International Water Management Institute.
Geogr J. 2011;177(2):160-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2010.00384.x.
As demand and competition for water resources increase, the river basin has become the primary unit for water management and planning. While appealing in principle, practical implementation of river basin management and allocation has often been problematic. This paper examines the case of the Krishna basin in South India. It highlights that conflicts over basin water are embedded in a broad reality of planning and development where multiple scales of decisionmaking and non-water issues are at play. While this defines the river basin as a disputed "space of dependence", the river basin has yet to acquire a social reality. It is not yet a "space of engagement" in and for which multiple actors take actions. This explains the endurance of an interstate dispute over the sharing of the Krishna waters and sets limits to what can be achieved through further basin water allocation and adjudication mechanisms – tribunals – that are too narrowly defined. There is a need to extend the domain of negotiation from that of a single river basin to multiple scales and to non-water sectors. Institutional arrangements for basin management need to internalise the political spaces of the Indian polity: the states and the panchayats. This re-scaling process is more likely to shape the river basin as a space of engagement in which partial agreements can be iteratively renegotiated, and constitute a promising alternative to the current interstate stalemate.
随着水资源需求和竞争的增加，流域已成为水资源管理和规划的主要单元。流域管理和分配在原则上具有吸引力，但在实际实施中往往存在问题。本文以印度南部的克里希纳河流域为例。研究结果表明，流域水资源冲突是规划和发展这一大背景下的一部分，其中涉及多个决策层面和非水问题。尽管这将流域定义为一个存在争议的“依赖空间”，但流域尚未获得社会现实。流域尚未成为一个“参与空间”，众多利益相关方在其中采取行动。这解释了为何克里希纳河水域共享问题会引发州际争端且持续存在，以及为何通过进一步的流域水资源分配和狭隘定义的裁决机制（法庭）无法解决这一问题。有必要将谈判领域从单一流域扩展到多个层面和非水部门。流域管理的制度安排需要将印度政体的政治空间（邦和基层自治组织）纳入其中。这一重新调整规模的过程更有可能使流域成为一个参与空间，在该空间中可以逐步重新协商部分协议，并为当前的州际僵局提供一个有希望的替代方案。
