Water, politics, and river basin governance:
Repoliticizing approaches to river basin management
Francois Molle

Conventional view
Supply-demand; IWRM and solutions couched in terms of capital
investments, provision of expert knowledge, institutional reforms
Political ecological approach
Interventions on hydro/ecological systems by different categories of
stakeholders characterized by different political, decision-making and
discursive power, and varied access to resources, tend to generate
costs, benefits, and risk which spread unevenly across spatial and
temporal scales and across social groups.
1. River basin interconnectedness (redistribution of C/B/R)
2. River basin overbuilding (generating scarcity)
3. Justifying interventions & discursive power

1. Interconnectedness
Rainfall
Spring
watertable
River
Aquifers are not additional reserves

Upstream
downstream
Variable
Upstream diversion Water harvesting Cities out-pumping Wells on qanats;
Quantity scheme on (or small tanks) on a irrigation wells deep wells on
downstream downstream dam shallow wells
irrigation area
Cities or industries Diffuse pollution of Cities contaminating Diffuse agricultural
Quality on irrigated agriculture on city groundwater used in pollution on village
agriculture supplies pumping irrigation groundwater-based
water supply
Hydropower Small tanks delay Hydropower Water harvesting
Timing generation on large onset of wet season generation on reduces runoff/flood
irrigation schemes or flows and affect wetland ecosystems and downstream
fisheries biological cues groundwater recharge
Large-scale Overgrazing, or Dam retaining silt Diffuse deforestation
Sediment load deforestation on erosion in small- vs. fertilization of impact on silt load
reservoirs holder agriculture on downstream and delta fanning
reservoir (siltation) floodplains
Point, large-scale Diffuse, scattered users
user or intervention or interventions

2. Process of overbuilding: creating scarcity
Convergence of interests: may create a powerful supportive
constituency that will ensure political
control over many years (O'Mara
1990)
• Local/national politicians
Reproduce themselves, secure
• Line agencies, bureaucracies budgets; professional gratification
• Private companies, consultants
• Funding institutions Business opportunities)
The McNamara effect, or the “lending
culture”;
Incentives to enlarge loan portfolio; little
sanction in case of a failed project.

The process of basin overbuilding
Overbuilding of
river basins
More call for more water Overextension of
resource development facilities (irrig)
More water shortages
and crises

3. Justifying interventions
• Use of overriding meta-justifications ('powering
development'; 'poor people cannot wait',…)
• Securitization (National security; 'we need to feed
ourselves', 'we cannot depend on our neighbors',
• TINA (closing debates)
• Use of hegemonic concepts (economic dimension,
IWRM, river basin management, etc)

Conclusions: Repoliticizing river basin management
River basin development processes (and overbuilding)
as well as management decisions cannot be
understood from a mere technical point of view
They entail critical redistribution of costs/benefits/risk,
particularly environmental changes
This redistribution is spatial, but also social and highly
political

…the end…
Thank you for your attention !