Environmental Governance

While there is growing realization that IWRM policy packages are exploited by various actors, there is inadequate understanding of the integration of these in shaping and reshaping water management. This paper contributes to this understanding by analyzing this policy process using Bayesian network tool from a case study in the Indian Himalayas. The analysis reveals that multifaceted governance arrangement influencing water management. The paper reveals that in such regime, policies are never implemented, but integrated through the negotiation of diverse other policies and socio-cultural settings in shaping water resource management. In such an regime, the paper calls for policies to lay-out broad principles for multiple actors to debate and negotiate diverse other policy packages for an informed decision.

The increasing role and relevance of institutional structure to manage river basins is gaining prominence, due to failure of large scale centralised interventions in the river basins and with growing concern for community-based approach. The failures, largely guided by technocentric approach, have misunderstood the river systems and communities as being stable and that they are liable to be controlled for development.

Environment and Human Health gives a comprehensive review of the related literature in order to aid understanding of the (missing) link between the environment and health. Given the exhaustive literature on the subject the paper focuses on the water-related and land-related diseases namely in the fast growing and poor countries. By assessing the terrain of research on the subject, the paper aims to look beyond the causal linkage between environment and health and instead emphasis the underlying question about how environmental factors, along with man-made changes, influence human health. Specifically, the review examines the ability of the literature to define the incidence of environmentally-related diseases as well as their distribution across social and geographical scales, understands the role of diverse factors influencing these diseases and the adaptive capacity of societies in managing these illnesses or disorders. The paper draws on a wide range of sources from a variety of disciplines to unpack the linkage between the environment and health, and identifies issues, themes and questions raised by the literature.

Community-based watershed management (CBWM) has gained prominence in developing world towards integrated resource management for livelihood enhancement of the poor, due to failure of largescale river valley projects. This paradigm shift has enabled to narrow the divide between the state and community, and marks a beginning for the State towards a "learning organisation" that is adaptive to the changing social and environmental condition. The paper examines the role of State in institutionalising CBWM in three Indian states. It calls for the State to create an enabling institutional environment for coordination among institutions to emerge by devolving adequate responsibilities. This would offer opportunities for institutions to negotiate their concerns and build credibility for a long lasting institutional solution towards integrating resource management.

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) emerged as a popular concept in the water sector in the 20th century. From a highly techno-centric approach in the past, it has taken a new turn embracing Habermasian communicative rationality as a place-based nexus for multiple actors to consensually and communicatively integrate decisions in a hydrological unit. The 'how to integrate' approach had remarkable appeal worldwide in promoting authentic participation of all stakeholders. However, critics argue that the domain of water resource management is a political process of contestation and negotiation; the emphasis is on complexities, contextuality, power dynamics and the importance of analysing real world situations. They demonstrate 'how integration cannot be achieved' given the power dynamics in social interactions. These apparently contradictory discourses draw on different theoretical paradigms and polarise the discourse on IWRM, without offering constructive alternatives. To this end, this paper offers an option to complement this polarised discourse by examining 'how integration actually does take place' in a strategic context thereby facilitating consensual decisions to integrate water management for a sustainable future.

Institutional responsibilities for water supply and sanitation are highly fragmented, which complicates access. Besides the public health engineering agencies of the State governments, state-level parastatal Occasional paper CSH / Joël Ruet -VS Saravanan -Marie-Hélène Zérah agencies, city level water supply and sewerage boards and local governments, a number of unregulated private companies (formally or informally) are involved in the sector. Furthermore, these arrangements differ across states.

The current debate on decentralisation offers a polarised view on the dynamic power relations involved in water resources management. Drawing New Institutionalism as applied in the social and ecological sciences, the paper argues that decentralisation represents a complex adaptive process that involves a combination of natural and a political endeavour by actors and agents to draw on existing structures to negotiate and renegotiate the existing unequal power relations to (mis)manage water. Examining a Village in the Indian Himalayas as a case study, the paper demonstrates the signifi cance of New Institutionalism for a comprehensive understanding of the decentralisation as a process, with an intention to identify the opportunities and barriers presented by institutional factors on water resources management. The paper reveals the contemporary top-down decentralised reforms though has helped actors to voice their concern and empowered the agents to remain adaptive, these have not ensured resource use effi ciency, addressed poverty and promoted greater participation of the actors. Facilitating these will require a strengthening the role of statutory public organisations to regulate water distribution, build capacity of actors and offer diverse forums to facilitate informed water-related decisions for a sustainable future.

A B S T R A C T Participatory irrigation management (PIM) reforms are implemented in India to facilitate farmers' participation in irrigation management, through water user groups. Although thousands of user groups have been formed, a closer examination reveals inefficient water use, social power capture by rural elites in the name of participation, inadequate support from government institutions and government's inability to alleviate poverty. Currently, there is inadequate understanding of the linkage between socio-cultural, institutional and ecological factors affecting the outcome of the PIM reforms in India. Drawing from a case study village in the Shiwalik region of the Indian Himalayas, the paper identifies the role of diverse actors to exploit historic and ecological factors to derail the PIM reforms to frame water management problems. Using a combination of research methods and with application of a Bayesian network, the paper explores the inter-linkages between socio-cultural, institutional and ecological factors in derailing the PIM reforms. The paper reveals that PIM policies are never implemented, but integrated through the negotiation with other diverse policies and socio-cultural settings in (re)shaping water resources management. The analysis demonstrates that water is managed by multifaceted governance arrangements. In this governance arrangement state-centric or market-oriented or community-centered institutional arrangements are not superior to each other, rather they incrementally and cumulatively superimpose to (re)shape water resources management. In this process, integration represents a complex blend of statutory and socially embedded actors bringing with them diverse rules to negotiate, along with contextual factors. The findings call for laying out broad principles/ideologies in the policy statements of the statutory public actors that allow other actors to integrate, adapt and make policy processes dynamic. To facilitate this processes, the paper calls for statutory public actors to regulate water distribution, build capacity of actors and offer diverse forums for actors share and debate on the available information to take informed water-related decisions for a sustainable future. ß

"It is well known that water and sanitation are important to
address major water-related diseases. Less known is the
impact of continuous exposure to poor water quality on human
health in fast growing economies comprising about half of the
world’s population. Crucial questions persist — Does the
economic success of emerging countries translate into
improved water management and better human health, or pose
additional risks? How does population growth, development of
agriculture, industrialisation and urbanisation affect human
health in poverty-stricken and undernourished regions?
Though science has contributed significantly in addressing the
threat from water-related diseases, solutions to these complex
problems are still sought in a simple, one-dimensional ‘causeeffect
remedy’ context. This paper calls for scientific and policy
initiatives to move beyond this stage to understand the
complex links between water and health. In addition, it urges
the international community to establish a scientific monitoring
and research platform to spearhead the efforts and spread
information on improving water quality and human health."

Ahmedabad represents one of the rapidly urbanizing cities in India, where almost all the households in the region have access to drinking-water supply and sanitation, yet it has not been successful in reducing the threat from water- and vector-borne diseases. This is due to the segregation of the settlements, poor urban planning, inadequate land tenure, and more so the inability of the government to meet the growing demand from the rapidly urbanizing population. Addressing such complex problems requires synergizing sector-wide interventions with a stronger role from the state to address the structural issues plaguing urban societies.

The cases in this special issue cover a range of water and health challenges in various socio-political and geographical contexts. Past attempts to bring more analytical rigor to the field of comparative water and health research or to integrate various methods systematically have not yet been very successful. Drawing from the collection of papers in this special issue, an approach for future systematic stepwise small-and-medium-N comparative water and health research is developed.

"National and international agencies focus on ‘on-site’ water supply and sanitation
interventions targeting households to share costs, and showcase their commitment to the MDGs.
This paper reveals that ‘on-site’ interventions in India have exposed millions to mass poisoning and
drowned the country in sewage waters. While ‘on-site’ interventions are favoured, they fail to
consider the integrated nature of the water supply, sanitation and sewerage systems; and burden
households with additional social and economic costs. Failures in the programs are often blamed on
the communities, while immunising the approach of the development agencies that fail to consider
the integrated water infrastructure."

• The growing investment in water supply, sanitation and hygiene
has not systematically addressed the threat from infectious
water-related diseases.
• In particular, ‘on-site’ household-based interventions may even
increase the threat to human lives if they are disengaged from an
integrated water management approach.
• Failure to consider complex local institutional settings in implementation have impeded the desired “preventive medicine” goals of water supply, sanitation and hygiene investments.
• International, national and regional actors should play ‘politics
with principle’ to achieve an integrated water, sanitation and hygiene approach that actually does reduce the threat from infectious water-related diseases."