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Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way

Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way. How to NOT filter out Uncomfortable Knowledge of Wicked Problems. Dipak Gyawali Nepal Academy of Science and Technology and Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, GPO Box 3971, Kathmandu, Nepal e-mail: dipakgyawali@ntc.net.np. National Water Policies

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Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way

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  1. Handling Rivers the Clumsy Way How to NOT filter out Uncomfortable Knowledge of Wicked Problems Dipak Gyawali Nepal Academy of Science and Technology and Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, GPO Box 3971, Kathmandu, Nepal e-mail: dipakgyawali@ntc.net.np

  2. National Water Policies = Rain in Colorado Desert Why? Too much ‘Eagle Eye’ Science Too little ‘Toad’s Eye’ Science Both are necessary but neither alone is sufficient: ES lacks grounded roots while TS lacks perspective Dipak Gyawali, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation

  3. Desakota: the co-penetration of rural and urban systems

  4. What technology? Whose technology? Hegemony of Runaway Technology??!!

  5. Monsoon rains fill the ‘water tower’ and create the buffer for the arid season that keeps rivers alive!! ‘Real’ versus ‘Imagined’ Himalayan Water Tower August spring Peak monsoon Green water Early monsoon July spring Foothill permanent spring Foothill spring Blue water Dry period water level Blue water DipakG based on MadhukarU “Ponds and Landslides”

  6. Voter/Consumer Fatalism Resource Lottery, Risk Absorption, Club Good State Hierarchism Resource Scarcity, Risk Management, Public Goods Activist Egalitarianism Resource Depletion, Risk Sensitization, Common Pool Goods Market Individualism Resource Abundance, Risk Taking, Private Goods Social Response to Groundwater Overdraft

  7. Source: D. Gyawali 2003. Rivers, Technology and Society, Zed Books, London

  8. Rhine Cleanup Mono-cultural Hierarchical Regime 1946 Dutch Lead – 1950-1963 Intl Commission – 1976 1st Agreement National position entrenchment : salt the only issue 1986 Sandoz Spill Dualism of Public-Private Partnership Dutch Minister Neelie Kroes and McKinsey Report Not salt but environment becomes issue Non-binding objectives: implementation at lowest level Clumsy Pluralism 1993, 1995 Floods NGO demand for restoration of floodplains: 1994 NGO observer status, 1997 NGOs to implement some of the ICPR programs

  9. Wicked Problems examined with Uncomfortable Knowledge to find Clumsy Solutions • Water problems, urban problems, climate change – are all wicked problems with nested layers of more trouble that won’t go away soon and cannot even be easily defined. Forget conventional “planning”! • Uncomfortable knowledge generated from a plethora of “toad’s eye” to “eagle eye” views should be both listened to as well as responded to. • Finding solutions means not just within neat procedural hierarchism, but also within the clumsiness of market individualism (more often than not very informal) and civic egalitarianism. • It requires rethinking sustainability: understand how households perceive and believe what makes them sustainable over generations; replace sustainability with flexibility (that avoids “lock-ins”) and “below nation-state” security where decisions are being made anyway.

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