Politicising land subsidence in Jakarta: How land subsidence is the outcome of uneven sociospatial and socionatural processes of capitalist urbanization

Jakarta is sinking dramatically because of land subsidence, which in turn increases its vulnerability to tidal flooding. The explanation of land subsidence’s causes and the design of solutions is led by geoscientists and engineers, who tend to treat it as largely a technical problem. This paper takes issue with this. It sets out to contribute to politicizing land subsidence by analysing it as part of the sociospatial and socionatural transformations that characterize processes of urbanization. We propose an approach that allows showing how subsidence happens through urbanization’s interconnected moments of horizontal concentration, vertical extension, and differentiation – the weight of the built environment, the expansion of deep groundwater wells, and the remaking of the city (and beyond). By investigating the sociospatial correlation between land subsidence and the development of buildings, and the temporal correlation between land subsidence and the increase of groundwater wells we illustrate how land subsidence is intrinsic to (post-) New Order capitalism (1965–1998 and 1998-now). We also show that it proceeds in uneven ways: those who cause subsidence are not the ones who suffer most from it. Through a serious treatment of soil–water dynamics, our socionatural theorization also helps appreciate how urbanization is always co-shaped by interactions between human and non-human processes

Legal and other institutional aspects of groundwater governance

This chapter defines the linked concepts of groundwater governance and groundwater management, explaining how they differ from each other. Then, it describes the prevailing legal instruments for, and the institutional aspects of, groundwater management and governance

A scale-based framework to understand the promises, pitfalls and paradoxes of irrigation efficiency to meet major water challenges

An effective placement of irrigation efficiency in water management will contribute towards meeting the pre-eminent global water challenges of our time such as addressing water scarcity, boosting crop water productivity and reconciling competing water needs between sectors. However, although irrigation efficiency may appear to be a simple measure of performance and imply dramatic positive benefits, it is not straightforward to understand, measure or apply. For example, hydrological understanding that irrigation losses recycle back to surface and groundwater in river basins attempts to account for scale, but this generalisation cannot be readily translated from one location to another or be considered neutral for farmers sharing local irrigation networks. Because irrigation efficiency (IE) motives, measures, effects and technologies play out at different scales for different people, organisations and purposes, and losses differ from place to place and over time, IE is a contested term, highly changeable and subjective. This makes generalisations for science, management and policy difficult. Accordingly, we propose new definitions for IE and irrigation hydrology and introduce a framework, termed an ‘irrigation efficiency matrix’, comprising five spatial scales and ten dimensions to understand and critique the promises, pitfalls and paradoxes of IE and to unlock its utility for addressing contemporary water challenges

Men, Masculinities and Water Powers in Irrigation

The aim of this article is to provide an informed plea for more explicitly identifying, naming and unravelling the linkages between water control and gender in irrigation. The fact that power, expertise and status in irrigation tend to have a strong masculine connotation is by now quite well established, and underlies calls for more women in water decision making, engineering education and professions. Yet, the questions of how and why water control, status and expertise are linked to masculinity, and of whether and how such links work to legitimise the exercise of power, are seldom asked. To date, associations between masculinity and professional water performance have largely been taken for granted and remained unexamined. The resulting perceived normalcy makes mechanisms of (gendered) power and politics in water appear self-evident, unchangeable, and indeed gender-neutral. The article reviews examples of the masculinity of irrigation in different domains to argue that exposing and challenging such hitherto hidden dimensions of (gendered) power is important for the identification of new avenues of gender progressive change, and for shedding a new and interesting light on the workings of power in water