Water Governance of Aquatic Resources and Environments

Course manual 2018/2019

Course content

This interdisciplinary and interactive lecture series deals with the governance of water  resources and their ecosystem services, in a global as well as North-South perspective. It examines the current scientific and policy developments with respect to governing water at global level. For example, the member states of the UN General Assembly have adopted the sustainable development goals in 2015, including a goal on fresh water and one on marine water resources and almost all other goals are related to these goals as well. At regional level, a critical issue nowadays is how water is being, and should be, shared between riparian countries; other issues are with respect to river boundaries, transboundary water quality, and shipping. If climate change has a major impact on watersheds this can create new tensions in transboundary rivers and aquifers. At national level, water is used in practically every sector of society. Key questions at this level are how can integrated and adaptive water governance be organized? What is the role of the human right to water and sanitation within this discussion?

This Water Governance course consists of a centrally coordinated set of lectures, an individual paper assignment, and an exam. The paper  assignment will focus on the phenomenon of water/ocean grabbing.

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain and differentiate social processes that are relevant for the future of humankind (in particular with regard to water as part of the natural environment, a resource and the ecosystem services of water); namely
2. The nature of water and the types of water governance challenges;
3. The key historical patterns of water governance world-wide;
4. The link between water and its ecosystem services;
5. The drivers and causes of water related problems at multiple levels of governance; and
6. The diversity of principles, policies, instruments and (theoretical) approaches to deal with water at multiple levels of governance challenges.

2. Identify insights and critically engage with;
3. the definition of governance and the role of policy, law, politics and society within that; and
4. the diversity of tools for water governance for the diversity of actors working on water governance
5. the politics of global water governance and in particular the SDGs

3. Judge which disciplines are of core importance in addressing complex societal challenges, and to acquire capacities to combine various perspectives;
4. Identify the different roles of different disciplines in finding solutions to water challenges; and
5. Identify how multi-, inter and transdisciplinary methods can help to find solutions to water challenges.

4. Collaborate in finding, processing and combining information in a meaningful manner and thus to analyze and handle complex challenges in the field of water.

5. Critically engage with concepts related to water grabbing processes and apply them to specific case studies.

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Presentation/symposium
• Seminar

The working groups will be used to discuss the paper assignment and corresponding literature. 

The lectures are to aquire (theoretical and practical) knowledge about water Governance and related concepts. 

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):

• In case of practical sessions, the student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the practical sessions should be redone entirely.
• In case of tutorials/seminars with assignments, the student is obliged to attend at least 90% of the tutorials/seminars and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the course cannot be finished

Additional requirements for this course:

Important information such as literature, sheets of the lectures, assignments and unforeseen changes in the schedule, will be placed on Canvas. Lectures will also be recorded. The link will be provided to you in case you have a valid reason for not having been able to attend the lecture.

The student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately. Students missing more than 1 compulsory working group will be excluded from further participation. Failing to submit a preparatory assignment equals missing 1 compulsory class. 

Assessment

Assessment diagram

Students that were enrolled in the course in previous years

According to the OER, course results are valid for a 1 year period. This implies that students who successfully passed part of the course last year, can keep his/her grade for this year, and only need to redo those components for which they failed. Please send an email to the course coordinator if this is the case. 

Assignments

Students will write a paper for this course, either on their own or in grous of 2. The paper will focus on how water scarcity in combination with growing water demands and unequal power relations can this lead to a phenomenon called ‘water grabbing’? Water grabbing is a rather polemical concept used by both scholars and practitioners to problematize the reallocation of water access from one group to another group. Water grabbing typically involves unequal power relations, contested property systems, and sometimes violent dispossession, and operates at local through to global level. What kind of evidence is there of water grabbing and what role has governance played in facilitating or hampering this?  More information will be provided during the first week of the course. The assignment is available on blackboard.

Students will be further guided in these questions by participating in two tutorials starting the second week of the course.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Additional information

Attendance is compulsory. Unapproved absence may lead to exclusion of further participation of the course.

Last year's course evaluation

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student evaluations to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Contact information

Coordinator

• J.V. Rothuizen