Abstract
This chapter reflects on land competition from a water perspective. Conceptual thoughts are enriched with evidence drawn from case studies as well as other published studies about both land and water. At the same time, it lays down an analytical framework for these case studies. Starting with a discussion of the inherent relationship between land and water, we explore recent disconnects in land and water studies that make it difficult to collate empirical evidence and comprehensive understanding of how competition between water and land are inherently linked. For us the term competition refers to gaining access to or control over—either land or water—and thus simultaneously captures social and material dimensions. To address these linkages, we employ the concept of waterscapes. One way of seeing waterscapes is through the lens of the competition that occurs at specific places, in various positions and on/across various scales, thereby capturing a combined view of land and water. The notion of waterscapes is mainly used by scholars from the fields of political ecology and critical geography thinking to explore how power is wielded, and in determining when and where who or what gets how much water/land. We briefly review the different notions of competition in disconnected literature concerning land and water in order to instil a further analytical dimension: whilst the term “competition” is increasingly used in land change science to refer to the global rush for land, water scholars refer rather to the various means of water governance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agnew, J. (1997). The dramaturgy of horizons: Geographical scale in the ‘Reconstruction of Italy’ by the new Italian political parties, 1992–1995. Political Geography, 16(2), 99–121. doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(96)00046-7.
Allan, J. A. (2003). Virtual water—the water, food, and trade nexus. Useful concept or misleading metaphor?: Water international. Water International, 28(1), 106–113. doi:10.1080/02508060.2003.9724812.
Allan, J. A., Keulertz, M., Sojamo, S., & Warner, J. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of land and water grabs in Africa: Foreign direct investment and food and water security (1st ed.). London: Routledge international handbooks. Routledge.
Bakker, K. (2002). From state to market?: Water mercantilización in Spain. Environment and Planning A, 34 (5), 767–790. doi:10.1068/a3425
Bakker, K. (2009). Water. In N, Castree., D. Demeritt., D. Liverman., & B. Rhoads, (Eds.), A companion to environmental geography (pp. 515–532). Wiley.
Bandaragoda, D. J. (2006). Water-land linkages: A relatively neglected issue in IWRM. In P. P. Mollinga, A. Dixit, & K. Athukorala (Eds.), Integrated water resources management: Global theory, emerging practice, and local needs (pp. 172–185). New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.
Barnes, J. (2012). Pumping possibility: Agricultural expansion through desert reclamation in Egypt. Social Studies of Science, 42(4), 517–538. doi:10.1177/0306312712438772
Biermann, F., Betsill, M. M., Gupta, J., Kanie, N., Lebel, L., Liverman, D., et al. (2009). Earth system governance. People, places, and the planet: Science and implementation plan of the earth system governance project 20. Accessed January 21, 2016.
Boroto, J. R., Chiramba, T., Mafuta, C. & Williams, T. O. (2014). Analysis of impacts of large-scale investments in agriculture on water resources, ecosystems and livelihoods; and development of policy options for decision makers: Summary of initial findings. http://www.grida.no/publications/water-grab/
Borras, S. M., Franco, J., Wang, C. (2012). Competing political tendencies in global governance of land grabbing. Discussion paper.
Brenner, N. (1998). Between fixity and motion: Accumulation, territorial organization and the historical geography of spatial scales. Environment and Planning D, 16 459–482.
Bruns, A. (2015). Wasser- und Bodenschutz in der Landschaftsplanung. In W. Riedel, H. Lange, E. Jedicke, & M. Reinke (Eds.), Landschaftsplanung (pp. 1–9). Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Budds, J. (2009). Contested H2O: Science, policy and politics in water resources management in Chile. Geoforum, 40(3), 418–430. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.12.008.
Budds, J. (2013). Water, power, and the production of neoliberalism in Chile, 1973–2005. Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 31(2), 301–318. doi:10.1068/d9511
Budds, J., & Hinojosa-Valencia, L. (2012). Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: The co-production of waterscapes in Peru. Water Alternatives, 5(1), 119–137.
Cohen, A., & Davidson, S. (2011). The watershed approach: Challenges, antecedents, and the transition from technical tool to governance unit. Water Alternatives, 4(1), 1–14.
Conway, D., van Garderen, E. A., Deryng, D., Dorling, S., Krueger, T., Landman, W., et al. (2015). Climate and southern Africa’s water-energy-food nexus. Nature Climate Change, 5(9), 837–846.
Cortner, H., & Moote, M. (1994). Trends and issues in land and water resources management: Setting the agenda for change. Environmental Management, 18(2), 167–173.
Cotula, L. (2012). The international political economy of the global land rush: A critical appraisal of trends, scale, geography and drivers. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(3–4), 649–680. doi:10.1080/03066150.2012.674940.
de Vries, D. H. (2011). Temporal vulnerability in hazardscapes: Flood memory-networks and referentiality along the North Carolina Neuse River (USA). Global Environmental Change, 21(1), 154–164.
Di Baldassarre, G., Kemerink, J. S., Kooy, M., & Brandimarte, L. (2014). Floods and societies: The spatial distribution of water-related disaster risk and its dynamics. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 1(2), 133–139.
Falkenmark, M. (1979). Main problems of water use and transfer of technology. GeoJournal, 3(5), 435–443.
Falkenmark, M. (1997). Society’s interaction with the water cycle: A conceptual framework for a more holistic approach. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 42(4), 451–466. doi:10.1080/02626669709492046.
Falkenmark, M., & Folke, C. (2002). The ethics of socio-ecohydrological catchment management: Towards hydrosolidarity. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 6(1), 1–10.
FAO. (2012). Coping with water scarcity: An action framework for agriculture and food security. Rome: FAO Water Reports.
Franco, J., Mehta, L., & Veldwisch, G. J. (2013). The global politics of water grabbing. Third World Quarterly, 34(9), 1651–1675. doi:10.1080/01436597.2013.843852.
Gheewala, S., Berndes, G., & Graham, J. (2011). The bioenergy and water nexus. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, 5(4), 353–360.
Gibson, C. C., Ostrom, E., & Ahn, T. (2000). The concept of scale and the human dimensions of global change: a survey. Ecological Economics, 32(2), 217–239. doi:10.1016/S0921-8009(99)00092-0.
Gleick, P. (2002). Water management: Soft water paths. Nature, 418(6896), 373.
GWP, Global Water Project. (2014). Coordinating land and water governance: An essential part of achieving food security. Perspectives paper.
Haberl, H. (2015). Competition for land: A sociometabolic perspective. Ecological Economics, 119, 424–431. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.10.002.
Haberl, H., Mbow, C., Deng, X., Irwin, E. G., Kerr, S., Kuemmerle, T., et al. (2014). Finite land resources and competition. In K. C. Seto & A. Reenberg (Eds.), Rethinking global land use in an urban era (Vol. 14, pp. 35–69). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Hanjra, M. A., & Qureshi, M. E. (2010). Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change. Food Policy, 35(5), 365–377. doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.05.006.
Hodgson, S. (2004). Land and water—the right interface. Rome.
Keys, P. W., van der Ent, R. J., Gordon, L. J., Hoff, H., Nikoli, R., & Savenije, H. H. G. (2012). Analyzing precipitation sheds to understand the vulnerability of rainfall dependent regions. Biogeosciences, 9(2), 733–746.
Krueger, T., Maynard, C., Carr, G., Bruns, A., Mueller, E. N., & Lane, S. (2016). A transdisciplinary account of water research. WIREs Water, 3, 369–389. doi:10.1002/wat2.1132.
Lambin, E., & Meyfroidt, P. (2011). Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(9), 3465–3472. doi:10.1073/pnas.1100480108.
Lankford, B. A. (2013). Resource efficiency complexity and the commons: The paracommons and paradoxes of natural resource losses, Wastes and Wastages. Abingdon: Earthscan Publications.
Lankford, B. A., Tumbo, S., & Rajabu, K. (2009). Water competition, variability and river basin governance: A critical analysis of the Great Ruaha River, Tanzania. In F. Molle & P. Wester (Eds.), River basin trajectories: Societies, environments and development (pp. 171–195). Cambridge, MA: CABI.
Lebel, L., Garden, P., & Imamura, M. (2005). The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region. Ecology and Society, 10(2), 18.
Linton, J., & Budds, J. (2014). The hydrosocial cycle: Defining and mobilizing a relational-dialectical approach to water. Geoforum, 57, 170–180. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.10.008.
Loftus, A. (2007). Working the socio-natural relations of the urban waterscape in South Africa. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(1), 41–59. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00708.x.
Loftus, A., & Lumsden, F. (2008). Reworking hegemony in the urban waterscape. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(1), 109–126.
Mehta, L., Veldwisch, G. J. & Franco, J. (2012). Introduction to the special issue: Water grabbing? Focus on the (Re)appropriation of finite water resources. Water Alternatives, 5(2), 193–207.
Molle, F. (2007). Scales and power in river basin management: The Chao Phraya river in Thailand1. The Geographical Journal, 173(4), 358–373.
Molle, F. (2009). River-basin planning and management: The social life of a concept. Geoforum, 40(3), 484–494. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.03.004.
Molle, F., Wester, P. (Eds.). (2009). River basin trajectories: Societies, environments and development. Comprehensive assessment of water management in agriculture series (vol 8). Cambridge, MA: CABI.
Moss, T., & Newig, J. (2010). Multilevel water governance and problems of scale: Setting the stage for a broader debate. Environmental Management, 46(1), 1–6. doi:10.1007/s00267-010-9531-1.
Norman, E. S., & Bakker, K. (2009). Transgressing scales: Water governance across the Canada–U.S. Borderland. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(1), 99–117. doi:10.1080/00045600802317218.
Norman, E., Bakker, K., & Cook, C. (2012). Introduction to the themed section: Water governance and the politics of scale. Water Alternatives, 5(1), 52–61.
Oliveira, G. D. (2013). Land regularization in Brazil and the global land grab. Development and Change, 44(2), 261–283. doi:10.1111/dech.12009.
Ostrom, E. (1999). Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons. Global Challenges. Science, 284(5412), 278–282. doi:10.1126/science.284.5412.278.
Pahl-Wostl, C., Holtz, G., Kastens, B., & Knieper, C. (2010). Analyzing complex water governance regimes: The management and transition framework. Environmental Science & Policy, 13(7), 571–581. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.08.006.
Palmer, D., Fricska, S. & Wehrmann, B. (2009). Towards improved land governance. Land tenure working paper, vol 11. UN-HABITAT.
Perreault, T., Wraight, S., & Perreault, M. (2012). Environmental injustice in the Onondaga Lake waterscape, New York State, USA. Water Alternatives, 5(2), 485–506.
Perrone, N. M. (2013). Restrictions to foreign acquisitions of agricultural land in Argentina and Brazil. Globalizations, 10(1), 205–209.
Qadir, M., Wichelns, D., Raschid-Sally, L., McCornick, P. G., Drechsel, P., Bahri, A., & Minhas, P. S. (2010). The challenges of wastewater irrigation in developing countries. Agriculture Water Management, 97(4), 561–568.
Ringler, C., Bhaduri, A., & Lawford, R. (2013). The nexus across water, energy, land and food (WELF): potential for improved resource use efficiency? Aquatic and marine systems. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5(6), 617–624. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.11.002.
Rockström, J., Gordon, L., Folke, C., Falkenmark, M., & Engwall, M. (1999). Conservation ecology: Linkages between water vapor flows, food production and terrestrial ecosystem services. Conservation Ecology, 3(2), 5.
Rulli, M. C., Saviori, A., & D’Odorico, P. (2013). Global land and water grabbing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(3), 892–897. doi:10.1073/pnas.1213163110.
Sikor, T., Auld, G., Bebbington, A. J., Benjaminsen, T. A., Gentry, B. S., Hunsberger, C., et al. (2013). Global land governance: From territory to flow? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5(5), 522–527. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.06.006.
Simpson, T. W., Sharpley, A. N., Howarth, R. W., Paerl, H. W., & Mankin, K. R. (2008). The new gold rush: Fueling ethanol production while protecting water quality. Journal of Environmental Quality, 37(2), 318–324. doi:10.2134/jeq2007.0599.
Sjöstedt, M. (2011). The impact of secure land tenure on water access levels in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Botswana and Zambia. Habitat International, 35(1), 133–140. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2010.06.001.
Skinner, J. & Cotula, L. (2011). Are land deals driving ‘water grabs’? The global land rush. http://pubs.iied.org/17102IIED
Steffen, W. (2009). Interdisciplinary research for managing ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(5), 1301–1302. doi:10.1073/pnas.0812580106.
Swyngedouw, E. (1997). Neither global nor local: ‘Glocalization’ and the politics of scale. Spaces of globalization: Reasserting the power of the local.
Swyngedouw, E. (1999). Modernity and hybridity: Nature, regeneracionismo, and the production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89(3), 443–465.
Swyngedouw, E. (2004). Social power and the urbanization of water: Flows of power. Oxford, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swyngedouw, E. (2009). The political economy and political ecology of the hydro-social cycle. Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, 142(1), 56–60.
The Land Matrix Global Observatory. (2016). Agricultural drivers for land deals. http://www.landmatrix.org/en/get-the-idea/agricultural-drivers/. Accessed January 31, 2016.
Trottier, J. (2008). Water crises: Political construction or physical reality? Contemporary Politics, 14(2), 197–214. doi:10.1080/13569770802176929.
Walsh, A. (2011). The commodification of the public service of water: A normative perspective. Public Reason, 3(2), 90–106.
White, B., Borras, Jr, Saturnino, M., Hall, R., Scoones, I., & Wolford, W. (2012). The new enclosures: Critical perspectives on corporate land deals. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(3–4), 619–647. doi:10.1080/03066150.2012.691879.
Wolford, W., Borras, S. M., Hall, R., Scoones, I., & White, B. (2013). Governing global land deals: The role of the state in the rush for land. Development and Change, 44(2), 189–210. doi:10.1111/dech.12017.
Zeitoun, M., & Mirumachi, N. (2008). Transboundary water interaction I: Reconsidering conflict and cooperation. International Environmental Agreements, 8(4), 297–316. doi:10.1007/s10784-008-9083-5.
Zimmer, A. (2011). Everyday governance of the waste waterscapes—A Foucauldian analysis in Delhi’s informal settlements. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelm Universität Bonn.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Emily Raab and Viviana Wiegleb for their support. This research is partly funded by BMBF Global Change Research under the reference number 01LN1316A.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bruns, A., Krueger, T., Lankford, B., Frick, F., Grasham, C., Spitzbart-Glasl, C. (2016). A Water Perspective on Land Competition. In: Niewöhner, J., et al. Land Use Competition. Human-Environment Interactions, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33628-2_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33628-2_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33626-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33628-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)