Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The focus of my presentation is the WTO Agreement on Trade in Services and its implication for Human Right to Water. Globalisation has impacted on the right to health in a range of ways- global migration has increased the spread of disease; global privatization has reduced public health expenditures in both the developed and developing world; it has promoted the commodification of medical goods and services. It has also enhanced global inequalities as clinical trials are increasingly being located in emerging economies, transforming the poor into guinea pigs.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Using survey data from the Las Vegas metropolitan area, this paper will examine citizen perceptions of water quality in their community. The analysis will provide insights into what drives citizen perceptions of the safety of their water supply.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: ABSTRACT: TITLE: Economic Liberalization and Private Sector Participation in Water: A National Agenda for Water Policy ReformMaking sense of policy processes requires an understanding of how power and knowledge define spaces of engagement, privileging few and excluding the others. To do so calls for a historical perspective that situates contemporary water policy reform in India in the larger processes of neoliberalism that led to a shift away from the development planning of the Nehru Mahanalobian socialist model. This paper provides a historical overview of the particular ways of thinking of trying to manage water problems within the mainstream economic development policy discourse, by understanding how these particular ways of thinking have gained ascendancy in water policy provisions in the way in which water is perceived, defined, managed and tackled. It focuses on how resource management policies in urban landscapes are a complex configuration of interests between a range of actors whose agency matters and whose interactions are shaped by power relations. The paper traces and situates the shifting narratives of water policy reform from a public service to an economic good in the politics of globalization and liberalization of the Indian state.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Natural resources have always been political assets, and indeed over time, many of them have also become tradable economic assets. Fresh water resources, however, have consistently resisted this transformation. Insofar as political scientists have viewed water as an issue in international relations, they have either predicted water wars or asserted the need to create international regimes to prevent such conflicts. Notwithstanding such predictions, during the last three decades, many countries have redefined water itself (and not just the services associated with it) as an economic good. From there, it may seem to be a small step to treating bulk water that is water transported in very large quantities, as a commodity to be traded. And, by the end of the 1990s, several international water trade projects were developed in Bolivia, Canada and France. By 2004, however, all projects had been interrupted by governments’ intervention. In some cases, the exporting country passed legislation halting the projects; in others, the importing government changed its mind. This paper argues that, in a time of widespread economic globalization, national political actors have prevented the full incorporation of fresh water resources in the globalization process for two main reasons: Water is still tightly linked to territorial concerns about self-sufficiency; and water continues to be seen as a social good. Consequently, in the three cases analyzed institutions constitute the explanatory variable for the governments’ different reactions and the privileged instrument to postpone the international commodification of bulk fresh water resources.

Publication Type: Oral Presentation
Abstract: A prolonged drought in the Colorado River Basin has resulted in restricted water deliveries to some agricultural users. Those producers that exceed their imposed water restriction have to pay back the resulting water overage by “extreme measures”, including fallowing land in the subsequent year. This has resulted in significant economic losses to some producers in the region. Recently, we have implemented an outreach program aimed at assisting growers with in-season accounting and management of water. This program includes engineering and installation of water measurement infrastructure and training in the use of this infrastructure. Concurrently, we have provided training in the use of water accounting software. The software includes provisions for considerations of crop evapotranspiration and system efficiency relative to delivery. Early identification of poor efficiency prompts the grower to modify practices early enough to avoid end of season overage. Results have shown that growers that previously exceeded their water allotment have successfully managed their water to avoid overage using the tools we developed. We anticipate expanded interest in this program if the drought continues and water restrictions are expanded.