Radoslav S. Dimitrov.  "Conceptualizing Water Security:  Mulitple Notions and Dissimilar Ramifications."

This chapter presents an inventory of conceptual approaches to water security. The importance of water resources for human security can be conceptualized in at least two dissimilar ways that are defined by two different underlying notions of environmental security. I develop a generic template of what constitutes a (any) notion of security: what is to be protected, from what dangers, by what means, and by whom. I use this template as an analytical device to identify two distinct versions of ‘environmental security’: 1) as prevention of environmental conflicts; and 2) as ecological security. The central argument is that these diverse conceptions of security drive water discourses in divergent directions, with very dissimilar ramifications for social policies and institutions. I explore these implications and suggest that the goals which the two conceptions lead us to embrace are not easily compatible with each other.

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This special issue adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to highlight the multiple sites and modes of conflict and cooperation surrounding the use and management of aquatic ecosystems and associated biota.  By highlighting the interactions amoung the social, cultural, political and biophysical processes that influence the transformation and sustainability of aquatic ecosystems,  this collection of papers emphasizes (1) the importance of temporal and spatial scale in eludicating the evolution of resource use institutions and social conflicts over water, (2) the need to clearly delineate the social relations of power within institutions addressing water issues, and (3) they benefits of integrating ecological and social understanding of aquatic systems and how they are affected by human activities.

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Focusing on the resource management and enhancement activities in a microwatershed in Rajasthan, India, this paper highlights two elements of decentralized management that need to be explored further if such a strategy is to be socially equitable and environmentally sustainable, rather than a passing fad.  The first issue is to broaden the analytical focus from village user groups to include the non-local agencies and institutions whose relations with user groups affect conflict, cooperation, and on the ground resource use and management.  The second is to highlight the complexities of multidimensional coordination between social and biophysical organization in resource management.

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This chapter examines the potential downstream impacts of cooperative, transnational development of the Lower Mekong Basin on the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.  While much of the discussion focuses on ecological issues, we argue that the dialectic character of social and ecological transformation are central to an understanding of the evoulution of political and environmental outcomes, and must not be lost in the litany of potential ecological concerns over human alteration of the basin (Harvey, 1996).  In other words, ecological transformations are crucially dependent on the political and economic changes occurring within and external to the riparian states of the Mekong.  How these states conceive and implement river basin development in turn hinges on the complex biophysical processes at work in the basin.  In the past, states have tended to ‘see’ environmental systems with a simplifying and utilitarian gaze (Scott, 1998), one that masks their inherent dyanmism and ignores the uncertainty of knowledge claims about their futurepatterns and processes.  Predictive models of Mekong futures which overlook this complexity and uncertainty jeopardize both the integrity of the basin’s ecological systems and the livelihoods of the basins’s residents.

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This paper looks at current efforts to implement a co-management approach within the context of a river basin in Northeast Thailand. Over the past four decades, the Nam Phong river basin has been significantly altered by the construction of a large dam and attendant irrigation works.  More recently, water pollution from local industries and increasing demands on the river's water have threatened the sustainability of the Nam Phong ("River Phong") and of the livelihoods of basin residents. A proposed environmental management plan for the basin, the Nam Phong Action Plan, seeks to address these problems by encouraging a diversity of environmental actors (e.g., small-scale farmers, state agencies, local industries) to work together towards restoring and sustaining the ecological services of the river basin. In order to be effective, such plans must address key practical and conceptual issues regarding the numerous obstalces to effective, basin-oriented management.  These issues include: the efficacy of a "basin approach"; the divergent spatial scales at which different environmental actors in a basin operate; and the role of the state in environmental management.

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Water plays a pivotal role in economic activity, as a key input to agriculture and industry, and in human well-being. Access to clean drinking water has conferred many of the health benefits of the industrial world.  Few natural resources play so central a role in both economic activities and in health. Because of the prominence of water in production (primarily for irrigation) and in domestic use (drinking, washing, cooking), conflict over water and the effects of gender-influenced decisions about water have far-reaching consequences on human well-being, economic growth and social change. At the same time, social conflicts and social change are shaped and mediated, often in unexpected ways, by the natural conditions in which water occurs.
In this paper we examine some of the issues relating water and gender in the particular social and environmental conditions of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a small, deltaic country with a large population (over 120 million), a low level of economic productivity (GNP/capita is currently estimated at about $250), and an intense subordination of women. Sharp seasonal fluctuations in water supply bringing both drought and flood; the seclusion of women; a high population density; and the low level of economic productivity in Bangladesh bring issues of water, power and gender to the fore. Similar issues also arise in many agrarian societies.

Uygay Ozesmi.  "Of Humans and Water:  The Sensibility of the Kizilirmak Delta Ecosystem in Turkey."

Ecosystem conservation and the maintenance of sustainable livelihoods, in order to succeed, need a holistic understanding of biological communities, the physiographic conditions that control the ecosystem, and the role of humans embedded within the biological communities.  The goal of this paper is to show how physiographic conditions and human ecology in Kizilirmak Delta ecosystem in Turkey shape the existing biological communities and to show the central role of water within the delta physiography and human ecology.  The delta consists of interlocking communities of dunes, bottomland hardwood forest, lagoons, freshwater marshes and wet meadows, and agricultural communities.  The physiographic conditions that shape and control delta communities are predominantly hydrological which operate on an existing geological and geomorphological foundation.  The different physiographic conditions enable diverse biological communities. The diversity of biological communities make the area a biodiversity hotspot in Turkey.  The research shows that human populations are an integral part and a dominant ecological factor in existing biological communities. They both maintain and degrade the ecosystem.  The most urgent and important causes of ecosystem degradation revolve around issues of water.  They involve 1) irrigation and drainage projects planned and executed by the State, 2) the chanellization and drainage of the bottomland hardwood forest community and unsustainable forestry practices, 3) agricultural practices that load the drainage waters with silt and nutrients, 4) the extraction of sand and gravel from the riverbed and dunes, and 5) coastal erosion due to dam building. If the Kizilirmak Delta ecosystem is to be conserved, the inhabitants, the state and other stakeholders must consider the agricultural and biological communities in terms of human ecology; social organization, economy, and agricultural practices where water plays a central role.

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Since the end of the Cold War policy makers and students of international relations have begun to shift their attention from the threat of global conflicts to regional crises percipitated, in part, by the inequitable access to scarce nartual resources.  Fresh water is a particularly precious commodeity.  Besides air it is probably the single most critical ingredient in sustaining life and is integral to all societal and ecologicial activities.  Recurring tensions between Turkey, Iraq and Syria over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Hungarian-Czech dispute over the management of the Danube, South Africa’s controversial appropriation of the waters of the Lesotoh Highlands and the saber-rattling between the Koreas following Kim Il-Sung’s plans to build a hydeo-electric project on the Han River, underscore the political as well as symbolic importance of water (Gleick, 1993).  Given the growing realization that competition for water resources is a volatile issue, scholars in the burgeoning field of "environmental security" have sought to map out the linkages between water allocation and conflict.  They stress that inter-state tensions over fresh water resources or over their use have a long histroy and are not unique to a paricular geographic or cultural region (Gleick, 1993).

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