding technology and institutional choices is vital. Through case studies conducted in these two countries, Controlling the Water explores the means of controlling water used in irrigation management, looking at the sources and technologies in practice, and the institutions evolving around them.

This volume shows the range of irrigation technologies developed in different agro-ecological zones-large-scale public canal systems; small-scale farmer-managed canal systems; ponds and tank irrigation systems; and groundwater-based and conjunctive use settings, including micro-hydel systems developed alongside irrigation. It thus portrays not only the complexities of water environments and systems in irrigation, but also the diversities present in technological and institutional trajectories. It also provides a synthesis of theoretical ideas and conceptual frameworks that have been used to study these dynamics of water control.

Dik Roth is Assistant Professor of the Rural Development Sociology Group, Social Sciences Department, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Linden Vincent is Professor of the Irrigation and Water Engineering Group, Environmental Sciences Department, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Water Management-Match or Mismatch? (Dik Roth and Linden Vincent)
1. Analysing Water Control: Interdisciplinarity, Socio-technical Approach, and Institutions in Water Management (Linden Vincent and Dik Roth)
2. Decentralization, Water Rights, and Markets: Bridging the Technology-Policy Gap in Indian Irrigation (Vishal Narain)
3. The Local Politics of Policy in the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Reforms, India (Bala Raju Nikku)
4. Irrigation Technology and Irrigation Management Reform: The Case of the Terai Region in Nepal (Puspa Raj Khanal)
5. Irrigation Technology, Agro-ecology, and Water Rights in the Mid-hills of Nepal (Umesh Nath Parajuli)
6. Groundwater Irrigation Development, Conjunctive Use, and the Evolution of Water Use Complexes in the Nepalese Terai (Suman Rimal Gautam)
7. Social Differentiation and the Politics of Access to Groundwater in North Gujarat (Anjal Prakash)
8. Transformation of Tank Irrigation Policy and Technology on the Interface of a Recursive State-Society Relationship (Esha Shah)
9. Property Rights, Water Resources, and Technology: The Missing Ecological Link (Jyothi Krishnan)
10. The Political Economy of Tank Management in Tamil Nadu (R. Manimohan)
11. Microhydel and Irrigation: Is Any Other Water Technology Different? (Amreeta Regmi and Linden Vincent)
12. Boundary Concepts for Interdisciplinary Analysis of Irrigation Water Management in South Asia (Peter P. Mollinga)
Glossary
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors