Tushaar Shah: Taming the anarchy: groundwater governance in South Asia

Autor: J. W. Kijne
Rok vydání: 2009
Předmět:
Zdroj: Irrigation Science. 28:281-284
ISSN: 1432-1319
0342-7188
DOI: 10.1007/s00271-009-0194-8
Popis: ‘Taming the Anarchy’ is an important and—as Tushaar Shah says in its preface—a provocative book. Readers, he expects, will question some of his powerful ideas and arguments. Shah, Senior Advisor to the Director General at the International Water Management Institute in Colombo and Senior Advisor to the Government of India, exhibits in this book the rare skill of being able to write for both politicians and practitioners while maintaining the scientiWc rigor of the groundwater scientist he is. Shah eloquently explains why after independence the relation between South Asian states and their farming communities began to change as supply-based water delivery became unsatisfactory. In a relatively short period of time, this gave rise to an era of atomistic pump irrigation. The author provides interesting details in describing the extent of the tube well irrigation revolution in South Asia and the likely consequences for the future of canal irrigation. He also explores the spatial variability of groundwater potential in the region, refuting the simplistic claim of general overexploitation of the resource. Shah makes it clear that pump irrigation has not solved all the problems of irrigated agriculture in South Asia. To the contrary, sustaining irrigated agriculture in South Asia is a huge challenge, requiring actions by the farmers and initiatives from society itself. Irrigated agriculture and food production in South Asia, a region with about 1.5 billion people, deserve our interested attention because of its potential impact on all our lives. Causes of the pump irrigation revolution
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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