Open dumping of waste and discharging untreated wastewater into environment are key causes of environmental pollution in the developing world, including South Asian countries. Waste and wastewater however can be a source for recovering energy, nutrients and water if properly treated or recycled...

Large-scale, government-managed canal irrigation represents the technocratic approach to water development. Large-scale irrigation faces many problems but they have been relegated to the periphery in the water debate generally and about large dams in particular. It has given rise to dichotomous...

This paper reviews the literature on the characteristics of the post-Independence water resources policy process in India, with an emphasis on the recent period when critiques of existing and demands for new or adapted governance structures have become increasingly forceful. It will be shown...

This paper uses the growing volume of scholarly work on "water and politics" to conceptually and methodologically frame an approach to the social analysis of water resources management. This paper sets out the thrust and focus of such a "political sociology of water resources management". The...

The objective of this paper is to map the "politics of water" as a field of research. Such mapping logically has two parts. The first is an explanation of what is meant by politics and what could be the overall conceptual approach for analysing the politics of water - the formal part of the...

This paper reviews the boundary concepts that have emerged in interdisciplinary irrigation studies in South Asia, particularly India. The focus is concepts that capture the hybridity of irrigation systems as complex systems, and cross the boundaries of the natural and social sciences. Concepts...

This paper discusses how to go about designing an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research project or programme, with ZEF's research initiative on "water pollution and human health" in India as the background of the presentation. A summary is given of Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn's (2007) main...

The rural population of the Mekong Delta is facing increasing problems due to the contamination of domestic water sources. Around half of the population lacks year round access to clean water. In combination with bad hygiene behaviour and poor sanitation there is a high risk for water-related...

The ZEF-UNESCO project on Sustainable Management of Land and Water Resources in Uzbekistan addresses the environmental, social and economic problems in the Khorezm province, located within the so-called Aral Sea Zone in Uzbekistan. Currently in its seventh year (third phase), the project aims...