Waltina Scheumann Books

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) report (2000) “Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making” set a landmark in the ongoing controversy over large dams. Now that more than ten years have passed, one has to realize that the WCD norms matter. However, their real chance of becoming implemented relies on whether their core values, strategic priorities and guidelines are accepted by national decision-makers and are translated into official policies and practices. The book’s major concern is whether the big hydropower states have improved their standards for environment and resettlement, and whether international standards are applied or exist only on paper. The introductory and synthesis chapters present the methodological approach and discuss the findings. Other chapters analyze changes in dam policies in the big hydropower states Brazil, China, India and Turkey; the role of non-governmental organizations in advocating against the Turkish Ilisu Dam project on the Tigris River; the strategies of International Rivers and World Wildlife Fund for Nature in the global hydropower game; the policies of the German government and its positioning in the dam debate, and the engagement of Chinese actors in building the Bui Dam (Ghana) and the Kamchay Dam (Cambodia).

The importance of the political sphere for understanding and solving water sector problems is the basic rationale of this book, which is the outcome of the Fifth Dialogues on Water, organised at the German Development Institute, Bonn. These dialogues, unlike earlier ones, focused on the political processes of policy formulation and the strategic behaviour of the actors involved. Specific attention is devoted to implications for development cooperation.

Focusing on the institutional factors contributing to soil salinization, this study explores how centralized management structures hinder effective control measures in public irrigation systems. It highlights the lack of incentives for management units and farmers to address high groundwater levels and salinization. The author investigates the conditions necessary for these stakeholders to engage actively in reversing salinization, emphasizing the interplay between institutional arrangements and agricultural sustainability.

The study examines coordination challenges, emphasizing that cross-sectoral coordination isn't the sole governance issue for aligning land and water-intensive development plans. It highlights the importance of land tenure changes and the water allocation regime in relation to traditional governance institutions.

Abstract: "In the past the joint use of transboundary rivers was often seen as entailing major security-related conflict potentials. In the late 1980s and particularly during the 1990s blaring headlines like 'Water Wars,' 'Water More Precious than Gold,' or 'Water Seen as Fuel for Military Conflicts' drew the public's attention to potential or existing use conflicts along transboundary water bodies. Rising consumption and the asymmetrical hydropolitical relations between countries fuelled the assumption that water shortages would just about inevitably lead to violent conflict. A much-cited example was conflict among the riparian countries along the Nile and Euphrates- Tigris; the relations between the riparian countries of Southern Africa were likewise seen as a potential source of conflict." (excerpt). Contents: Lars Wirkus, Volker Böge: Transboundary water management on Africa's international rivers and lakes: current state and experiences (11-102); Axel Klaphake, Olivia Voils: Cooperation

The fonner Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and fonner UN Secre tary General, Butros Butros Ghali stated after the second Gulf War „The next war in the Middle East will not be fought for oil, but for water. “ This famous statement has been echoed by many politicians: shortly before be coming president of Turkey, SOleyman Demirel declared that the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris belonged to Turkey, just as oil belongs to the Arabs. Rafael Eytan, at that time and now again Israeli Minister of Agriculture, declared in 1990 in full-page advertisements in the Jerusalem Post that Israel would never cede the West Bank to the Palestinians because Israel's water supply would otherwise be endangered. Finally, Ismail Serageldin, vice president of the World Bank, declared in 1995 that „the wars of the next century will be over water“. These statements are typical of the atmosphere reigning in the Middle East and in several other places around the world concerning the issue of international fresh water resources. Whether these perceptions correspond to an actual threat to a nation's water supply or whether they correspond to the official position of states in negotiations often conducted secretly, is an entirely different matter. A closer analysis of the issue of international fresh water resources, as we attempt in this book, admittedly reveals a dangerous potential for conflict over water.

Salinization of soils is a major threat to irrigated agriculture and counteracts the targets of costly public infrastructure investments. In this study, salinization is regarded as the outcome of an institutional arrangement which impedes the effective implementation of well-known and well-established control measures be they technical, managerial or economic. In public irrigation systems neither the management units nor the farmers are offered any incentives towards the control of high groundwater levels and salinization if the management units are embedded in a highly centralized non-market institutional setting. The author answers the question under which conditions management units and irrigators are active in halting and reversing the process of salinization.