Controlling the Water: Matching Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Management in India and Nepal

Irrigation has a long history and important developmental role in India and Nepal. Even then it is faced with critical challenges as new scarcities and environmental stresses emerge, for which understanding technology and institutional choices is vital. Through case studies conducted in these two countries, Controlling the Water explores the means of controlling water used in irrigation management, looking at the sources and technologies in practice, and the institutions evolving around them. This volume shows the range of irrigation technologies developed in different agro-ecological zones-large-scale public canal systems; small-scale farmer-managed canal systems; ponds and tank irrigation systems; and groundwater-based and conjunctive use settings, including micro-hydel systems developed alongside irrigation. It thus portrays not only the complexities of water environments and systems in irrigation, but also the diversities present in technological and institutional trajectories. It also provides a synthesis of theoretical ideas and conceptual frameworks that have been used to study these dynamics of water control. Available in OSO: Contributors to this volume - Suman Rimal Gautam is a trained agricultural engineer with specialization in irrigation engineering and management, and works from Washington, DC; Puspa Raj Khanal is water resources development and conservation expert in the Food and Agriculture Organization, Bangkok, Thailand; Jyothi Krishnan is an independent researcher in water and natural resources management, Kerala, India; R. Manimohan is a PhD researcher at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and Research Associate at the Institute for Ocean Management, Anna University, Chennai, India; Peter P. Mollinga is Professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom; Vishal Narain is Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Governance at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India; Bala Raju Nikku is on the executive board of the Asian and Pacific Association of Social Work Education, visiting lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and General Secretary of the South Asia Consortium of Interdisciplinary Water Resource Studies; Umesh Nath Parajuli is a freelance international consultant in several countries in Southeast and Central Asia; Anjal Prakash is the Executive Director of the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, Hyderabad, India; Amreeta Regmi is Election Poll Manager for Gwinnett County, Georgia; Dik Roth is Assistant Professor of the Rural Development Sociology Group, Social Sciences Department, Wageningen University, The Netherlands; Esha Shah is Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands; Linden Vincent is Professor of the Irrigation and Water Engineering Group, Environmental Sciences Department, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.