Okay, welcome everybody. It is a quarter to 12 and I would like to say welcome to today's webinar called Engaging with the Politics of Water Governance in which Margrethe Swarterfein will be our main speaker so my name is Lenka Klopp and I'm from the Waulde Channel and This webinar is part of the IHE Delft online seminars for alumni and partners So a very special warm welcome to them and before starting the webinar I would like to mention that you can all participate in this webinar by sharing your questions in the chat window that you will find in the right bottom corner and Also, I would like to ask if you could type in your name your organization and your field of expertise So we have an idea of who is in the room This webinar will take more or less an hour and so we start with Margrethe. She will make a presentation You can share your questions throughout the presentation, but they will be addressed afterwards in the question and answer session so today we're going to talk about water governance and Water governance is often used as an umbrella term It means different things for different people in different contexts and also it's quite a new concept So I learned that before the 1980s for example the whole concept wasn't used You don't find it in scientific articles. Nowadays. It's more and more common. There are over 45,000 articles already published One of the initiatives that also emerged is the chair group at IHE Delft and Margrethe is a professor of water governance at the Institute and today she's going to share Her vision and definition on water governance and also the research that they are carrying out in this chair group So without saying much more, I would like to hand over the floor to Margrethe and Please I would like to encourage you to share your questions in the chat box Margrethe floor is yours Hello, everyone. I'm excited to be here with you and have an opportunity to share The ideas not just my ideas, but the ideas of the water governance group at IHE about water governance Actually, we have spent quite some time over the last two years or so To really think through what we think water governance means and how we should define it and conceptualize it And I'll explain a little bit why as Lenick already said Water governance is actually a relatively new term or at least the use of the word governance in water is Relatively new and this graph shows this that in in the early 80s hardly any article was mentioning the term water governance And now there are many and Alongside this this proliferation of the use of the word governance in scientific publications you can also see a wide range of of initiatives Organizations institutes that have emerged with the word governance or around water governance, and I think you could say that The IHE group of water governance is one of those because it's the most it's the youngest group at IHE and I am its Professors, I think the water governance group at IHE came into being around eight years ago. I joined in 2014 The what's how is the word governance used in water? There's I would say there are two broad uses the first is Many people use the word governance to simply say water is also social and I think this betrays a legacy of thinking about water that has always been Engineering focused and natural science focused. So uttering the word governance actually is Flagging hey guys water is also social and for instance the phrase the The water crisis is a crisis of governance denotes this use of the term There is also a second use of the term governance in water, which is often preceded by the word good the word good governance good governance has come to mean a Referred to a whole bunch of guidelines toolboxes principles often published or promoted by international institutes like the World Bank the global water partnership So these are you could say recipes recipes recipes about how to do governance and these often focus on process dimensions of governance Transparency accountability and integrity. So this is broadly what governance denotes in water When we add in the water governance group and we are we are many We in the water governance group when we started to think about hey But what would we be our name is what a governance and what do we actually mean when we? Say the word governance we started reading discussing and we realized that we were Unhappy with the way in which the concept was used by many others For a number of reasons and I'll list them. There are I think five Five reasons for our unhappiness The first one is that many uses of the word governance Foreground concerns of efficiency and productivity Perhaps this is because of an engineering legacy in thinking about water What it means is that concerns of equity? Disappear a little bit into the background a Second Critique we had on the prevailing uses of the word governance is that there is often a pro on an emphasis on process on accountability transparency integrity But there's very little thinking about how good process relates to outcomes or there seems to be an assumption that good process will always lead to good outcomes and We were not so sure of this precisely because it's so difficult to Actually regulate water water is notoriously capricious. It flows dissipates leaks away evaporates so the relation between process and outcomes in water is precarious Which is why we think it's important to not just focus governance discussions and Studies on process, but to link process studies to outcomes A third critique we have is that in a lot of writing about what water governance it is presented as if it's a technical matter as if it's possible to To come up with universal generic principles guidelines to boxes models That that that are applicable Everywhere irrespective of context irrespective of the kind of water that needs to be governed Actually, we think this is wrong We think at heart the water government is not a technical matter at heart water governance is a political matter It's about choices. It's about choices about where water should flow and to whom It's about choices about which norms rules and laws to use for guiding these decisions. It's also about choices about Whom should have the authority or the power to make those decisions So it's political. It's deeply political and we think when thinking about water governance This political aspect of it should be acknowledged and dealt with that's why we also Dispresentation we call it engaging with the politics of water governance and The last point of critique that we have is that many writings of water governance actually Right or think about governance as it should be so they are prescriptive They they they write they present ideal typical Governance situations you could say dreams. This is how how water governance should be these are nice and These are also useful But they tell you very little about how water governance is actually done So they don't help understanding what actually happens in actual day-to-day water governance processes and this is what we in the water governance group are interested in we're interested in Understanding how it is actually done so because of all these critiques we decided to to come up with our own conceptualization of Water governance and our own definitions of it of it In this we want to to address some of our own critiques so rather than having ideal typical Formulations of water governance. We wanted to look at We wanted to conceptualization of water governance that helps understand how it is actually done Also, we were keen in foregrounding Questions of equity in discussion in discussing water governance So not just looking at productivity efficiency affected effectiveness, but also We wanted the conceptualization that allows making the questions of equity and justice that we think are the heart of water governance To allow make making these questions very visible So to do this, this is the definition of water governance that we are proposing It's the practices of coordination and decision-making between different actors around contested water distributions There are three words here in this definition that are important The first one is practices We use this word practices To to indicate that we're interested in what people do and not just what they say So we want to actually focus our studies on Documenting and observing how government different governance actor actors actually engage with water in everyday Actions everyday practices of decision-making The second important word in our definition is the word contested this word serves to acknowledge that the political nature of water governance and to acknowledge that in Many water governance decisions or many water governance practices There's always winners and losers If water flows to some people it means it can no longer go to other people if some benefit and others lose Which also means that water distributions will always be contested and therefore political. That's why we use the word contested And of course the last word and perhaps the most important one is the word word distributions This word distributions as part of a definition of governance again We think helps foregrounding that it's always about It's always political It's always about some people getting something and others not getting it or getting less of it It's about it's about decisions about who Deserves to be protected against floods or against the risks of waterborne diseases for instance Or it's about who deserves to get more water for irrigating crops If those are all Distributions and those are political and that they are political it means also that they are not just based on Science, but they're also made based on choices This is our definition and what I'll do in the rest of this webinar. I'll present some examples some stories to you of how we can work with this definition and what this definition allows do allows doing in terms of understanding water governance So I want to give some examples of how do water distributions happen through with which Technological institutional and organizational arrangements. How can they be known also? So I'll share some stories and to make it easier. I have categorized these stories about water distributions in three The first is stories of the distribution of water and water rights The second is stories about the distributions of water voice and authority and the third is the distributions of water knowledge Let me start with the first distributions of water and water rights actually in in my own work But also in in many of the contemporary water discussions There's a lot of talk about perhaps you have heard about this virtual water water footprints These terms actually refer to the transfer Transfers of water often they transfer that they refer to these the transfers of water from lower value Food crops or lower value uses to higher value Commercial crops or other high priority uses industry cities These are transfers that are actively promoted by national governments, but also by international funders. Why? because of the concern international concern, but also national concern with what I would call more Euros or more dollars per drop of water concerns of productivity So the idea is that if water is transferred to higher value uses. This is good and Such transfers are promoted as they are seen as ways to make water governance more productive more effective and more efficient it is also a way to Often it's seen as a way to save water To either quench the thirst of cities and industries or to protect ecosystems and future flows How do such transfers happen? I have a slide here of the gold mine, Yannacotia in Cajamarca in Peru and I'll say a bit more about this later. This is the transfer of water from from smallholder farmers in this area to the mining company is one example of a transfer of water that is promoted and let's say That is Seen as beneficial by many who think about water productivity or water efficiency By because use of the water by the mine yields more dollars or more euros per drop of water How do such transfers happen? How are they possible? How is it that the mining company can? Take water from smallholder farmers It happens first of all through This is in Peru, but it happens everywhere. It happens through a uniformization of water rights So in Peru also there was there was a program to make all water rights the same Through the law so that they could be compared and exchanged a transfer If all water rights are the same and they can be compared in this comparison It was clear that the users the water rights the users of water rights by smallholder farmers Were seen as less productive less efficient They yielded less money less value for water This is why the government of Peru was very keen to encourage Smallholder farmers to sell their water rights not directly to the mining companies because water cannot be sold But to the government so that mining companies could then purchase these rights and use them for their mining operations So how to how to read this how to read this transfer? What are the effects of it on the face of it? It appears as an almost classical case of accumulation by dispossession and proletarization With highland subsistence farmers selling their land and water to mining companies to themselves become way to laborers and Start working for the mining company The in the mining company working for the mining company employment is often insecure wages are low And lower what they would have earned as campesinos Yet many of them are happy Partly happy at least because what they earned as smallholder farmers was very little So for them also the arrival of the mining company in many ways is is positive They can increase their wages. They can have better living conditions also because the mining company Invests a lot in in roads in schools in hospitals, etc Yet the campesino families are also concerned They're less happy about how the mining companies takes away their waters or pollutes it Making it more difficult to irrigate their pastures As they used to be used to do with the with the irrigation canals that they themselves had constructed Yet, it's very difficult for them to hold the mining companies accountable for their water actions Why is this? It's because they are dependent on the mining company for wages But it's also because they have much less powers and voice in Water decision-making and in water governance this is This is one one of the few ways that they have to to articulate what they think it's by protesting Protesting and marching against the mind what you see on the slide is one of these protests and the Their banner says to defend our water. We are ready to go to jail This is a difficult way of voicing concerns by the government of Peru It is seen as terrorism and indeed if you do it you risk going to jail You may be criminalized in this way What does this show? It shows how water governance in this area is Very unequal. It's unequal in terms of to whom the water flows It's also unequal in terms of who has voice who has the ability to voice concerns about water This is not to say that the mining company is doing illegal things. Of course, there are all kinds of of Environmental and social impact assessments that the mining company is forced to do to comply with all kinds of regulations The problem is a little bit that these impact assessments force the mine or Or are Make the mine account to accountable to you could say upwards to the government of Peru and to other authorities Those who experience directly experience the changes in water The smallholder farmers they have very little possibilities to hold the mind accountable. So downward accountability is much more difficult I am looking at the time to see if I'm going to give another example or not So says perhaps I can So let me quickly give one. I've other example of distributions of water rights Which is similar but also very different. This is the slide that you see is a slide of the plane Says plane in Morocco What you see on one side of the slide you see a fence and on the other side of the slide You see an area that is not fenced actually this fence Marks not just a redistribution of land, but also a redistribution of water that is hap that is happening big scale in this area In a way the process is similar to what is happening in Yanacocha in Cajamarca in Peru Here the government of Morocco also wants to increase its value per drop of water So it actively invites Investors from everywhere to come to the area to buy land cheaply and invest in Intensive agriculture So the government of Morocco wants an interesting intensification of agriculture the production of high-value crops like grapes For instance, and it subsidizes the all the both the land but also The drip irrigation systems and irrigation systems that new farmers use to make their land profitable So again here a reshuffling of land and water rights Only those with the capital to invest actually have the possibility Possibility to acquire this water What does it mean? It means that some the investors those with the capital are considered productive and are Considered as those entitled to have rights and to have water Others the existing smallholder farmers are considered wasteful less productive so some The changes just appear to favor those who are considered productive economically efficient some modern men While forcing those who do not meet meet these criteria of modernity Including traditional women to look for other livelihood opportunities For instance wage labor on the lands their parents used to own So this seems harsh and it seems a bit black and white and indeed when zooming in the picture becomes a little bit different Because of the enormous diversity in farming styles and the enormous creativity of many of the farmers in the area so for instance, you see here you see pictures of young Very young boys actually young farmers who are very enthusiastic about new opportunities of intensifying farming and new opportunities to use water new technologies like drip irrigation So they in a way also tap into these new possibilities. I Showed this to show to also to illustrate. It's not that black and white What is clear? However, is that these changes in agriculture and this intensification of agriculture of farming To more capital in said intensive modes of production drastically restructure labor and telling relations and livelihoods at material as well as discursive levels The and these changes are marked by existing institutions institutions that And also marked by prevailing social hierarchies and gender is one of them New modes of farming about which these these young farmers are for instance very enthusiastic They are not so open for young women young women instead They have to think of different futures They dream of finding a rich husband or they dream of doing in-house businesses like baking or sewing So it also has gendered implications Now you may one may wonder we started this conversation as a conversation about water governance Do you think this is still about water governance? For me they are For me they show that water this redistributions are never neatly contained in a water domain They are intrinsic to and they help produce much wider changes in Peru as well as in Morocco But also in many other countries like India for instance in all these countries rapid processes of agrarian change produce reallocations of land reallocations of water changes in labor relations That happen that that have deep implications for people living in these areas The stories also show that these the decisions about these water redistributions are not just taken by those Form by those who are formerly designated water governance actors They also happen through land policies. They happen through Investment policies and subsidies of the for instance the ministries of economic affairs and not the Ministry of Water So it means that water is linked to why their processes of change and water governance is also linked to why the processes of change And I think that is important Another one perhaps other important thing here in looking at these kinds of redistributions of water and water rights is that many of Many of the reallocations of water Do not happen Just through laws or to new regulations, but also happen through new technologies In Morocco it's drip irrigation systems in Peru the mining company is installing reservoirs and new treatment plans which make it the de facto water managers manager because it's it Reallocates treated water through a reservoir to smallholder farmers So the mining company becomes the one deciding where water flows So it's the the control of the technology that determines The power to distribute water and thus water governance powers these stories of About water redistributions automatically feed into questions about how voice and authority are distributed and I like to to think about these questions when thinking about these questions I always ask myself the question Where to whom do I go if I think that water distributions are unjust Inequitable or unsustainable Who can I go to to complain about my about this and Answering these questions we have we have come to realize in the water governance group is not easy It's actually very difficult If you take the the the case of Yanacocha of the mining company in Peru Actually, you'll find that the mining company seems to be more accountable to its shareholders Many of whom are not in Peru at all Then it is accountable to the people who directly experience the impact of its operations the smallholder farmers So actually if you if trying to map Who makes decisions how water distributions come about What you will actually see is not a neat hierarchy with some policy makers sitting at the top But what you will see is a very Difficult web of entanglements with many different actors Who strategize and who all have different degrees of influence and certainty certainty different perspectives and different interests They're also on drawing different drawing on different resources on different norms on different laws and They have very different repertoires to defend and articulate their positions Acknowledging acknowledging this I Think is important because it also prompts modesty in terms of what can be changed or in terms of the extent to which water can be regulated through laws or new norms and I think this is important because in much water governance writings a sort of a rationalist model of what a governance still prevails I have another example of of how water governance happens in both Peru and in in Morocco one way in which the government and water governance actors water Irrigators in in the case of Morocco try to show that they use water wisely is by using drip irrigation and actually if you look at Social corporate social responsibility mechanisms for water It's often also the the drip the use of drip irrigation irrigation that is used as the indicator of wise water use and I think this shows an again, how difficult it is to regulate water because Just having a drip irrigation on one's field Says very little about how efficient or how wise water is used Actually, and I can say more about this, but I think it's important to realize again Water flows water leaks away water evaporates. It's very difficult not just to regulate it But it's also very difficult to act accurately Monitor these flows and to know where it goes. This is already difficult When it is contained in in the network or in pipes, but imagine how difficult it is when When water is underground with groundwater when it's not even visible This this is one important thing about water governance the difficulty to see water and to monitor it control it or accurate regulate it and this so These are two other slides to show different ways and so I won funny slide about a Water manager who says I'm actually a plumber Which I think for me is a just a small joke to show hey Yeah, actually a lot of water governance actually in actual fact happens through technologies and Not true laws of regulation. So it happens the fact of happens through engineering and another slide to show how water governance processes are often imagined and also organized it's by inviting users To participate in decision-making And this of course comes what with its own with with its own difficulties because who who is invited and whose voice counts? Is it the voice of in the slide you see in the Hina women Are they When they speak are they taken as seriously as the engineers who are also in the meeting? These are also questions about voice and authority that the water governance thinking about what the governance requires to to to These questions need to be taken very seriously This brings me to the last my last point which is last set of distributions with this Which is are the distributions of authority and knowledge in in water governance It's it's linked to what I just said who whose voice is Taken most seriously in making water governance decisions Is it the voice of the hydrologist the voice of the engineer? Is it the voice of the irrigator who has irrigated perhaps the same plot for generations already and has contextualized contextualized knowledge about The area about the plot and about where water comfort comes from With asking the questions about distributions of authority and knowledge It's an invitation to deeply think about why some knowledges carry more carry greater weight and authority than others How is it that the networks for some types of water expertise and for some water experts? acquire Wider extension than others and I have shown a slide here which illustrates this in a in a different way It's a slide that was made by the son of a colleague of mine the son of Peter van der Zag and it shows what the world would look like if We if the size of a country would be proportional to the number of research papers published by that country and I think it's it's a bit scary because it shows that the large majority of research papers are published by a small number of countries Also expertise about other countries are produced by those countries And I think this this is food for thought. It's also food for thought My colleague Peter uses this slide to say hey an Institute like IHE is needed We need to train more people. We need to train more people from countries in the south Training them to also publish research about their own areas and to become vocal and to develop a scientific voice I think that is one way to read the slide the other way to read the slide is hey Does it matter that? Wisdom about water is only produced by some is in majority produced by some people Or that some people and some countries dominate in the production of water wisdom Here it's also it's it's interesting to think why is it for instance that the Netherlands is so keen to Mark to use its dutchness to mark its water knowledge as superior Whereas if we mark if we talk about Ghanaian or Bolivian water knowledge This always marks that knowledge as local or as as So as different So these are the kinds of questions we as the water governance group Would like to address and this is how we would like to conceptualize water governance In doing this actually we have a method and the method is to literally follow the water Literally following the water without however treating it treating as if its behavior is mainly the result of hydrology or engineering We see what the behavior as of water as coming as happening through interactions between ecology and engineer infrastructure and institutions society This is so it's also a deeply interdisciplinary conceptualization You can wonder does our approach immediately yields answers new answers about how to better do governance or Answers about what is good governance? I don't think it does unfortunately. Yes, we will provide answers in the end but intrinsically our answers will be smaller more pragmatic and more Modest then as compared to the the toolboxes principles guidelines produced by most international things things Think tanks This is this is because we are so deeply aware that all water governance is contextual It's contextual. It's always so always also knowledge about water governance is also always deeply situated We are also deeply aware six that success for some may mean Failure for others where some win others may lose It means that water governance will always until different difficult compromises It cannot be done from a single vantage point Indeed one single vantage point to decide about water governance. We think is dangerous because it always Indicates and means a concentration of power That's why we prefer to think of water governance tentatively and as an experiment taking small steps Thank you very much Maghreit for your excellent and very good presentation and Unusual slides very explanatory. I would like to start the question and answer session with I've seen several remarks on your presentation, but also we have received some questions in advance of your webinar and Yeah, I think with all the questions that we received you already briefly touched upon it. I would like to start I would wish there's still the slide that you wanted to show There's more in in the joint article that we published So if you're interested, I would like to encourage you to also read the article or go to our our blog Yeah Thank you, and if correct you should be able all participants should be able to hover over the links and we can open the links You will be opened and also we will put them on the webinar page So the first question I would like to ask you we received it from Assegu Kibbaroglu. He is from the MDF University in Istanbul He says what your governance incorporates complex processes and various actors with asymmetrical power capabilities. How can equity be operationalized in such complex water governance systems? Yeah, you've really already Touched upon this, but maybe you can try to summarize an answer for to this question So thanks thanks thanks for the question the You use the word operationalization, which I think Perhaps means that you're not just interested in understanding What what equity means or mapping? equities or inequities, but you're also interested in Thinking about how you can actually address it in water governance arrangements or processes I don't have a very straightforward answer, but what I can say is that There is a lot of interesting work is being done on environmental and I am myself I'm inspired by the work of Nancy Fraser and David Schlossberg what operationalize Equity in in water governance is they say there are There are probably three important things to consider one is recognition and with recognition they mean that there is a wide variety of water actors actors who Not just use water differently In the end so need different qualities and quantities of water, but who may also conceptualize water differently and who may have different Norms and rules to refer to when they think about how water should be distributed. So that is Recognition The second one is distribution or redistribution, which is actually about who gets what when and The third one is about process. It's about participation who participates in decision-making and As you will notice, this is very close to the three sets of distributions that I already explained Thank you, my head Another question that we received You started your presentation with that And I mean I've asked would it be right to say that water governance is water management Minus water engineering as in what is the difference between water governance and the non-technical facets of water management and Now again, I think there is not a one sentence answer to this I would like to ask you if you can give some feedback on this I find it a difficult question Also the one way of answering it perhaps is to say that that in the water governance group and Also, it's also because we are part of IHE which we are so we are surrounded by by a wealth of of Natural scientists and engineers who with very deep and good knowledge about water That we do not consider water governance as solely social So we think water governance actually partly happens through engineering decisions So so I don't do not like to say what the governance is What the management minus want Minus engineering. I think water governance Engineers there is there is interesting science and technology scholars who have studied engineers and who have called engineers sociologists They say in their actual work Engineers always also make social decisions. So in studying and doing water governance I think this is very important and to not Reduce what the government to the social Perhaps another you are also asking for the difference between water governance and water management That yeah, you can have many answers to this. I'm not I'm not I Don't mind so much. I think perhaps the important thing is to realize that any definition Offer already comes with a particular idea about how water governance or management should happen So I think the importance here is that if you make if you make Proclamations about water governance or water management that you should always be explicit in how you define it and also About where you come from what you think is important Acknowledging your own political situativeness rather than hiding behind science or behind some kind of objectivity neutrality Yes, it's very good Okay, then your second case by Morocco just a boy asked what was the driving force of the problem there? Is it social structure or the intervention? The driving force of the problem in Morocco I think one way of answering this is in Morocco, and I think you see this in many countries I at least I know it also happens in India a deep Contradiction in a way between the aspirations of the country to Economically develop and its chosen development model, which is premised on agricultural Intentification and agricultural into the intensification requires also an intensification in the use of water on the one hand and on the other hand the deep awareness about how Water resources are non renewable rule non renewable and scarce So how there is a need to treat water more wisely? There's a contradiction between the two And an easy way to seemingly solve this contradiction is by by adopting technologies that Hold the promise to save water in the future So if there's water savings in the future, then you don't have to redistribute water or to reallocate it But you say no you will save water. So everybody so actually the real problem is that So in Morocco and in India this happens for instance through the adoption of drip irrigation So the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water find each other in drip irrigation That's all in India But you can also see it true for instance the how governments Love water treatment plans desalination plans, etc. All technologies that promise to either create more water or save water and The the effectiveness of these technologies is hardly ever tested But it's clear that they will never create more water or at very high costs and It's also clear that they will always until we had redistributions of water But this redistribution sort of Often are not highlighted or discussed they They Thank you, I have a question About funding so Raul Perez asks Can governments be also seen in decision-taking for distribution of investments within the water sector and also in the Multisectoral sphere where water is competition with other sectors fighting for investments Yeah, thank you very well. That's actually a good question and and and actually I had planned to say something about this You're very right. I think especially in in Actually both in irrigation and in drinking water perhaps Troubles or the larger Not always be about water, but you're very right maybe about public investments and those are often even more difficult to trace or more more Inferior Or so, yes, you're very right. I that that is very much part of of water governance The second question that has I Think they can make it a bit bigger It's very evident from your presentation that economics does influence water distribution decisions in Particle Practice, how can we prevent decision in equalities in such context that you described? That's a that's a multimillion if I had the answer to that I Don't have the answer. I only think I don't I really don't have the answer I only think that it's It starts with being aware of it documenting it and Create yeah creating acknowledging it and it also starts with Not just defining and conceptualizing lighting water in terms of efficiencies and productivities So we thinking what perhaps the value of or the worth of water is and for whom But yes How can I say this this is of course also a question about how to change Social hierarchies or very unequal power relations, which is a question that is much beyond water governance, but yes Sometimes the participants already mentioned in a jet box that there are no simple answers And I think that also applies to this one Maybe one final question to If there's nothing else coming in Francis asks is participation there may be the underlying word for water governance is that the thing to focus on? Yeah the word Perhaps in a way yes, but in another way no because participation, of course has become a bit of a of a buzzword and a bit of where The question always is Who participates in whose project and who defines the terms of inclusion? Who voices are heard and and and so participation is is is important Existing Power hierarchies and existing inequities. I have one more question. That is now really the last question It was about traditional water rights. Let me get this for you There was a question from Kenya, I'll copy it now into the chest and so we're into that Question box, it's Kathy who says Okay, in Kenya traditional water rights were not well-convided by widely understood by local communities So successive attempts to formalize and implement water rights disregard the traditional rights This enfranchising local communities from access to what they previously had Does the current body of water governance research take into account the importance of researching traditional water rights? Is that something that's on the research agenda? Thanks, Kathy for an excellent question. I think actually this is a question that is very much. It's at the heart of of If it isn't it should be at the heart of of water governance discussions because and in fact a lot of the work that I have been involved in in in the Indian region in Peru and Ecuador Together with Rutger bullens has been about this about on the one hand you have the the Soto argument Hernan the Soto is who says Rights should be Uniformized and this is a call that is is widespread the idea that water rights you cannot have different ways of of regulating of Water different water norms of different systems of water rights next to each other because that creates chaos But more importantly perhaps because this would not allow Comparing waters or transferring it and if you want a water market, which is the implicit ideological agenda of many water governance writings then such Comparability and transfer across different of different waters is needed if you are if you if you think like I do and but actually there is a lot often a lot of wisdom in traditional water rights and traditional water institutions then I think you become much more cautious in Attempts to uniformize and then really the question becomes how to give credit to these traditional water rights also as a way perhaps of of Empowering such existing communities communities and recognizing the wisdom that is Embedded in traditional ways of engaging with and dealing with water. So yes, it's a very important question It's very much part of what the government agenda Thank you very much my head with this. I would like to End the webinar series. I see that the majority of questions. I see there is some sort of need to simplify Everything I can read that from the question. So I'm very happy that this webinar was here to explain more about Governments and also Specifically the IHG Delft definition and their approach to that. Thank you very much everybody Thank you. My head and thank you win and Maria in the also in the back We cannot see them, but they did a lot to support this I would like to mention to everybody that there will be a recording later today We will upload it to the watch channel dot TV slash webinars And also the next webinar in this alumni series will most likely be held in February So please stay tuned everybody and thank you once again for participating in this webinar


I am Mathieu Dacame, Vice Director of the Inside Research Institute, which is the Data Science Institute of the National University of Ireland in Goldway. It's basically a research-oriented institute working on anything which is related to collecting, processing, analysing and basically using data. We put all of this under the name Data Science or Data Analytics. We are really at the leading edge of what Data Science is currently by really pushing the boundaries of research in this area. We are at a stage where our network and our scale or another organisation can compete with at this stage.