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Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan

At the launch of his book ‘Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan’ in Oxford on 18 May 2015, Harry Verhoeven gave a snapshot of Africa’s most ambitious state-building projects in the modern era, where water played an important role. The book is the result of Harry’s doctoral research at Oxford University, and remarkable access to politicians, generals and intellectuals in Sudan over many years.

Worker clearing logs during the heightening of the Roseires Dam, August 2009. Photo by Harry Verhoeven

Worker clearing logs during the heightening of the Roseires Dam, August 2009. Photo by Harry Verhoeven

On 30 June 1989, a secretive movement of Islamists led by Dr Hassan Al-Turabi allied itself to a military group to violently take power in Africa’s biggest country.

Turabi organised a coup to prevent an anti-Islamist backlash in Egypt or America and formed the Al-Ingaz regime, the first modern Sunni Islamic Revolution since the seventh century AD.

The alliance of Islamists and generals sought to transform Sudan from one of the world’s poorest nations into a beacon of Islamic civilisation and prosperity across the Muslim world.

Harry Verhoeven’s book “Water, Civilization and Power in Sudan: The Political Economy of Military-Islamist State Building” reveals the centrality of water in Sudanese politics under military-Islamic rule.

The Al-Ingaz regime promised ‘Economic Salvation’ – the rescue of Sudan’s economy through a ‘hydro-agricultural mission’ with massive investment in water infrastructure and irrigated agriculture. The Nile River was seen as Sudan’s lifeline and its most important political artery.

Verhoeven describes the vast Merowe Dam as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the hydro-agricultural mission. His analysis shows how the Al-Ingaz Revolution’s use of water and agriculture to consolidate power is linked to twenty-first-century globalisation, Islamist ideology, and intensifying geopolitics of the Nile.

Harry Verhoeven is Assistant Professor of Government at the School of Foreign Service (Qatar), Georgetown University. He is an Associate Member of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN).

Developing a new tool to manage groundwater risks in Africa

Oxford University is embarking on a four-year research project to improve the management of groundwater in rural Africa for economic growth and human development.

laara

Groundwater drilling in Kwale County from a shared aquifer used by communities, mining and agriculture.

Dr Rob Hope at the Smith School of Environment and Enterprise leads the £1.9 million project ‘GRo for GooD’ (Groundwater Risk Management for Growth and Development) which will provide new evidence on the status of groundwater and help institutions better manage this important resource.

Groundwater is a critical source of drinking water for rural populations in Africa, but is poorly understood. Groundwater systems face increasing pressures from explosive urban growth, expansion of irrigated agriculture, industrial pollution, mining, rural neglect, and environmental risks. As demand for groundwater intensifies, there is a high risk that the poorest communities will lose out. The GRo for GooD project seeks to answer the question: ‘how groundwater can be sustainably managed for the benefit of the economy and the rural poor?’

Researchers will design a new Groundwater Risk Management Tool to help governments and groundwater users understand the complex interactions and trade-offs between economic activities, demands for water, and poverty outcomes. The tool will be tested in Kwale County, Kenya, but will be adaptable for other countries and contexts.

GRo for GooD follows on from a successful catalyst project which generated a wide range of data on groundwater level and quality, water use, and indicators of health and welfare, in order to gain a better understanding of poverty and groundwater governance in Kwale County.

The Groundwater Risk Management Tool will take inputs from multiple sources across different disciplines, including epidemiological data, poverty metrics, and data on groundwater levels generated from a novel distributed system for monitoring shallow groundwater that is being developed by the research team.

The project sees Oxford University partnering with the University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Rural Focus Ltd., all in Kenya, as well as with Universitat Politècnica de Cataluñya in Spain.

Within Oxford University, expertise is drawn from multiple departments: Rob Hope, Caitlin McElroy and Patrick Thomson from the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment; Katrina Charles and David Bradley from School of Geography and the Environment, and David Clifton from the Department of Engineering. In addition, DPhil candidates Johanna Koehler, Jacob Katuva and Farah Colchester are supporting critical elements of the project.

GRo for GooD is part of the seven-year UpGro programme (Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor), jointly funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Report shows how water insecurity is a drag on the global economy

A new report shows floods, droughts and a lack of investment in providing good quality, reliable water supplies is dragging down the global economy. The report, published today and entitled ‘Securing Water, Sustaining Growth’, was written by an international Task Force chaired by Claudia Sadoff and co-chaired by Professors Jim Hall and David Grey from the University of Oxford.

cover with borderThe Task Force was established by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report and new scientific analysis examines not only water’s destructive force but also how it contributes to human health and prosperity. It was launched at the start of the Seventh World Water Forum in South Korea, the international summit at which the world’s water challenges are addressed.

The report draws on research led by the University of Oxford and feeds into a policy statement released by GWP and OECD calling on governments to invest in strengthening the world’s institutional capacity to manage water security, with much improved information systems and better water infrastructure. It urges that special attention be paid to social risks, with a focus on vulnerable segments of society.

According to the report, South Asia has the largest concentration of water-related risks. East and Southeast Asia face rapidly increasing flood risk, although the United States has the greatest exposure to flood risk. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where the risks of inadequate water supply and sanitation are rising. North Africa has the greatest percentage of population at risk of water scarcity.

The international Task Force is comprised of leading academics, researchers and practitioners from around the world.

Claudia Sadoff, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Change Institute, said: ‘Both our empirical and theoretical analyses demonstrate the importance of investment in water security for development and the importance of development for investment in water security.’

‘Effective ways of achieving water security involve combinations of investments in information, institutions and infrastructure’, says Professor Hall, report co-author and Director of the Environmental Change Institute. ‘Not all investments have been beneficial or cost-effective. Investment must be designed to be robust to uncertainties and to support adaptive management as risks, opportunities, and social preferences change. All of this will require refined analytic tools, innovation, and continuous monitoring, assessment, and adaptation.’

Report co-author and Visiting Professor at the School of Geography and the Environment, David Grey said: ‘Our analysis shows that the countries that depend on agriculture for their economies are often the worst affected by floods or water scarcity. Some countries will need to think about how they can diversify from an agriculturally focussed economy to one less dependent on water. They will also focus on how better use can be made of the limited water supplies available to them.’

Read the report
Read the GWP news release
Water insecurity costs global economy billions a year, Bloomberg, 13 April 2015
Water insecurity costing global economy billions, Japan Times, 25 April 2015

 

Climate extremes: moving from physics to solutions

Professor Paul Whitehead joined over 35 scientists in the Swiss mountains to discuss how to assess and adapt to extreme climate events.

delegate

Delegates at the climate extremes workshop, Riederalp, Switzerland

The most significant impacts of climate change are likely to be due to the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, heat waves and wind storms. The costs of damage caused by these events could be extremely high.

The University of Geneva organised the workshop in Riederalp, Switzerland on 24-28 March 2015, bringing together a wide range of expertise on the science of climate extremes. The scope of the workshop also moved beyond physical science to consider impacts and adaptation policies for reducing climate-related risks and the costs of extreme events to vulnerable societies.

Paul Whitehead, Professor of Water Science at the School of Geography and the Environment, presented his research on modelling the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna river systems in India and Bangladesh, which together form one of the largest river basins in the world, providing water to over 650 million people.

The Oxford University research, which forms part of the ESPA Deltas project, assesses how future climate change and socio-economic change in the river basin will impact the flow of water and nutrients into the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Megha Delta. The results show that climate change could have significant impacts on river flows, both increasing wet season flows and leading to more frequent droughts. Socio-economic changes could impact flows during droughts, when irrigation will further reduce water availability. The modelling work also explores how management and policy interventions can reduce these impacts.

Participants at the workshop shared case studies of a variety of extreme events, from glacier lake dam bursts in the Himalayas, to heat waves in Moscow, wind gust events in Switzerland, and extreme snow storms in Austria.

An important outcome from the workshop will be a policy document for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris in December 2015. The meeting’s discussions will also be presented to the EU Science Managers to inform them of this key area of research, which is largely missing in the major EU Horizon 2020 research programme.

Visit the climate extremes workshop webpage

Read more about the ESPA Deltas project

View Paul Whitehead’s powerpoint presentation on modelling climate change and socio-economic pathways in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers

Academic publications on modelling the the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, in the Journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts:

Changing conceptions of rights to water

What do we really mean when we talk about a right to water? A human right to water is a cornerstone of a democratic society, but what form that right should take is hotly debated.

irrigationArticle by Bettina Lange and Mark Shepheard, from the Oxford University Press blog

Recently 1,884,790 European Union (EU) citizens have signed a petition that asks the EU institutions to pass legislation which recognizes a human right to water, and which declares water to be a public good not a commodity.

But a right to water has various facets. It includes rights of economic operators, such as power stations and farmers to abstract water from rivers, lakes, and groundwater sources. The conundrum here is that an individual human right to water, including a right to drinking water and sanitation, can be in conflict with the rights of economic operators to water. More importantly such human rights to water may be in conflict with a right to water of the environment itself. The natural environment needs water to sustain important features such as habitats that support a wide range of animals and plants.

There is a growing trend under the label of ‘environmental stewardship’ that prompts us to think not in terms of trade-offs between different claims to water, but to change how we think about what a right to water entails. Environmental stewardship means that human uses of water – by individual citizens, consumers and economic operators – should pay greater attention to the needs of the natural environment itself for water. This raises some thorny issues that go to the heart of how we think about fundamental rights in contemporary democracies. Should we abolish the possibility to own natural sources, such as water and thus limit the scope of private property rights? Should we develop ideas of collective property, which involves state ownership of natural resources exercised on behalf of citizens? Should we simply qualify existing private property and administrative rights to water through stewardship practices? It is the latter approach that is currently mainly applied in various countries. How does this work? Water law can impose specific legal duties, for instance on economic operators to use water efficiently, in order to promote stewardship practices. Whether this will be of any consequence, however, depends on what those who are regulated by the legal framework think and do.

recent study therefore explored how English farmers think about a right to water and its qualification through stewardship practices. The study found that three key factors shape what a right to water means to farmers.

First, the institutional-legal framework that regulates how much water farmers can abstract through licences issued by the Environment Agency defines the scope of a right to water.

Second – and this struck us as particularly interesting – not just the law and the institutions through which water rights are implemented matter, but also how natural space is organized. The characteristics of farms and catchments themselves, in particular whether they facilitated the sharing of water between different users, influenced how farmers thought about a right to water. Water sharing could enable stewardship practices of efficient water use that qualified conventional notions of individual economic rights to water.

Third – and this touches upon key debates about the ‘green economy’ – the economic context in which rights to water are exercised has a bearing on how ideas about rights to water become qualified by environmental stewardship.

In particular ‘green’ production and consumption standards shape how farmers think about a right to water. There are a range of standards that have been developed by the farming industry, independent certification bodies, such as the Soil Association, as well as manufacturers of food stuffs to whom farmers sell their produce and supermarkets. These standards prompt farmers to consider the impact of their water use on the natural environment. For instance, the Red Tractor standard for potatoes asks farmers to think of water use in terms of a strategic plan of environmental management for the farm, which also addresses ‘accurate irrigation scheduling’, ‘the use of soil moisture and water application technology’, as well as ‘regular and even watering’. These are voluntary standards, but they matter. They can render farmers’ practices in relation to water stewardship more transparent and thus also promote accountability for the use of natural resources.

Supermarket standards were considered as most influential by farmers, particularly in water scarce areas of the United Kingdom such as East Anglia. But these standards revealed an interesting tension between their economic and environmental facets.

Somehow paradoxically green consumption and production standards could also reinforce significant water use by farmers, such as spray irrigation in order to achieve good product appearance. For instance, some manufacturers of crisps seek to reduce the impact on water use of the crops they source for their products. But farmers who want to sell their potato crops to crisp manufacturers still have to achieve ‘good skin finish’, because ‘nobody wants scabby potatoes’!

So, next time you go grocery shopping ask how your consumer choice shapes a right to water.

Dr Bettina Lange is an Associate Professor in Law and Regulation at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University. Her research draws on social theory and qualitative empirical methods in order to understand how political and economic contexts shape how environmental legal rules are interpreted and implemented. Dr Mark Shepheard is a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Law at the University of New England, Australia. His research interests are natural resource stewardship, regulation and governance, virtue ethics as well as land and water management obligations. Together, they are the authors of ‘Changing Conceptions of Rights to Water? An Eco-Socio-Legal Perspective‘, which won the 2014 JEL annual Richard Macrory best article prize and is available to read for free for a limited time in the Journal of Environmental Law.

 

Report identifies the ‘most vulnerable’ to climate-related disasters

Extreme weather events leave populations with not enough food both in the short- and the long-term, says a new report by the Environmental Change Institute that examines the impacts of climate-related diasters on food security. The authors conclude that better governance could have lessened the impact on the poorest and most vulnerable, and affected populations have been let down by the authorities in past disasters.

The report, commissioned by the charity Oxfam, tracks the effects on four countries: Russia which experienced a heatwave in 2010; flood-hit Pakistan the same year; East Africa during the drought of 2010-2011; and the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. The researchers conclude that the authorities in each of the countries studied were unprepared for extreme weather events, and citizens suffered even more than they needed to.

The report, ‘A Sign of Things to Come?’, says that during the floods in Pakistan ‘coercive landlords’ took advantage of smallholders and people affected by the floods. Overall, the flooding is estimated to have led to an 80% rise in wheat and rice prices in 2010.

The drought-affected people of East Africa did not receive international or domestic aid for six months, partly due to the risks posed by armed groups. Food prices reached record levels in several markets that included the cost of wheat in Ethiopia, maize in Kenya and red sorghum grain in Somalia, says the report. It notes that children under five accounted for over half of all deaths in Somalia.

On a global level, the report warns that climate change is expected to increase the intensity and frequency of heatwaves and floods. It says although there is no scientific evidence to show a specific weather event would not have happened without climate change, scientists can estimate whether it increases the risk of an event. It finds that the Russian heat wave and the East African drought were more likely because of climate change, but there is not yet the evidence to say that climate change played a part in the floods in Pakistan or Typhoon Haiyan.

One of the lead authors Dr John Ingram said: “Weather has always affected food security, particularly for many of the world’s poorest people. Perhaps we think of farmers or fishermen first, but extreme weather will affect many more people in other ways too. While direct measures such as emergency preparedness and the strengthening of response-related institutions is helpful, this study has identified the need for a wider cultural shift to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable are properly protected. This goes beyond mere technical improvements to equipment or redirected funding and gets to the very heart of what ‘climate justice’ should be about.”

Reference

Coghlan, C., Muzammil, M., Ingram, J., Vervoort, J., Otto, F. and James, R. (2014) A sign of things to come? Examining four major climate-related disasters, 2010-2013 and their impacts on food security. Oxfam Research Reports, Oxford. Oxfam.

Harry Verhoeven speaks about the water-food-energy nexus

Dr Harry Verhoeven was a speaker at the international conference on the water-food-energy nexus in drylands held in Rabat, Morocco on 11-14 June 2014. In a video interview, he highlights the politics behind how the nexus is defined and addressed.

The conference ‘Water-Food-Energy Nexus in Drylands: Bridging Science and Policy‘ gathered international experts to discuss the impacts of climate change and water scarcity and potential solutions in the fields of agriculture, water management, agro-business and energy. Speakers provided analyses and recommendations on how to address the interrelations between water, food and energy in global drylands, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Harry Verhoeven gave a presentation on the nexus and the Nile. Using the example of Egypt, he argued that politically crafted interconnections between water scarcity, food production and energy security have been the foundation of modernist dreams, state-building projects and regime consolidation strategies for generations.

The conference was organised by the OCP Policy Center in partnership with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), King’s College London and Texas A&M University.

Dr Harry Verhoeven teaches African Politics at the Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Oxford, and he is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College. He is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network and the Oxford Central Africa Forum.

Research highlight: Women in India becoming more influential in irrigation

Women in Northern India are playing an increasingly important role in irrigation, a traditionally male-dominated activity, according to new research published in the journal World Development. This is improving female engagement in formal politics more broadly, says Alexandra Girard, author of the study.

Irrigation canals in Northern India are critical for local livelihoods, but they are also important for forming cultural norms and building social support within communities and between villages. These canals are governed by deeply embedded gender traditions, a reflection of the overall decision-making system in the community. Traditionally only men in the village make formal decisions regarding the canals or participate in their repair and construction. Women are informal actors: they channel demands and complaints through informal means, such as talking to their male relatives.

However, in recent years, women have come to play a more influential role in irrigation, a result of several gender-inclusive policies. First, some canals have had their management decentralised to formal local government institutions. These local governments are composed of 33-50% female members, as required by the 1992 Reservation Law. Second, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a poverty alleviation scheme aimed at investing labour surplus into the construction of durable rural assets such as irrigation, must target a minimum of 33% of women. In practice, almost half of MGNREGA beneficiaries are women. Together, these gender inclusive policies are legitimising women as both formal decision-makers and labour force in irrigation.

The research examined how women’s new legitimacy in the traditionally male domain of irrigation affects their involvement in other formal political processes in their community, and in particular their participation in formal village meetings. Factors linked to the formalisation of women’s role were examined, as well as factors from the private domain (for example, age, education, household background). The survey consisted of 593 female canal users in rural areas in the Palampur region, Himachal Pradesh, as well as interviews with 37 local government members (male and female), and over 10 other irrigation stakeholders.

The results reinforce many existing findings on the link between women’s engagement in formal politics and their personal background (for example, older women are more likely to engage in village meetings). Most importantly, the study reached several novel conclusions on the positive outcomes of formally including women in male dominated activities such as irrigation, for female engagement in formal politics. Formally creating political responsibility and economic opportunities for women in irrigation increases their visibility and mobility, and introduces them to a world of political procedures, administration, and the politicising notions of rights and benefits, which in turn favour women’s engagement and participation in other formal politics processes in the community.

Alexandra M. Girard is a recently graduated DPhil student at Oxford University.

Reference

Girard, A.M. (2014) Stepping into formal politics: women’s engagement in formal political processes in irrigation in rural India. World Development, 57: 1-18.

Lake Turkana under threat from hydropower dam and irrigation development

Lake Turkana in the Kenyan Rift valley is the world’s largest desert lake but could shrink dramatically due to a hydropower dam being built upstream and plans for large-scale irrigation. This could be another Aral Sea disaster, says a new Oxford University study

The Gibe III hydropower dam is currently under construction on the Omo River which supplies 90 per cent of Lake Turkana’s water. Due for completion in 2014, the dam will permanently alter the flow of the river which will have devastating impacts on floodplain ecology, the productivity of the Lake’s fisheries and the livelihoods of the local population.

By regulating the flow of the river, the dam will also enable massive irrigation schemes in the Lower Omo. Irrigation development being planned by Ethiopia could abstract up to 50 per cent of the river’s inflow into Lake Turkana. The research shows that this could cause the lake to drop from 30 metres to under 10 metres in depth, being reduced to two small lakes.

This study, written by Dr Sean Avery for Oxford University’s African Studies Centre, is one of the outcomes of the AHRC-funded project, ‘Landscape people and parks: environmental change in the Lower Omo Valley, southwestern Ethiopia’, run by Oxford’s Professor David Anderson and Dr David Turton between 2007 and 2010.

View the illustrated booklet ‘What Future for Lake Turkana?’

Read the full report

Oxford University edits a themed issue of Philosophical Transactions A on Water Security, Risk and Society

Professors Jim Hall and David Grey, and Drs Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson and Rob Hope, have organised and edited a landmark collection of papers, an outcome of the 2012 international conference Water Security, Risk and Society.

The papers demonstrate the growing scale of water security risks. For example, over 45% of the global population is projected to be exposed to water shortages for food production by 2050 (Falkenmark), and South American cities have experienced a doubling of risks associated with extreme rainfall from 1960-2000 (Vorosmarty). Modelling demonstrates that climate hazards are an impediment to economic growth (Brown).

The agenda-setting themed issue includes eight papers from Oxford University authors and engages multiple dimensions of water security, ranging from drinking water, food production and energy to climate risks, transboundary rivers and economic growth. Risk provides the basis for a unifying framework to bridge across multiple disciplines and science-policy divides.

Fifteen papers are organised in three sections to: frame the policy challenges and scientific responses to water security from a risk perspective; assess the evidence about the forces driving water insecurity; and examine responses to water insecurity at multiple scales.

Recognising the need for interdisciplinary science to respond to unprecedented water security challenges, the University of Oxford organised the international conference on Water Security, Risk and Society in April 2012. The conference convened 200 leading thinkers from science, policy and enterprise in 30 countries to take stock of the scientific evidence on water security risk and prioritise future interdisciplinary research.

Taken together, these papers provide strong justification and strategic priorities for policy-driven science in the lead up to new development goals in 2015 and beyond.

 

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Theme Issue ‘Water security, risk and society’ compiled and edited by Jim Hall, David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson and Rob Hope

November 13, 2013; Vol. 371, No. 2002


Preface
Jim Hall, David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson, and Rob Hope

Opinion piece: Water security in one blue planet: twenty-first century policy challenges for science
David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Don Blackmore, Jerson Kelman, Mike Muller, and Claudia Sadoff

Opinion piece: Catalysing sustainable water security: role of science, innovation and partnerships
John Beddington

Opinion piece: The role of technology in achieving water security
Ian Thompson

Research article: Risk-based principles for defining and managing water security (open access)
Jim Hall and Edoardo Borgomeo

Research article: Extreme rainfall, vulnerability and risk: a continental-scale assessment for South America
Charles J. Vörösmarty, Lelys Bravo de Guenni, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Brian Pellerin, David Bjerklie, Manoel Cardoso, Cassiano D’Almeida, Pamela Green, and Lilybeth Colon

Research article: Growing water scarcity in agriculture: future challenge to global water security
Malin Falkenmark

Review article: Water security, global change and land–atmosphere feedbacks
Simon Dadson, Michael Acreman, and Richard Harding

Research article: A cost-effectiveness analysis of water security and water quality: impacts of climate and land-use change on the River Thames system
Paul Whitehead, Jill Crossman, Bedru Balana, Martyn Futter, Sean Comber, Li Jin, Dimitris Skuras, Andrew Wade, Mike Bowes, and Daniel Read

Research article: Water security in the Canadian Prairies: science and management challenges
Howard Wheater and Patricia Gober

Review article: Domestic water and sanitation as water security: monitoring, concepts and strategy (open access)
David J. Bradley and Jamie K. Bartram

Review article: Risks and responses to universal drinking water security
Robert Hope and Michael Rouse

Research article: The politics of African energy development: Ethiopia’s hydro-agricultural state-building strategy and clashing paradigms of water security
Harry Verhoeven

Research article: The governance dimensions of water security: a review
Karen Bakker and Cynthia Morinville

Research article: Managing hydroclimatic risks in federal rivers: a diagnostic assessment
Dustin Garrick, Lucia De Stefano, Fai Fung, Jamie Pittock, Edella Schlager, Mark New, and Daniel Connell

Research article: Is water security necessary? An empirical analysis of the effects of climate hazards on national-level economic growth
Casey Brown, Robyn Meeks, Yonas Ghile, and Kenneth Hunu