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This chapter examines access to water in a paddy-growing tract in Palakkad district, Kerala, India. Traditionally an area served by small tanks and ponds, access to irrigation has been changed by new public canal systems and expansion of lift irrigation. It describes how the existing property rights regime, by disregarding the basic ecological properties of water and the integrated nature of land and water use, creates conditions of unequal access and unsustainable use. Tanks and tube wells play a pivotal role here. The chapter argues that the ecological characteristics of land and water resources should be an inherent component of the formulation of property rights. It also argues that the use of energized water lifting technologies be subject to ecological considerations that prioritize sustainable consumption of scarce water supplies. This is imperative not only for the integrated management of land and water, but also for an equitable water distribution.

In recent years we can see a growing pressure on land and water resources, increasing water scarcity, and intensifying competition between sectors, water uses, and water users. Processes of socio-economic transformation in developing countries like India and Nepal often entail interventions in irrigated agriculture to increase efficiency, sustainability, or equity. These processes also generate societal debate about the advantages and disadvantages of modern engineering technology and ‘traditional’ or ‘farmer-managed’ irrigation systems. Dealing effectively with these issues and problems, it first requires an understanding of the complex interrelationships between the various dimensions of water control involved. The Introduction provides a critical perspective on the role of technology and institutions in and around irrigation in a context of rapid societal changes. It also introduces the case studies and the technologies, institutions, and socio-technical interactions they present.

In recent years there is a growing interest in the impact and performance of irrigation management transfer (IMT) or participatory irrigation management (PIM) models. The Andhra Pradesh irrigation reform of 1996 (the ‘Andhra Model’) has also attracted much attention. Using a ‘politics of policy’ framework, this chapter critically examines the Andhra model and its proclaimed success. On the basis of field evidence, the chapter shows that the reform policy was captured by the irrigation bureaucracy, WUA representatives, and local political leaders. Thus, the chapter provides an alternative perspective on irrigation reforms. It further provides evidence that the reform policy did not result in a complete devolution of bureaucratic powers but rather served to recapture bureaucratic control over irrigation management. It concludes that the struggles between policy actors must be put in the broader framework of historical, political, and bureaucratic transformations.

This chapter uses evidence from three case studies of irrigation reform processes in irrigation systems of different scale and complexity in the Nepalese Terai to show changing dynamics in and between irrigation technology and institutions. It also reviews the changing nature of Nepalese policies for irrigation reform and the evolution of assistance programmes shaping these field experiences. Reforms have been especially weak in not providing enough incentive for improved management performance, as envisaged in programme design, and still face institutional and technical problems. The chapter argues that future design of IMT programmes should build on, but move beyond, contemporary models of PIM and participatory technology development (PTD), to bring a new realism in reforming technology and institutions together. The transforming concept of ‘irrigation modernization’, applied with better understanding of local performance priorities, can perhaps help local organizations achieve service-oriented management in accordance with the resource base of irrigation systems.

Though irrigation policy stresses the need to promote conjunctive water management, interventions in groundwater and surface water are often completely isolated from each other. This chapter discusses institutional changes in a complex water resources setting in the Tinau river basin of Nepal. It aims at understanding the evolution of institutions for water management and governance in an area with a history of surface irrigation management subject to large-scale interventions in deep and shallow groundwater irrigation. The empirical evidence drawn from this research shows that the institutions that evolve for managing irrigation are very dynamic. They emerge as a result of the interaction of the different characteristics of various technologies and sources of water in a society undergoing more general transformations. The study shows that to understand resource use, technical performance, and future options in their transformation, we need to look beyond interventions and focus on local institutional processes.

This chapter examines the role of the state, community and market in deterioration of a national irrigation system in the Philippines. It cites the danger in hastily handing over systems from state to community management without considering the limits of local communities’ organizational capacity. It highlights the need for community-enhancing policies for the efficient management of relatively large-scale local commons.

This chapter describes the underlying ethos in Ibâḍism of equality before God, and illustrates this with particular reference to the protection of the rights of the peasants and other producing classes. It shows the ability of Ibâḍi law to adapt to the needs of an agricultural economy in two entirely different environments — that of Oman based on an ancient pre-Islamic falaj irrigation system, and that of colonization de novo in the Mzab. As barriers between the indigenous village population and the Arab tribesmen broke down, the majûs converted and a remarkable assimilation of the villagers and tribesmen occurred that is not characteristic of neighbouring regions. Nevertheless, the concern for protecting the little man from illegal seizure in an agricultural economy now based on privately owned mulk small holdings, led to a sterilization of vast areas of former production, when land that fell into the hands of jabâbira (tyrants) reverted to Ibâḍi rule, while a tax system that failed to recognize inputs other than labour as a factor of production did not encourage reinvesting in expensive irrigation reconstruction.

Based on research in the warabandi and shejpali systems of irrigation prevalent in north-west and western India, this chapter proposes due consideration of technology in policy and institutional reforms in large-scale canal irrigation. Warabandi and shejpali represent two forms of water allocation corresponding to different technologies or design of canal irrigation systems. The chapter explores how the potential for market creation, redefinition of water rights, and decentralization varies in these systems. Though these three options are often considered as alternative approaches to irrigation management reform, they are rarely considered together or in relation to each other. Further, in most discussions of these, technology is a black box. How the potential of reform through these three approaches is shaped by the technology and systems of water allocation receives scant attention. This chapter makes a case for mainstreaming discussions of technology in proposals for irrigation management reform.

Design of irrigation infrastructure in Farmer-managed Irrigation Systems (FMISs) is not only shaped by engineering and agronomic principles, but also strongly influenced by features of the local environment. Based on detailed case studies of four FMISs in Nepal, this chapter presents different typologies of water distribution systems and their associated water division structures that are found in FMISs. It describes various agro-ecological features and local institutions of the area in which irrigation systems operate. It analyses the elements of these agro-ecological features and local institutions in FMISs, and examines their relationships with irrigation infrastructure, especially the water division structure. It argues that understanding these relationships is vital for further developing FMISs in close partnership with local communities. It further suggests that recognition of these relationships can guide policies for better use of water resources and to improve livelihoods of local communities.

Both influential scholarly works and development policy provide a powerful discursive space to the idea of local or pre-modern knowledge and community control over natural resources. This chapter provides a critique of both the ideas of the superiority of local or pre-modern knowledge and of community as a suitable form of institutional control over resources. It locates the transformation of pre-modern tank irrigation technology in the socio-agrarian context of Karnataka in the last four decades. The author ultimately argues that technological artifacts are not inert objects. They articulate with a complex mix of social tensions, relations of power, and ideological systems, and are transformed in historical processes. Those who advocate artifacts and knowledge systems as objects of values and virtues fail to capture their social and political scripting, thus denying technology as a historical process.

Micro-hydel development has been an important part of both energy and rural development policy in the hills of Nepal, and design choices and support policies have been shaped by both international actors and local development programmes. Micro-hydel development has often been integrated with local irrigation systems, requiring development in management of both electricity and irrigation services. Using case studies selected from different micro-hydel designs, this chapter explores how communities have taken action and struggled to evolve their power and irrigation systems and adapt designs, to support growing and changing needs. It uses both frameworks from irrigation research to look at evolution of accountabilities for effective system evolution, and wider frameworks from technology studies to study whether communities achieve technological democracy in their system development. It also discusses differences and similarities between the evolution of power and irrigation supplies, and their management organizations.

This chapter explores the Christian village experiment. Brand new villages, constructed by the missions on land reclaimed through canal irrigation in western Punjab, offered missionaries control of the natural, socio-economic, and religious environment in engineering the ideal Christian communities of the future. Free now of old, oppressive village ties that they had once hoped simply to re-negotiate, the small numbers of converts who moved to the new villages had high expectations of their own. In particular, the CMS village of Clarkabad and the Capuchin village of Maryabad had the potential finally to stretch the mission-convert relationship to breaking point.

The first Aswan Dam was the most controversial civil enterprise of the early British Mandate in Egypt. It was also one of the most ideologically loaded projects of a British-dominated government, which wished to be seen as both modernizing force and guardian of Egypt's heritage. In this conflicted situation, lobbies for and against the construction of the dam do not follow predictable patterns. Engineers, seeing themselves as modern parallels to the biblical Joseph, often expressed greater discomfort with the drowning of monuments than did those, including Egyptologists, whose professional concerns were with Egypt's ancient past. Initially centred around biblical imagery and the iconic temple of Philae, the debate was transformed by the emergence of concern for Egyptian prehistory and consequent attraction of new anthropological interests.

This chapter summarizes how the Southern Pacific Railroad affected the course of human affairs in its territories. Its contributions to water supply, environment and resource conservation, land grants, agriculture, and irrigation are highlighted. The chapter also shows the decline experienced by American railroads after the Second World War; the Southern Pacific Railroad is shown to be one of the most affected companies. It notes that the Southern Pacific Railroad effectively shut down on September 11, 1996.

Based on the canonical account, the poet depicts a dispute that arises about the distribution of irrigation water between the Shākyas and their neighbors, the Koliyas. Both share a border river and since it is paddy transplantation time, both sides claim the right to go first; the situation deteriorates from argument to insults to brawling. Angry men on each side decide that a war must be fought to defend ethnic pride and water rights. The poet describes all the preparations for battle and the heroic spirit of the Shākyas as they don armor and bid farewell to their families. As the Shākya soldiers are poised to attack, the Buddha arrives and, by posing questions about the value of human life and the absurdity of war, ends the conflict. The Buddha is shown as an exponent of peace who prevented bloodshed between his own kinsmen and those of a neighboring city‐state.

The high standard of living of weavers as well as other labouring groups in the Indian subcontinent was rooted in the traditions and practices of the labour market, which gave labouring groups enormous bargaining power in their relations with merchants, ‘employers’, and even political authorities. Perhaps, the most critical of these traditions was the freedom that weavers, peasants, and other producers possessed to pick up and move. As the use of coercion to limit this mobility was not a legitimate exercise of state power, rulers were forced to undertake agricultural improvements in order to compete for peasants and agricultural labour. This meant that there was a high rate of investment in agriculture: high quality lands were cleared, water control systems were erected, and the cultivation of more valuable crops supported. This investment, in turn, supported high standards of living.

This chapter discusses the politics of groundwater markets and its interrelation with social differentiation and class–caste relations. Based on an intensive social anthropological study of a village in north Gujarat, it investigates the factors that shaped unrestrained use of groundwater and the responses of various social groups. These factors range from the issues of access and control over productive resources such as land and groundwater, a local ecology that endorsed groundwater development and institutions like groundwater markets, and sharecropping that mediated the change process. The chapter uses a triadic framework of agrarian institutions, ecological variables in agrarian change, and the domain of the state in influencing nature and society. Further, it locates the context of the study in the larger political economy of Gujarat where dominant classes have determined differential class-based access to productive resources through sources of legitimacy and power.

In academic and policy debates, tanks are seen as appropriate alternative irrigation infrastructure to large dams in terms of efficiency, equity, and sustainability. Though partially true, this perspective masks several characteristic features of the tank as a resource and fails to look at its historicity and dynamism. This chapter questions this partially inadequate standpoint. It maps social struggles over tank resources in south India in the context of agrarian transformation from the perspectives of political economy and legal anthropology. It employs a comparative approach that examines the character of struggles in two different tank-irrigated agrarian landscapes of Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu, both tank cascades. It argues that the tank is a socio-technically constructed landscape and a politically contested resource. The prevailing use and management pattern of tank resources in the region is an outcome of prolonged social struggle, contestation, and negotiation among competing actors with conflicting interests.