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The concept of ‘watershed management’ combines two things, namely managing the physical aspects of water resources and managing the socio-economic systems. The problem of watershed management has mixed impacts, mixed institutional jurisdictions, and mixed signals as to what are benefits and costs. An integrated and multi-disciplinary approach is needed. Understanding the sociology of watersheds is crucial because in many cases, groups and communities inhabiting the upper watersheds tend to be both physically and politically remote, and tend to be outside the national mainstream. Increased public participation is essential, but more needs to be done to focus on the role of mountain communities. Economic analysis of watersheds focuses on the measurement and monetary valuation of various activities of interest within the watershed. The chapter uses case studies and examples to illustrate these issues and discusses some policy implications.

This chapter examines the history and politics of watershed management around the Panama Canal. It situates the emergence of canal-related water scarcity concerns and the new administrative response—watershed management—within the historical context of the development of forest hydrology science, institutional tensions between civil engineers and foresters around water management, and the global dissemination of “watershed” as a concept. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, the chapter explores the sociopolitical challenges and conflicts around establishing a new administrative watershed region across a space where the Panamanian state had previously pursued development through agriculture. Tensions between canal authorities and rural people have turned on the different ways that environments have been incorporated into transportation and agricultural infrastructures. Using a political ecology approach, the chapter argues that Panamanian forests were transformed into naturalinfrastructure through the organizational work of linking rural landscapes with an engineered system and national and international institutions.

This chapter summarizes the current state of knowledge about the factors influencing the success of watershed partnerships. It begins by discussing a conceptual framework for watershed partnerships that identifies aspects of the collaborative process, participants, and context that may influence effectiveness. It then presents the findings from the watershed partnerships literature, focusing in depth on the National Estuary Program (NEP) study and the Watershed Partnership Project (WPP). The conceptual framework presented in this chapter receives further testing through a new set of parallel analyses of the NEP and WPP data. The framework and analysis were originally developed for a working paper commissioned by the National Research Council.

While watershed development programmes in India are increasingly being understood as an integrated approach for rural development, the rise in water demand combined with the decline in water supplies have seen commercialization of water in form of informal markets in rural India with respect to trade in irrigation water and urban water market in response to the need for safe drinking water and lack of piped water supply. To meet the demand for water in the future, communities will need to work to conserve and reallocate existing water resources. Thus researches on conservation of water become necessary to look into the issues of planning, management, regulatory and enforcement powers of government and communities to conserve water to reduce threats of scarcity and long term sustainability of water.

Chapter 3 provides the background context for examining grassroots global governance through the lens of Ecuador’s integrated watershed management reform attempts. The chapter first describes Ecuador’s fragmented, national system for managing watershed resources during the 1990s, when transnational coalitions formed to promote integrated watershed management reform globally. It then specifies what integrated watershed management looks like in practice, contrasts it with Ecuador’s pre-existing watershed management practices, and measures the degree to which the reforms were implemented in the book’s six case studies. In so doing, the chapter identifies both the cases where the grassroots global governance process endured through phase 2 and the points in the process where failed cases broke down. The final section describes the different local contexts where reforms were pursued and the local actors involved. It shows that success and failure does not correlate with local political, socioeconomic, cultural, demographic, or ecological conditions.

Chapter 5 examines phase 1 of grassroots global governance from the local perspective. It compares the degree to which national network activation for integrated watershed management reached the six case studies and shows how this variation determined the prospects for reform during phase 2. In localities touched by national network activation during phase 1, this network activation facilitated the formation of strong, local coalitions and created propitious conditions for quickly mobilizing support among local stakeholders. By contrast, when localities were untouched by national network activation during phase 1, subsequent coalitions faced relatively closed local opportunity structures. To illustrate this, the chapter traces the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 in two similar Andean cases: one where national network activation created propitious local conditions for subsequent successful integrated watershed management reform (Celica) and one where the lack of national network activation undermined subsequent local reform efforts (Ibarra).

Chapter 4 examines phase 1 of grassroots global governance theory, which explains why some versions of global ideas like integrated watershed management diffuse domestically while others do not. It describes three transnational networks promoting integrated watershed management in Ecuador, each linked to one of three main nodes for global organizing: the World Bank, FAO, and the UNDP. Each network advanced different policies reflecting different institutional goals and approaches to integrated watershed management. The chapter compares each network’s ability to expand domestically through network activation, thereby diffusing their preferred policies to the local level. It shows how Ecuador’s national context acted as a filter, empowering some networks and disempowering others, which influenced how integrated watershed management was defined and operationalized domestically. The chapter highlights the importance of Ecuadorian brokers who activated national networks of domestic advocates and adapted global principles to navigate Ecuador’s national context and shift contestation to local arenas.

Chapter 6 examines phase 2 of grassroots global governance, showing how variation in framing and network capacity-building strategies explains not only which local integrated watershed management reform processes endured, but also the stage at which failed cases broke down. After presenting the results of frame and social network analysis for all six cases, the chapter traces El Chaco’s reform process. It illustrates how successful coalitions combined a frame-displacement strategy with high levels of network capacity building (e.g., training local knowledge communities; creating new linking and governance institutions) to produce the simultaneous, mutual pressure “from beside” among local stakeholder groups needed to sustain the reform processes. Pastaza shows how a counter-framing strategy and low levels of capacity building produce breakdown at the initial agenda setting stage. In Tungurahua, a counter-framing strategy and high capacity building produced breakdown during rule making. In Zamora, a frame-displacement strategy and low capacity building produced breakdown during implementation.

Chapter 7 traces Tungurahua’s integrated watershed management reform process to show how network activation strategies interact during phase 2 of grassroots global governance. Transnational integrated watershed management networks expanded to Tungurahua by training local knowledge communities and organizing them through linking institutions, producing a local integrated watershed management coalition. Network capacity building incorporated many local stakeholder groups into the reform process. However, a counter-framing strategy and technical approach to rule making led local stakeholders to reject proposed institutions, causing reform efforts to break down at the rule-making stage. Advocates reactivated local stakeholder networks and achieved success after switching to a frame-displacement strategy and participatory approach to rule making. Local brokers—grassroots coalition members—guided this change in strategy, illustrating why they assume leading roles in transnational governance networks during phase 2. Grassroots actors used their power to contest, translate, and adapt integrated watershed management principles and to experiment with innovative institutions that fit local norms and stakeholder interests.

Chapter 1 presents two research questions: (1) absent global agreement to address global problems, how do things nonetheless get done, and (2) how do ideas regarding the best way to tackle global problems evolve? The chapter summarizes the book’s main arguments and the implications for understanding how global governance is constructed. By analyzing the political struggles at the intersection of top-down and bottom-up norm diffusion processes, the book reveals (1) how global and local governance arrangements are co-constituted at the grassroots level, and (2) the importance of grassroots actors absent in most analyses. The chapter describes the formation of transnational networks to promote Integrated Watershed Management globally and explains why this provides a useful lens for analyzing the nexus between global and local governance. Finally, the chapter highlights two important features that become visible by analyzing contestation over global ideas at the local level: pressure from “beside” and local experimentation.

This chapter focuses on environmental dimensions of water. The first section of this chapter reproduces general environmental law instruments relevant in the context of protection and conservation of water and related ecosystem. This is followed by a section on environmental law instruments that specifically address the issues of water pollution and water quality. Protection and conservation of water requires regulation of a number of activities that affect water bodies and thus the fourth section captures regulation of activities in catchment areas and regulation of activities that particularly and directly affects water—for example sand mining. Protection and conservation of water also requires augmentation measures and measures to ensure optimal use of water. The fourth and fifth section, thus, focuses two such measures, rainwater harvesting and recycle and re-use of wastewater.