Allocating water from agriculture to growing cities: the Hyderabad case (South-India) and its implications for urban water transfers research and policy
Demographic trends depict a vibrant increase of the world population, particularly in
Africa and Asia, and the share of people living in urban agglomerations is steeply
growing when compared to rural areas. Increasing urban population and urban water
demand often implies competition with other uses and users, notably the agricultural
sector that accounts for the largest share of water diversions over the world.
This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the case of Hyderabad in the South-Indian
state of Andhra Pradesh, one of India's fastest growing cities, to shed light on the
process of administrative water allocation to cities from irrigated agriculture, an
underdeveloped area of research. It does this by examining -1) the implications of
Indian water institutional set-up on intersectoral water allocation; -2) Hyderabad
water supply decision-making process, with focus on the role that politics have
played; and -3) the impact of the urban water transfer on agriculture in general and on poor farmers more specifically, also reckoning on the contribution of groundwater in irrigated agriculture. The methodology adopted is based on the collection of primary
and secondary data and encompasses-1 ) the analysis of water institutions in India and
Andhra Pradesh; -2) an historical reconstruction of the main policy milestones of
Hyderabad water supply and the study of intersectoral competition through a conflict
analysis framework; -3) the calculation of surface water balances and groundwater
withdrawals at one of Hyderabad water sources; and -4) the statistical analysis of
primary data for determining the impact of shortages in canal water supply on poor
farmers and their adaptive responses.
A main research finding is that institutions vesting overarching powers over surface
water on governments can expose urban water supply to harsh political opposition and
chronic delays, in particular where farmers represent a large share of the electorate
and transfers occur across regional boundaries. Then, this thesis demonstrates that
intersectoral water transfers don't necessarily only bear negative effects on
agriculture, notably if intersectoral water sharing rules are in place, and that
groundwater may play a major role in compensating agriculture for urban water
allocation. The research findings also show that poor farmers are those more likely to
be negatively affected by water reallocations, not only because of reductions in canal
water supply, but also because of social inequities in access to agricultural inputs in general and groundwater in particular