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1244 | 641 | Rural – urban water struggle: Contestations for urban water security in Nepal Himalaya | Kamal Devkota

While growing urbanization is a global phenomenon, it is more rapid in Global South. Municipal authorities in this region are facing challenges to manage water for growing urban population. The problem is further exacerbated as the upstream rural villages are reluctant to continue providing water to the downstream urban centers which has created the contestations between them. This paper attempts to understand the growing contestations between rural and urban communities over water access in lower Himalayan region. By documenting the struggles of two towns in Nepal, I examine the nature and dynamics of contestations and explore what do they mean for urban water security in the emerging towns. The paper draws my own engagement on urban water management issues in Nepal. I draw materials from my works on understanding urban water management initiatives and struggles towards securing water sources. The earlier works included series of qualitative field works and stakeholder dialogues. I substantiate my analysis drawing on fresh fieldworks focusing on the upstream-downstream contestations. The preliminary findings show that, municipal authorities are struggling to secure sources of water for meeting the growing demand of water and encounter contestations with upstream communities. I identified three major forms of contestations-contestations due to increasing demand of water in both rural and urban areas, resistance of rural communities based on politico-administrative boundaries as many upstream areas fall in different administrative jurisdictions and denial for water access claiming the preferential rights to use water based on traditional rights. Based on this analysis, I propose a framework constituting these three aspects which are important to understand growing rural-urban contestations for urban water security. I argue that understanding these aspects will be prudent for municipal authorities towards fostering cooperation and achieving urban water security.

Kamal Devkota
University of Leuven (KU Leuven)

 
ID Abstract: 641

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1244 | 666 | Interactions between small cities and their hydrosystems: an analysis of local river stakeholders’ point of view | Victor Bossard, Nathalie Carcaud, Véronique Beaujouan

Human societies historically developed taking advantage of hydrosystems’ resources as well as enduring their unpredictability. The structuration of populations into cities relied for many of them upon the diversity of uses hydrosystems would then create. Although today’s interactions between societies and their local hydrosystems seem to weaken and to standardize, there is a need to reconsider the appreciation of river areas in light of contemporary socio-environmental stakes._x000D_
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Joining the research movement on river-societies interactions, a PhD research project is conducted to better understand the status of small hydrosystems within small cities of the Western part of France. It considers the limited yet growing knowledge on ordinary landscapes such as small cities (2000-20000 inhabitants) and smaller rivers (below 7th order Strahler streams) that still compose a great portion of France. Our field study, the French department of the Maine-et-Loire, is largely representative of these characteristics and is well known for being a region with an important cultural heritage around the Loire valley. Through the study of four cities located in diverse environments (from floodplain areas to enclosed valleys) and facing specific challenges (in terms of demographic, economic, environmental changes) we aim to question the place of river areas in the city at different timesteps. _x000D_
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This presentation will focus on a series of interviews that have been conducted with local stakeholders whose activities interact with river areas. These interviews take an interest in understanding the values attributed to the hydrosystems, the way they are manage locally as well as the ways stakeholders interact with each other, thus questioning the integration of hydrosystems within the territorial project. First results will emphasize on the importance of property regime, esthetics and new mobilities, as well as representatives’ perceptions in characterizing river-cities relationships.

Victor Bossard, Nathalie Carcaud, Véronique Beaujouan
Institut Agro Rennes-Angers

 
ID Abstract: 666

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1244 | 677 | Anthropogenic disruption of water flow in a temperate floodplain: legacies and future issues in the Bassée (Seine River basin, France) | Mathilde Resch (1) and Laurence Lestel (2)

When assessing the extent of anthropogenic river transformations, many geohistorical studies focus solely on the main channel at the expense of the floodplain. In addition, the quantification of river planform changes often derives from the superposition of maps, regardless of the information provided by the written record. To address these issues, this contribution presents the geohistorical research conducted on the Bassée alluvial plain in the Seine River valley (France). Located upstream of Paris, this geomorphic entity results from the conjunction of biophysical and human factors over time. Although not “natural” nor “undisturbed”, the early-19th century river and its floodplain still had features of a functional system, with frequent flooding, wetlands, and space for geomorphic processes to occur. However, from the 1850s onwards, land reclamation policies, river engineering and gravel extraction have deeply modified the Seine and its floodplain. While the Bassée has been studied for more than 20 years by the PIREN-Seine program, no research had been conducted on the impacts of hydraulic works on the floodplain. Using both a quantitative and qualitative approach, we show how past developments have disrupted flow patterns and disconnected the Seine River from its floodplain. A classic diachronic analysis was conducted with a geographic information system and the building of transition matrices. We interpreted changes in agricultural land use as environmental proxies revealing more or less wet conditions in the plain. Historical documents reveal that these transformations are linked to various scales of decision, from the local landowner to the State, with conflicts arising between and within each level. Although the trajectory of the Bassée is similar to that of other floodplains in France and Europe, we support the idea that its particular legacies must be considered to define sustainable water resource management goals.

Mathilde Resch (1) and Laurence Lestel (2)
(1) ARCEAU Île-de-France (2) Sorbonne Université-CNRS-EPHE, UMR 7619 METIS

 
ID Abstract: 677

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1244 | 678 | Enlivening the Bogotá River: Socioecological memories and river infrastructures in the river headwaters region (Colombia) | Laura Giraldo-Martínez


The river and wetlands system of the Bogotá region, central Colombia, forms the very ecological core of the geography, history and memories of Bogotá city and the Cundinamarca department. The Bogotá River, with 375 km, crosses the Bogotá Savanna from north to south, eventually reaching the Magdalena River, the country’s main fluvial artery. The headwater region is 3,400 meters above sea level in the Guacheneque Highlands in a páramo socioecosystem. Twelve kilometers downstream, the river begins to receive waste from tanneries and quarries, pesticides and fertilizers, as well as load releases from the sewers of industries and cities, turning it into one of the most contaminated rivers in the world

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. The riverbed transformation in the floodplain mirrors the rapid urbanization processes of the region, ushered during the 20th Century, in the Anthropocene period, and still ongoing._x000D_
The Bogotá River is also considered today one of the most contaminated rivers in the world. Even in the last decade, public and residents’ concern over the river’s restoration has triggered the development of new infrastructures to restore the wetland-based headwater region. _x000D_
The geohistorical planning and re-patterning process in Bogotá River’s headwaters is the focus of this research process. The co-existence of public, private and communitarian initiatives have executed their own river-enlivening practices but with different proposes, clashing with their future visions and blocking the process of recovering socio-ecological river life. Therefore, this research investigates how river imaginaries (particularly socioecological memories) differ per actor group and how these dynamically relate to materialization through technological intervention and governance proposals. Restoring the river and protecting its sources in a páramo ecosystem is crucial to trigger new social relations and spatial configuration to support new imaginaries and future-making._x000D_
Project: https://movingrivers.org/

Laura Giraldo-Martínez
PhD Candidate, River Commons Project. Water Resources Management group in Wageningen University & Research in alliance with Geography Department of Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

 
ID Abstract: 678

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1244 | 686 | Origins of governmental narratives of water control in Pre-Industrial Veneto. From local communities to the growing state | Samuel Barney Blanco

Bisogna dare la massima fecondità ad ogni zolla di terra (“Every clod of earth must be made given maximum fertility”). This sentence, pronounced by Mussolini in 1929, is still engraved in the façade of the local water board’s ex-headquarters of the town of Mogliano, about ten kilometres inland from Venice. In the region of Veneto, in North-eastern Italy, water boards like the aforementioned, locally known as consorzi di bonifica, are local institutions of farmers and other landowners interested in draining swamplands in favour of a maximisation of agricultural produce. Fascist propaganda tended to take the entire merits of this hydrological and agricultural endeavour. Nonetheless, the Veneto has experienced political utilisation of water management way before the Fascist Period and even the Unification. The Republic of Venice’s control of its mainland (Terraferma) in the 16th century also implied the gradual political subjugation of local farmers’ communitarian institutions, as well as the close monitorization of their activities by Venetian government officers, agrarian notaries and engineers. Local consorzi or farmers had to therefore ask for permission to the Venetian authorities for opening canals that brought water to arid lands or, in the contrary, drained swamps; they also had to inform the government in Venice about new elected presidents every six months as well as paying taxes for the building of hydraulic infrastructure. Therefore, this aggressive fiscalisation of water uses in service of a productive programme meant also the forging of a political narrative of Venetian state making: a Republic that not only governed the waters in the Adriatic, but also in its Italic inland territories. This presentation therefore attempts to problematise and give a longue durée historical perspective of how water control (drainage and irrigation), and landscape modification are not specific elements to contemporary Italy, but go back to pre-industrial political traditio

Samuel Barney Blanco
University of Padua – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

 
ID Abstract: 686

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1244 | 607 | A geopolitical dimension of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon disaster | Darío Salinas Palacios

Spain is affected by several water risks related to intensive irrigated agriculture and massive urbanisation. The Mar Menor (located in the Region of Murcia,) the largest hypersaline coastal lagoon of the Mediterranean basin, has faced multiple water-related challenges, including water pollution, eutrophication and over-extraction of groundwater, which have led to its ecological and environmental degradation. The intensive agriculture developed since the 1970s in the surrounding areas supported by the Tagus-Segura water transfer and groundwater pumping, combined with poor water management practices, have led to the contamination of groundwater and surface waters eventually flowing into the lagoon. Additionally, the massive and uncontrolled urbanisation in the area increases environmental pressure due to the poor wastewater management and the loss of natural habitats. Climate change is also exacerbating floods and droughts, which are affecting water availability in the area. The real state and agricultural sectors have been the main drivers of the Region of Murcia’s economic development, allowing the emergence of a major regional lobby. However, the consequences of the environmental degradation of the lagoon on the local tourist economy have recently encouraged an important civil society mobilisation, leading to strong political rivalries between the conservative regional government and the progressive national government. Environmental issues and water management approaches related to these socio-economic dynamics are being addressed in Spain by the different political parties and policy-makers in different ways depending on their ideologies and according to their local or national priorities. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to assess the geopolitical risks of the Mar Menor as an example of an environmental and economic crisis but also of a geopolitical one because it involves multiple stakeholders with divergent interests, representations and strategies.

Darío Salinas Palacios
CEO Cassini Spain – Associate researcher (French Institut of Geopolitics)

 
ID Abstract: 607

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1244 | 578 | La construction hydro-sociale des infrastructures de gestion des risques liés à l’eau dans la plaine de Grenoble. De l’importance d’identifier des régimes de pratiques soutenables pour faire face aux défis de l’anthropocène. | Antoine Brochet ; Jean-Dominique Creutin ; Yvan Renou

Le développement de l’agglomération grenobloise est intimement lié à la question de l’eau. Jusqu’au 19ème siècle, l’eau est avant tout une menace (inondations). Cependant, les inondations sont également bienfaitrices grâce à l’apport en limons qui a fait de la vallée du Grésivaudan une des plus fertiles de France. Les ingénieurs d’État ont progressivement procédé à une mise en infrastructure des deux rivières grenobloises. Des digues ont été érigées qui, en prévenant le risque d’inondation, ont produit ou accentué d’autres risques, par exemple les risques sanitaires et économiques liés à la stagnation de l’eau. En réponse, des infrastructures de drainage ont été aménagées qui ont séparé de façon définitive la terre et l’eau. Ceci a permis l’artificialisation des terres et le développement urbain de la plaine. Au cours du 20ème siècle, l’eau est devenue une ressource pour le développement de l’agglomération (hydroélectricité, plus récemment nanotechnologies). Cette seconde génération d’infrastructures a néanmoins produit de nouveaux risques liés à l’eau (sécheresse, perte de biodiversité, etc.) qui deviennent critiques dans le contexte de changement climatique. Aujourd’hui, l’action publique tend à évoluer dans la plaine de Grenoble. Des Solutions Fondées sur la Nature sont mises en œuvre pour tenter de concilier gestion des risques liés à l’eau et reconquête des milieux aquatiques. Dans cette communication, nous focalisons l’analyse sur les infrastructures de gestion des risques liés à l’eau, en étudiant comment celles-ci reconfigurent les pratiques hydro-sociales. L’idée défendue est que pour assurer un futur soutenable, la transformation des infrastructures « par le haut » (au travers de grands projets d’infrastructures) ne suffit pas. Il faut également transformer les pratiques hydro-sociales territorialisées qui sont imbriquées aux infrastructures. Pour appuyer notre démonstration, nous mobilisons le champ des théories hydro-sociales (Boelens ; Swyngedouw…)

Antoine Brochet ; Jean-Dominique Creutin ; Yvan Renou
Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (CNRS) – Grenoble

 
ID Abstract: 578

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1244 | 312 | Putting water at the centre: River contracts as tool for developing a hydrophilic encounter and community-based awareness in north-east Italy | Anna Brusarosco, Francesco Visentin

The failure of policies often depends by the unidirectional decision-making mechanisms and the delegation of the elaboration of territorial policies that prevent the assumption of a sense of collective responsibility by the actors involved. Thus, EU authority increasingly recognise that effective water policies require bottom-up, inclusive decision-making and growing awareness. River contracts (RCs) are voluntary agreements between stakeholders for managing water bodies, a tool aimed at applying a new governance system for sustainable development through an integrated approach between local development and environmental protection, based on a participatory process. RCs explicit objectives are mainly related to mitigation and prevention of hydrogeological risk, restoration of ecosystems, waterscapes enhancement. Therefore bringing water awareness into communities it is equally a priority and also favoring ‘hydrophilic encounters’ for exploring fluvial senses of place. _x000D_
This research, rooted on a variety of methods and activities realized to support the Regional RCs Board of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (north-east Italy), investigates if RCs could be considered participatory processes developed to achieve co-designed outcomes or simply territorial management projects that objectify the river. The ongoing research-action is studying the RCs’ potential to be tools not only for water management but also for developing a community-based sense of place and responsibility towards water bodies. To be so, RC has to be implemented as a process rather than a project and has to involve all actors connected to water body (included the water body itself), considering also space and time as relevant variables. This enables citizens to shift from simply being passive recipients of policies to becoming actual community of practice which take the co-responsibility to address the damage caused to water bodies, putting water at the centre of its identity and sense of place._x000D_
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Anna Brusarosco, Francesco Visentin
Dipartimento di Lingue e letterature, comunicazione, formazione e società – DILL, Università degli studi di Udine, Udine, Italy

 
ID Abstract: 312

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1244 | 362 | ‘One river, two systems’: Stream management in Hong Kong | Yixin Cao, Karl Matthias Wantzen

Hong Kong (HK), one of the world’s most densely populated areas, has however 40% of its land protected as Country Parks. It is also home to over 200 rivers and streams covering roughly 2,500 km in length. Most of the urban streams have been transformed into artificial canals, to which the society pays little attention. Since 2015, Hong Kong’s Drainage Services Department (DSD) has initiated several river revitalization projects to enhance rivers’ ecological functions and reintegrate rivers into society. This study employs mixed research methods, including literature and policy analysis, expert interviews, field visits, and a public survey, to examine Hong Kong’s river management structure and identify key-related issues. The findings reveal a fragmented management scheme, characterized by a ‘one river, two systems’ strategy – the Water Supplies Department (WSD) impounds upland streams as reservoirs for local use, which are protected due to the location inside Country Parks; while DSD manages heavily culverted and channelized downstream (which fall outside the boundary of Country Parks), serving as storm drains with diminished ecosystem integrity. Cross-departmental collaboration between upstream and downstream is lacking. Freshwater biodiversity conservation in Hong Kong remains rudimentary, with fish and macroinvertebrates entirely neglected. The designation of Ecologically Important Streams (EIS) is insufficient for conservating biodiversity; no bio-monitoring measures for water quality exist. DSD’s river revitalization efforts have only achieved limited success, with ecological measures appearing merely “cosmetic”. Our survey (102 completed questionnaires) reveals diverse recreational interactions with rivers, but only 20% of respondents were aware of river revitalization. Nonetheless, the study shows a high public willingness to participate in river management. Finally, we provide suggestions for managing the rivers as social-ecological systems.

Yixin Cao, Karl Matthias Wantzen
Interdisciplinary Research Center of Cities, Territories, Environment and Society (UMR CNRS 7324 CITERES), University of Tours, France

 
ID Abstract: 362

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1244 | 482 | Wetlands and the sacred: which spatial mediations, which geographical links ? | Bertrand Sajaloli*, Etienne Grésillon** et Laura Verdelli***

The natural landscape and the different elements of nature as water form a mediation or a link, between the down here and the beyond, between the believer and the divine. The issue here is not so much the way in which religions or spiritualities grasp the environment, but rather to look at how believers use environmental forms to access the divine. The sources and experiences of the sacred are determined by, or even subjected to, specific ecologies and typologies in ways that are simultaneously social, psychological, cultural, geographic and historical. We observe the spiritual potentiality of many environmental forms. For example, swamps – organic miasmas, ecosystems of chaos – combine the pair dread-fear with the dichotomy death-life: these marshlands call forth the disquieting supernatural, Charon, the mythological ferryman of Hades, as well as the witches and warlocks of lore that are associated with the vast European wetlands. Conversely, the running water of the rivers is associated with purity and facilitates access to the divine. In all religions, it motivates pilgrimages and determines specific types of urbanities._x000D_
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We will define how the sacred is a space mediation. We will insist on the diversity of the sacral functions of water and how these functions contribute to the urban and rural fabric. Particular attention will be paid to the mutations that occurred in the spiritual perceptions of wetlands during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and this in the three religions of the Book but also in the context of Indian Hinduism. The spatial hypothesis is that the spiritual, guiding the perceptions and representations of space, is a factor acting on the modes of valuation of water places, and in fine on their ecological and geographical destiny. The geohistorical hypothesis tends to link the systems, notably hydraulic, of valorisation of wetlands with spiritual representation._x000D_

Bertrand Sajaloli*, Etienne Grésillon** et Laura Verdelli***
* Université d’Orléans (France), CEDETE, Groupe d’Histoire des Zones Humides : ** Université de Paris (France), LADYSS ; *** Université de Tours (France), CITERES, Groupe d’Histoire des Zones humides

 
ID Abstract: 482

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