1st Edition

Water, Environmental Security and Sustainable Rural Development Conflict and cooperation in Central Eurasia

Edited By Murat Arsel, Max Spoor Copyright 2010
    304 Pages 35 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    304 Pages 35 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This co-edited volume provides a unified scholarly treatment of intensifying debates on the relationship between water scarcity and environmental security in Central Eurasia. Using discussions of sustainable rural development as its conceptual backdrop, the chapters in this volume combine solid empirical investigation with critical analysis of key concepts such as ‘scarcity’, ‘expert knowledge’, and ‘efficiency’. The central theme emerging from the contributions emphasizes the need to reevaluate accepted wisdom in resource studies that considers distributional conflicts over water usage as inherently zero-sum outcomes in which one player’s gains inevitably correspond to another player’s losses. Instead, the empirical and critical analyses in this book demonstrate that effective management of water resources can be re-conceptualized as the basis for regional cooperation and sustainable rural development.

    Part I 1. Follow the Water Murat Arsel and Max Spoor Part II: Transformation Of Water Regimes 2. Water, War And Reconstruction Irrigation Management In The Kunduz Region, Afghanistan Iskandar Abdullayev, Katja Mielke, Peter P. Mollinga, Jan Monsees, Conrad Schetter, Usman Shah, and Bernie Ter Steege 3. Political Ecology Of Marshland Restoration In Iraq Joshua Ellis and Murat Arsel 4. Wells, Water Rights and Sustainability: New Politics And Practices Mongolia’s Pastoral Commons Caroline Upton 5. ‘Adapting to Demands’: Allocation, Scheduling and Delivery of Irrigation Water in Khorezm, Uzbekistan Gert Jan Veldwisch Part III: Waterscapes of Conflict and Cooperation 6. Water and Geopolitics in Central Asia Iskandar Abdullayev, Herath Manthrithilake and Jusipbek Kazbekov 7. Conflict and Cooperation In The South Caucasus: The Kura-Araks Basin of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia Berrin Basak Vener and Michael E. Campana 8. ‘Have Your Cake And Eat It Too’: Agenda Setting In Central Asian Transboundary Rivers Kai Wegerich 9. Institutional Change, Cooperation And Conflict In Two Central Asia’s River Basins Anatoly Krutov and Max Spoor Part IV: Re-Stating Water Management 10. The Politics of Kyrgyz Water Policy Elke Herrfahrdt-Pähle 12. Water in Turkmenistan Ivan Stanchin and Zvi Lerman 11. Cotton, Environment and Poverty: The Case of Uzbekistan Max Spoor Part V 13. Securing the Future, Democratizing Development: The Role of Water Murat Arsel and Max Spoor

    Biography

    Murat Arsel is a Lecturer in Sustainable Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague/Erasmus University Rotterdam. Max Spoor is Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague/Erasmus University Rotterdam.