All Paths Lead to Rain: Explaining why Watershed Development in India Does Not Alleviate the Experience of Water Scarcity

Bharucha, Zareen Pervez and Smith, David and Pretty, Jules (2014) All Paths Lead to Rain: Explaining why Watershed Development in India Does Not Alleviate the Experience of Water Scarcity. Journal of Development Studies, 50 (9). pp. 1209-1225. ISSN 1743-9140

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Abstract

Watershed development (WSD) projects in India are key to meeting a range of human development goals in rain-fed agrarian landscapes. However, outcomes are often observed to be partial and short-lived. We offer a novel perspective on the reasons. Our analysis shows that the dominant ‘water narratives’ of WSD policy and practice and the lived experience of local people contribute to a naturalisation of water scarcity, resulting in widespread views that WSD is primarily a means for increasing irrigation water supply. We show how this over-simplifies the complex problem of agricultural water use and perversely contributes to a continuing experience of water scarcity rather than its resolution.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Keywords:	Water, Drylands, India
Faculty:	ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)
Depositing User:	Unnamed user with email Zareen.Bharucha@anglia.ac.uk
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2018 08:26
Last Modified:	14 Nov 2019 16:02
URI:	http://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703709

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