The Ganges Water Diversion Environmental Effects And Implications

This book deals with environmental effects on both sides of the border between Bangladesh and India caused by the Ganges water diversion. This issue came to my attention in early 1976 when news media in Bangladesh and overseas, began publications of articles on the unilateral withdrawal of a huge quantity of water from the Ganges River through the commissioning of the Farakka Barrage in India. I first pursued the subject professionally in 1984 while working as a contributor for Bangladesh Today, Holiday and New Nation. During the next two decades, I followed the protracted hydro-political negotiations between the riparian countries in the Ganges basin, and I traveled extensively to observe the environmental and ecological changes in Bangladesh as well as India that occurred due to the water diversion. The Ganges, one of the longest rivers of the world originates at the Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas and flows across the plains of North India. Eventually the river splits into two main branches and empties into the Bay of Bengal. The conflict of diversion and sharing of the Ganges water arose in the middle of the last century when the government of India decided to implement a barrage at Farakka to resolve a navigation problem at the Kolkata Port.

Présentation de l'éditeur : "Despite Asia's large share of global water resources, and the importance of its water for sustaining one of the largest agrarian populations in the world, Asia's trans boundary water resource management regimes are poorly developed. There are only two working international regimes in South and South-east Asia: the Mekong and the Indus regimes. The remaining international watercourses in Asia are used by riparian countries in a self-interested manner, without much consideration for the interests of other states or for the environment. These national interests do not often represent the interests and needs of the local people. This book is divided into three Parts. Part I discusses the different contexts of law-making in the industrialized west and in agrarian societies in Asia, as well as the changing context of law-making following the emergence of the concept of sustainable development. Part II discusses the regime of international watercourses. Part III of the book presents two case studies in Asia: the Mekong and the Ganges. The main argument is that in the absence of public participation in decision-making and resource management, the basin states revert to using the watercourses according to the principles of the classical regime. The result, so far, has been unsustainable development, environmental degradation and growing poverty of local user communities."

The discourse on the human right to water presents deliberations on the concept, content and rationale for the right, with little attention to the practical question of translating the right into reality. This book aims to fill this void by focusing on ‘realization’ of the right by its holders, examining how effective the mechanisms are for ‘implementing’ the right in enabling its universal realization. In a quest to answer this question, the book draws a conceptual differentiation between ‘implementation’ and ‘realization’ of the right, arguing that unlike implementation - which is an objective process of creation and implementation of measures such as legal frameworks, institutional structures or policy and action guidelines, realization of the right is a subjective process that extends much beyond. It takes shape within specific contextual settings which may include varied situations, yet remains neglected in the related academic and action forums. This book attempts to address this void by discussing some of the most significant contexts and the underlying problems and concerns that strongly influence realization of the human right to water. It contends that if the right is to be truly realized, these different contexts - which can be further classified as 'objective' and 'subjective' - must be understood, analysed and appropriately addressed before framing and implementing relevant action. The book further situates the human right to water discourse in a broader interdisciplinary perspective, expanding its scope beyond the narrower legal dimensions, linking it to the wider field of water resources management/governance. Through the novel ideas it proposes, the book makes an innovative and unique contribution in the field of human right to water which is of great scientific value.

This book introduces the concept of Water Diplomacy as a principled and pragmatic approach to problem-driven interdisciplinary collaboration, which has been developed as a response to pressing contemporary water challenges arising from the coupling of natural and human systems. The findings of the book are the result of a decade-long interdisciplinary experiment in conceiving, developing, and implementing an interdisciplinary graduate program on Water Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA. This has led to the development of the Water Diplomacy Framework, a shared framework for understanding, diagnosing, and communicating about complex water issues across disciplinary boundaries. This framework clarifies important distinctions between water systems - simple, complicated, or complex - and the attributes that these distinctions imply for how these problems can be addressed. In this book, the focus is on complex water issues and how they require a problem-driven rather than a theory-driven approach to interdisciplinary collaboration. Moreover, it is argued that conception of interdisciplinarity needs to go beyond collaboration among experts, because complex water problems demand inclusive stakeholder engagement, such as in fact-value deliberation, joint fact finding, collective decision making, and adaptive management. Water professionals working in such environments need to operate with both principles and pragmatism in order to achieve actionable, sustainable, and equitable outcomes. This book explores these ideas in more detail and demonstrates their efficacy through a diverse range of case studies. Reflections on the program are also included, from conceptualization through implementation and evaluation. This book offers critical lessons and case studies for researchers and practitioners working on complex water issues as well as important lessons for those looking to initiate, implement, or evaluate interdisciplinary programs to address other complex problems in any setting.

Environmental literacy is the level to which a person has a clear understanding of the problems facing the environment. It is essential to have a working understanding of the current environmental issues. This is due to the fact that the human economy is involved in a number of activities that are destabilising the ecosystems that protect both our species and the biological diversity of the Earth. There are several signs of this, including pollution, climate change, dwindling fisheries, deforestation, agricultural soil degradation, species extinction and endangerment, and other disasters. But we don't have to be very pessimistic. If our nation adopts proactive measures now or soon, it won't be too late to prevent or address a number of the critical environmental issues that put the wellbeing of people and the majority of other species in peril. Within certain bounds, we are intelligent and clever creatures, and our society is capable of implementing a sustainable economic system that can support both our way of life and a healthy environment. However, it is clear that any sustainable economy would require business practises that were different from those that were previously the norm. It will also need considerable changes in many people's lifestyle, especially in wealthy nations. Such socioeconomic improvements ultimately need to use a lot less energy, materials, and other resources than many of us do today. Also sorely needed is a more reverent attitude toward the natural world. Individuals will need to have a solid understanding of environmental issues to make such a transformation. If access to resources is restricted, many people may initially feel uneasy. Therefore, I think that individuals will be more motivated to change their lives if they are aware of the reasons behind the adjustments in light of the livelihoods of future generations and ecological sustainability in general. With this understanding, most individuals will be in favour of social and economic changes that maintain the standard of their present and future settings. Wideranging environmental knowledge will be crucial if a nation like India aspires to successfully navigate the difficult transition to an environmentally sustainable economy. This book was created in that context to assist Indian university and college students in developing an unbiased and informed awareness of crucial environmental challenges. In light of such situation, the goal of this book was to assist Indian college and university students in developing an objective and solid understanding of the essential need to protect the environment.

This book explores the Sundarbans eco-region from a trans-boundary perspective, examining the cross-country interaction that helps planners to develop more efficient coastal zone planning for the delta. The dynamic ecosystem of the Sundarbans is considered the largest coastal delta in the world. It is located in the Bay of Bengal and spans across Bangladesh and West Bengal (India). Featuring chapters by experts from a range of fields, it addresses (i) risk factor analyses, and the geohydrological, climatic, natural, socio-economic, and anthropological factors related to the Sundarbans; (ii) strategies for sustainability in natural resource management in trans-boundary Sundarbans, cutting across political boundaries; (iii) improved agriculture, fisheries, and forestry practices and their impacts on the socio-economy for livelihood security; and (iv) a future road map for improvements. This book will be of value to those working in academia, as well as to experts and professionals in coastal zone planning and management.

Natural Water Treatment Systems for Safe and Sustainable Water Supply in the Indian Context is based on the work from the Saph Pani project (Hindi word meaning potable water). The book aims to study and improve natural water treatment systems, such as River Bank Filtration (RBF), Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), and wetlands in India, building local and European expertise in this field. The project aims to enhance water resources and water supply, particularly in water stressed urban and peri urban areas in different parts of the Indian sub-continent. This project is co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework (FP7) scheme of small or medium scale focused research projects for specific cooperation actions (SICA) dedicated to international cooperation partner countries. Natural Water Treatment Systems for Safe and Sustainable Water Supply in the Indian Context provides: an introduction to the concepts of natural water treatment systems (MAR, RBF, wetlands) at national and international level knowledge of the basics of MAR, RBF and wetlands, methods and hydrogeological characterisation an insight into case studies in India and abroad. This book is a useful resource for teaching at Post Graduate level, for research and professional reference.