Welcome, everyone, great to see you here in the room but also people online who are faring that out still but will be there. My name is Susanna Schmeyer. I'm just helping with the facilitation today so you'll just see me trying to bring the questions into the room But without any further ado, I'd actually like to ask a Morse director of IIT Delft to give us some introductory welcome remarks for his talk about Cabrera's books on groundwater, which is a really nice opportunity to take. Thank you very much also to everybody online. I was in the lucky position that I received a copy from Gabria and I understood from her that she's a little bit nervous at the moment which I think she should be because this is a special event and I think something like this does not happen so often in your life. So I think you can be proud of yourself and also enjoy the moment and they're a little bit anxious as I think it puts them to have their. What I think is also quite nice is I don't know how you managed because we probably know our partner of water. That's where the main decisions about which topic should be the world water day next year. And I know that and what is the decision to make groundwater. They know Elisabeth from iREC. They play also an important role in selecting the topic of groundwater, but how you managed to get your book finished in the year of groundwater. That I need to learn from you because I think that's super, super well timed. So I think that's quite nice. And also I think the topic of governing groundwater is I think a quite important one. Being in a number of international conferences and of course in the groundwater year people will talk about groundwater. But what you notice or at least it's my impression that is there that there is a bigger and much bigger attention for what you can do with groundwater. How you can use groundwater. And I do think that governing your groundwater system is maybe the big part of what needs to be done. I think on the technical side and I know there are some colleagues here in the room that are quite suitable. Some experts sitting over there. But I think that part still also requires attention. But on the government side it's bigger than that. I have not read the full book yet. But reading just through that part something that really struck me also in one of your conclusions was actually that you also mentioned that in some cases it's not about the lack of the specimens. That had was actually the development of groundwater in a good way. But in some cases it could even strengthen actually the way you have to treat groundwater. So that's not all cases. It's the same issue that pushes it in a positive way or holds it back in a negative way. But that it's very much may depend on the situation. And I think in your book where you are talking about six completely different cases. I think it's a quite nice overview on how and what you're expecting to think about if you are dealing with groundwater. So with that I would like to congratulate you again and also on behalf of maybe all colleagues of IG here. And we're really looking forward also to meet the remainder of the book. And also very much looking forward to the presentation. Eddie will come to the main part, the actual launch of the book now, which is the part where Gabriella will talk about her book and tell us what she actually found out in her research. Thank you Suzanne and thank you Eddie. And thank you to all of you for coming in this special event. Very special for me at least to present the Yama book. And the title of the book as Eddie mentioned is Governing Groundwater Between Law and Practice. And this book covers the work that I have been doing in the past. I was counting the gears and then they were like many more than what I thought. So it's around the last 12 years. I thought okay PhD four and then postdoc two is six. But then it was much more than that. So at least for the last past 12 years of my life. And it's also that the book shows a little bit of my journey. So all the case studies that I cover in the book are places where I have lived, where I have worked and where I have met many inspiring and working people. The ones that are really dealing with all the problems every single day. Because of course for us, even though we know a lot about the topic is like somehow I will say away from us. But talking with the people that they really experience all these complexities and groundwater problems every single day. For me that has been the most enriching and interesting part of the whole process. So that's what I would like to focus on this presentation. So just to say also a little bit about the idea how this book came about. That was in 2017, five years ago when I had my first meeting with Yorita. When I started my postdoc here at IG Delft. So I was moving from India. We were living in India. My partner is also here. Thank you for coming. And we were a postdoc and then I got a postdoc here and in my first meeting with Yorita Bukta she told me like. So would you like to publish a book? And I was like yeah of course where do I sign? And then she said okay but first let's finish the postdoc. But then you can bring together everything from your PhD and your postdoc and then we can write the book. So that's the book that I'm going to be discussing today. So the main purpose of the book is to provide insights into how different people but also communities, organizations, institutions engage with groundwater governing according to their social realities. That includes the weather, the climate change effects, poverty, richness. It is also the legal realities. What kind of legal system do they have? What kind of regulation enforcement do they have? So while at the same time I was examining the law. I said that before. So how law is being drafted, developed and also implemented and how this has contributed to the transformation of groundwater governance. So basically I wanted to look at two things, right? What people do at the very local level, the practices, why they do what they do and how do they do it? If they protect water, if they pollute water, if they, how do they share water? But at the same time I was interested in looking at the law. Okay, how the more formal structures are also dealing with water. Do we need a permit to extract water? Is everybody having a permit or not? So try to mix these two and try to understand to what extent they are actually linked. And if not how and why do we have this lack of connection between the different practices and the different laws and regulations. So my overall research questions were how can the conceptualization and theorization of groundwater law and governance be improved by examining groundwater practices while having equity and sustainability as an entry point. So when I started looking at the law and I looked at different principles and how do we regulate water and different jurisdictions. I realized where I found out that there were two key principles, equity and sustainability. When I mean equity I'm not only talking about how we humans are we distributing water, but also on to what extent we are thinking about distributing or sharing that water with other non-human creatures. And then sustainability, the same how we were thinking about using this resource but also thinking about the future, the future generations, again about humans but also other creatures that also need groundwater resources. And then the other big question was how can the study of groundwater practices, so this is what people do in their everyday lives, can improve the future design of groundwater law. So then to make some detailed recommendations that what do we need to do to make good laws or adequate laws to try to address the different problems, the different complexities, the different situations that we have currently in many parts of the world. So just a little bit about the methodology, well of course I started looking at water governance literature but also political ecology, also ground water governance, also water justice, equity. Then I was also looking at different water rights and environmental law in all the different countries that I was interested in understanding. And again always looking at what the guiding principles and always finding like these two were at the core of everything, equity and sustainability and also going through international, more global convention like the convention of the law of non-navigational uses of international water courses. And then the last aspect that I did or included in my methodology and the one that I enjoy the most was the empirical component. So trying, as I said, going to these communities, talking to these people and trying to understand how they govern water, what practices do they use, how do they share their water there in the water from. From India people decide okay how are we going to use this new world that we created because we needed to have this new world in this position, in this place or the other discussion and how are we going to come about with our planning to use water in the future. And then also in many cases, and I will explain this later, that's a photo also from Costa Rica where people were demonstrating because water has been polluted due to chemical pesticides and all kinds of chemicals for agriculture. And then one photo of me just talking and interviewing people to try to understand their problems and their reality. So I will mention a little bit of what did I find there and what were the main problems. And again with this book it's not like okay after the book I will give people solutions, okay this is what you have to do to get everything resolved. But more I will share like to understand what was happening and how the people that they are living there managed to address the situation or to live and stay with the problems that they have because they don't have any other option than that, right? Just to stay there so how they are managing to live with the problems that they have. So the first case story, as I also mentioned this is a little bit of my journey. So these are the first case stories that I encountered from Costa Rica. So the first one is the Costa communities of Santa Cruz, which are located in the north Pacific of Costa Rica. So there as you can see in the photo we have very beautiful whites and beaches that is a great place to go on holidays for international and national tourists. So the whole Costa Rica weather is nice the whole year so people go on holidays like the whole year. So of course that has helped also with the boom of this kind of resource like having swimming pools, jacuzzi, golf courts, etc that they all demand a lot of what. However this is the driest part of the whole country because where it is located the rainfall is very minimal. It is like around 400 milliliters while in other parts of the country it is much more than that, right? So it rains a lot but in this part it is very dry so due to these rainfall patterns it is very common that the rivers especially during summer time they are dry. So it is like 99% of the water that people are using there is groundwater. So of course in order to have more and more development of tourism in real estate they are drying their quivers. So on one side we have this, the development of tourism and still continue and still having the golf courts and all green and all beautiful. However on the other side we see the water tanks who are taking water to the communities because sometimes especially in summer when it is not raining the communities don't have access to water. So then again this is also to show that often it is not only about okay there is an absolute lack of availability of water but it is a problem of distribution. So they are all in the same community so in one hand you see one water like abundance of water and in the other one you see the lack of water. So with this just to give some flavor of what the communities have done to address some of this situation there the communities have organized themselves to water boards. So all these communities, the water providers in these communities are water boards who are members of the community. So they are trying to negotiate with the government to stop the provision of water to the hotels at least until they have guaranteed their basic water needs. So now they are in the process of building infrastructure because of course that was also a lack of infrastructure there. So now after many years and many discussions and many also lawsuits these people from these communities in some of the cases where the hotels want to keep getting water however they know they don't have more water so this community water associations are the ones in charge sometimes to approve the water connection right. So when somebody comes somebody new comes like for example a new hotel the communities can say no we are not going to give you that. So they are trying to stop of course it's not so easy because then they can say okay we're going to do it through some other wall wells and then the government has allowed that to happen. It's very complex but at least just to give you an idea of what the situation is there but interesting is to say that a lot of legal means have been used through this community like having this water provision services being done by the community and also lawsuits against some of the hotels trying to say okay you cannot exploit more water because there is no more water. They have not even gone to the Constitutional Court in Costa Rica and they have won a few cases so it's interesting and I could say much more about this but I want to share also a little bit of the other ones so I will move. Then in the Q&A section you can ask me for anything else that you would like to know. This is the second case study from Costa Rica so that is in the other side that is in the Caribbean. So here we have a lot of rain so the problem is not the lack of water or that the rivers are getting right like in the other one that they were mostly using groundwater. Here they use both water and also surface water but the problem is as you can see in the photo we have been suffering from a pineapple boom also in the last 20 years currently Costa Rica is the main pineapple exporter in the world and Costa Rica is kind of the size of the other one so it's a very small country and in all these communities what you see is something like this like what is shown in that photo. So there were rainforests and everything has been deforested and now it's very common to see this and then you will see this like all the expansion of the pineapples there and a lot of use of all kind of chemicals that you can imagine. So it's like pesticides and fungicides and everything of course to protect the pineapple against the bugs and everything. So all this water is infiltrated into the soil and then it's going to the groundwater so all the rivers all the aquifers in these communities have been polluted. So the problem there is that the communities don't have any kind of water that is not polluted so there is water but it's completely polluted. So due to that they have also been a lot of complaints put into the different government institutions but also in that place they have been particularly active the communities so they have been having a lot of demonstration. So for example it says there let's protect the springs of today and tomorrow. So that is something that is common because even though they have been these communities have been complaining for a long time the problem continues. So when I started researching this a few years ago the communities already were organizing themselves and again they created some legal organizations. So they created an environmental association there in the community to defend from the defense of the water by pineapple polluters. So they have been also very active going to government institutions and complaining and say okay you have to stop this. So one of the big things or the most important legal action that they took is they went to the municipality and the municipality is the institution in charge of like zoning and planning. So they said okay you cannot have more pineapples at least in the upper part where most of the springs are located. So at least they want that and the municipality has been very supportive of the communities. So that has been also something good that they achieved through legal means and as I said also besides or outside the legal means they have been demonstrating. Often and they have been some demonstration have been also a little bit heated. But again it's something that is I have been doing research on this for many years and the situation unfortunately again continues to grow. And the problems of the pineapple expansion industry continues to grow and the communities continues to complain. But I think at least the important thing is that they are not giving up. And as I said with the example of the municipality they have achieved little things to protect their water resources. And some of the other plantations they also put some environmental litigation against them and they have managed to close one or two because they were like an environmental disaster going on. But of course they closed one and then they opened three more. So again it's a battle but again what I want to show are the problems and the different legal and community organization and community struggles that are going on to address this ongoing situation. Then just going a little bit to another part of the work. That's Australia that's where I first moved to do my PhD. So in Australia again maybe just to say that something in common with all these case studies that I am presenting is that they are all in countries that at least we can say that they are democratic countries and that they have laws in place. And to a different extent but they are trying to implement overarching principles such as sustainability or equity in the governance of water resources. So here in the case of Angus Bremer in South Australia I chose that one because when I went to Australia that was the state with the most modern water regulation or water law. So they were already thinking about okay let's bring everything together not just water but it is law and actually they updated the law now they have a new law from last year. And it includes everything like water, natural resources, landscape, community so it's a very interesting law from that perspective. So then I thought okay let's look at an interesting case to understand the implementation and the practices in South Australia. So in Angus Bremer they have a community organization too that is called Angus Bremer Water Management Committee. So again they are trying to understand the different problems that they have. So in this particular case the problem that they are facing is similar to the coastal communities so there is a lack of water again. The rainfall there is very very low and also they have been severely affected by climate change so they were having less and less water in all these areas. So then they go to a point in the end of the 80s, 1980s that they didn't have any water at all, many of their cleaners they go to line water. So all the community was very upset and was very worried about that but the interesting or the contrasting part was that over there they weren't like in the coastal communities where they were let's say external people. They were external people causing the main damages like the hotels and the development of real estate. Here they were the same irrigators who lived there that they were exploiting and over exploiting the aquifers but when I was talking to them then they said because we didn't know we were just using and using and using. We realized that yeah we were having a problem so the same irrigator started changing their practices and even the laws. So they went to the South Australia Ministry of Water and they told them no we want new regulation in our water licenses. So for every hectare that we have in crops we want to have another hectare with with vegetation and things like that. So they started implementing many different kind of practices and initiatives to improve their situation. And as I said one of those was that to start reforestation but also they started to reduce their own groundwater use. So they say okay we are realizing that we have these allocations that sometimes allocation is not the same that when you are using right. So you have the right to use this but you are using less. So they were saying let's change the allocation so we can use less to the maximum that we are using now and they try to even reduce it further. So they started doing that and they also look for different sources of water. So not only groundwater but they started using and they also invested a lot of water in the structure to bring water from the Angus River that it was also closed. So a lot of things all done by them and then as I said they even went to the ministry to say okay we want to change our requirement for water licenses and we want to include all these. So that's a little bit of what happened also in the Angus River case study. This is in another state of Australia that's in Western Australia. So this case I always introduce it like the least attractive case because it was somehow boring but I thought it was also interesting to show that if everything goes well people don't really get passionate and they don't get involved as often as when there are problems. So in this case even though they have still a lot of problems there with groundwater resources and there's a lot of research showing that because in Australia they are several institutions doing a lot of monitoring to see how the groundwater tables are changing and to see how much groundwater is being used and how groundwater is being replaced or not. So all that research shows that they are going to have problems very very soon so they know that the groundwater tables are dropping. So they are already having a problem as I said but the people haven't suffered the problems yet so every time that I was talking to different communities there in the southwest they told me like no no here everything is fine the government which is this one the water corporation so that the ones responsible for the provision of water in the southwest. They were saying ok here we just have one incident and it was interesting to hear because they said that the communities became very very vocal because they said that they are going to take their water to supply earth which is the biggest city nearby. And then the community said no we are not going to leave you guys take our water to there and then the water corporation didn't do it they stopped that and then everything again became like relatively smooth and people are fine and then it shows again like a more top down approach of things. However as I said people were overall happy with their government responses. However I also thought that it was interesting because in Western Australia that was the oldest water law that you have in Australia. It was from 1914 so it was even older than the one that I had in Costa Rica that it was for me very very old because it was from 1949 and in comparison to the one in South Australia as I said that they just amendment the law and now they have a new one that it was is from last year. So again you see that sometimes even though the law is old and still there weren't so many problems there. However some of the recommendations that I get from this particular chapter is that the law needs to be revised. But it still is interesting to see how their community responses were overall okay. Then we moved to India. Then that was the when I finished my PhD I went to India and I was working there with the NGO with SOPECOM. So with them I started understanding a little bit of the situation in Maharashtra. Maharashtra just got a few years ago passed a new groundwater law that for India for the whole country of India has been an inspiration and many people have said okay we need to at least within India and I have here a lot of Indian participants and we can discuss this a little bit more but it has been discussed as one of the main more progressive laws in the country. So there they started again talking about principles such as equity or sustainability and the importance of having this in the laws. And here in Himre Basar this is also a very I would say at least in India very well known case. So when I have been with my students and I discussed this most of the students they know this case because it was a community. So all the regulations that they have they were completely done bottom up approach right. So the community said okay we from the 70s 80s they were having a lot of problems they didn't have any water whatsoever. And now that is a picture from a few years ago they have a lot of check downs now and a lot of reservoirs and even in summer if you go you will see green and you will see water. And all that was made by the community at the very local level at the panchayat level. So they even brought back one person from the village to be the head of the panchayat. So I interviewed this person so it was also very interesting to talk how one person can do so much. And still when I talk to everybody in the community because there I had the opportunity to talk to most people they were very happy still to have him and they would say like yes. Because they always told me okay when you compare how things are since he got here and before is just much better now. So they all want him to be in that community and to keep improving with all. Again they introduced in the community many practices they did they stopped the free grazing so now that is legal and that is photo of that. They were also having a lot of groundwater recharge going on and a lot of reforestation activities. So all that again was done from the panchayat level with all the communities because of the panchayat. All the people who are over 18 years old they can vote in the panchayat and participate. So all these activities have been done with the approval of 99% of the people. So now my last case study where we are all here now so when I first moved here I told all these research that I was looking at and she told me oh what you are missing there is the problem of groundwater excess. And you will see that in Delft you have a very good example of that. So I thought okay I will start doing research on this. So I started looking at reading and actually in the newspaper that was very very active. I don't know if you follow that discussion but at least in 2017 when I came it was a very very hot topic. Because yeah Delft was in danger of being flooded or I think it still is so again all these cases are ongoing cases so there are no final conclusions yet but at least as I said some experiences that I have gained or some lessons that I have learned or some experiences that I would like to share and that is again the reason of the book. So here the main problem is that this company DSM which is like one or two kilometers away from here. Actually we went with some of our students I think two years ago class and myself we took the students there because we were trying to understand groundwater governance here in Delft. So this company they have been extracting groundwater since 1916 so the first license that they got it was so it was a very nice map when they showed me when Delft was you know like just like ten houses around it out of the care and the new care and then how it has expand and expand. And of course they didn't foresee that in 1960 and of course after over the hundred years since then the community the city of Delft have grown. However they were still using so much water and so much water until one day in 2014 they just said OK we're going to stop using it because now we are very efficient. We don't need to use so much water so they're still using but I think like 10% of what they used to use. So they say OK we are not going to stop to use more groundwater we're going to stop and of course as soon as that happened everybody in Delft got very very worried. Not only the communities but also the mentee, also the water board and also the province of South Holland. So they all tried to take DSA to well they took DSA to the court to say OK we have to force them to keep pumping groundwater because if not all Delft can flood. However the court said no you cannot force anybody to keep pumping groundwater so if they want to stop they can stop. However I was saying in a very touch way they say you can stop but you have to make it organized and you have to plan. So in the end they gave like five years to say OK you have to scale down a little bit and then a little bit until you get to the full stop. So then they started doing that and of course a lot of things happened in between but then when the final day came and they said OK now we're going to stop. Then the municipality, the water board and the province of South Holland they decided OK from now on we need to continue pumping because of course if we don't keep pumping we are going to have a lot of problems there. So they continued with that agreement for a few years until at least they were more let's say there is no complete certainty until today but at least they said OK we're going to see a pattern to see if we reduce and reduce they are not going to cause you know this one caused too much damage to the city of Delft. So in the end they were kind of convinced that that was going to happen so in the end the province of South Holland they left the agreement and they said OK now it's only the two of you they have some of the municipality and the water board and they pay a lot of money so the two of them could continue because they decided that it was good enough. And then the water board did the same thing and they said OK we now know that things are doing well so these just to continue with the monitoring the Jemente can do it alone. So then I thought OK it would be interesting to see what the Jemente has to say about that and then when I talked to people at the Jemente what they told me is like well basically that happened because we were sleeping. That's their response so you can imagine that the other two even though they say OK now and there is also you can see it even online how the monitoring is going and apparently as I said things are OK. But again there is no certainty of that and the municipality is the only one that is still involved because as somebody told me they were sleeping. And now the idea of the plan is to get to a complete stop by 2030. So we are going to see if that happens or how that happens or in the end we need to come back to another agreement with the three main government institutions involved. And at the same time when all that was happening I also talked to some people here in Del that they even created an association. I don't know if anybody who lives there is part of this neighborhood association but they were very very worried about what was going on. So they have been very active to check that everything continues on the monitoring and they even have said OK if we have any problems or for example. Yeah some flooding happened we are going to take legal action. So some people were discussing that with me and they were telling me that. So they I know that they have been so yeah I can keep a conversation between this government institution and some of the at least more active neighbors here in Del who are very worried about what can happen. So they are saying OK we are not still sure what's going to happen but we still have this plan. You know as a plan may something happen we are going to sue them because we know that this is happening because of that. And of course there is a lot of responsibility issues that we can still discuss but I need to move but we can discuss that in the question part. So just to conclude some of my main conclusions is that groundwater governance is a work in progress. We still need to do a lot to have to understand better what it is and we need to understand that from practices and the law. Then groundwater governance will always be political and will always be contested. And there is the need to new ways of thinking and addressing groundwater governance and always thinking of the local initiatives local practices. And then in conclusion that is something that I created for the book and the main four conclusion for my conceptualization and theorization of groundwater is that we need to look at the context specific. So we need to acknowledge existing practices relating to groundwater. Then when we think about the law it's always important to have the core principles of equity and sustainability. The government the book is also a plea to say the government needs to be involved. I see in all the cases everything was better when the government was involved. Of course sometimes we need to change some people in the government but that doesn't mean that that is the government. And then I think we need a better dialogue and a better process between local practices and the law. And it's not only the law need to follow the practice or the practice need to follow the law but we need to have a dialogue and then we will have better groundwater governance. We're waiting where we get wet feet here at IIT. This is the local level and Gepmela has emphasized very much the local level of groundwater governance. But of course that's all embedded in the more global sustainability debate and the different principles of how we govern the environment and water and natural resources. So we have Drita Gupta with us who is also a professor here at IIT but also at PUFA who I'm just trying to convince by looking at her that she will give the 5 minute input that she had prepared and share some sorts of how Gepmela's work is actually embedded in the broader global sustainability debate. I did convince her. It was a 15 minute presentation that I prepared and I'm not going to cover it because I don't think there's time given how this has gone. So we'll just give you a little bit of anecdotes about the story and not get involved with the rest. All I know is Gabriela came to IHE and after I met her I stopped eating pineapples. Because every time I had water pineapple it was almost always from Costa Rica and the story about the fight between local people and these big multinationals was more than evident. And so what I wanted to actually say a little bit was that through history groundwater is one of the earliest types of water to be governed. Because it was always in areas where there was no water. So people have to actually dig wells and they have to make rules and so it's basically Islamic law which sort of began with groundwater law and you see that spread to other communities in the world where there was a shortage of water. So law has always been what the communities did and then there were some good practices and bad practices and sometimes the good practices prevailed. And that became the law. Sometimes the bad practice prevailed and then if that happened that the people would revolt and there would be a new law that would be formed. So it was always a circular process but that circular process came to an end with for example conquest or colonization. So if you look at conquest and colonization what you find is that for example the English came to India and they said if you own a piece of land you own the groundwater all the way to hell and all the way to heaven you own the air. And this law is still there in India.  And so even if the farmers around fight it so when Gabriel has explained to you that it's a lot of it can happen at local level it can't because sometimes you have to fight the multinational. And fighting the multinational or a company from outside the country is really difficult and the reason why it's difficult is because either they are following Indian law which is the law of the British on land and the dilemma for the Supreme Court in this particular case was that if you tell that big multinational you probably know which drink I'm talking about. If you tell that multinational that you should not use the water that means you're basically telling Heineken catch up and everybody else in India you can't use the water. And that basically means that you are stealing or expropriating their water rights and then they can sue you in court for massive amounts of money. And so the problem is that communities are no longer isolated from this global environment in which we live. And this is now the problem of colonization and a few weeks a few months ago there was an online debate about India's new water processes and Maharashtra's ground water law etc. And no one was talking about this land ownership and I had it in my presentation. I thought maybe I've missed something maybe you know out of date. So at the end I asked the others what about the ownership rights in the existing water law and then the guy from the ministry said we are not talking about it. It is pretending it doesn't exist. That doesn't work because it's going to hit back. The other thing in relation to multinationals is especially foreign companies is that they cannot just use local law. They can also use international law. So for example in many cases what they will say is we'll come to your country. We'll come to your country and we'll provide local people with water or mining or whatever. But all these activities use water directly or indirectly. Then one morning the government decides all the local communities decide this is really polluting. So we have to close it down. And so the communities are right. They want to close it down. And so they try to stop it. And then the government suddenly realizes it's got an international contract under a law investment law which falls under a New York jurisdiction or a jurisdiction somewhere outside the country. And essentially they cannot close down the factory without paying that huge amount of compensation. And most of this is secret. And you might think this is a developing country problem but it's also a Dutch problem because a German company is being closed down by the Netherlands for coal for fossil fuel. And they are also in the Dutch government under the international investment law for compensation for closing it down. So this is one of the big problems we have. But one of the interesting stories she brought up was about DSL because normally the problem is giving too much of permits, right?  And the moment you withdraw the permit the company says I went to sue you for compensation. And we've done now 60 countries. So she has done four detailed anecdotal stories. Six detailed anecdotal stories. But we did 60 countries, less details to find out in the developing world how these permits work and how these contracts work. And apparently you cannot take the permit back in many countries without paying huge amounts of compensation to that company whether it's a pineapple producer or it's a soft drink or a hard drink or a mining company. So it's very difficult for governments to cope with this. But to come to the DSL case, which is completely different, here a company says bye-bye and I'm going off. And now the problem is that the municipality has to pump out the water to make sure that this city doesn't get flooded. So who's going to pay the bill in this case? Technically it should be the municipality because it's the other story and it's interesting to see how it has developed in her particular case. But I also wanted to, and I'm not going to issue this, she's so complex and slightly, is that you were talking about in one of the cases about the human right to water and in the Costa Rica case, the first case you discussed and the needs for other kinds of investments, tourism, etc. We've scaled that up to the global level. So we looked at what would happen in 2018 before Covid if you provided everybody with access to food, water, energy and infrastructure. So we're talking about more than one third of the world's population that doesn't have access. So in an unequal world in 2018, unequal world, you're polluting so much. What would happen if you added this access? Would that increase your CO2 emissions? Would it increase your groundwater use? Would it increase your phosphate and nitrate discharges, etc. And what you basically see, you cross all the boundaries. And so we gave all the calculations. We worked out what the human right is and we worked it out in terms of how many calories or how much drinking water. Then we calculated all into CO2 and temperature change or into phosphorus use and boundary boundaries. Anyway, to cut a long story short, basically the message is if you want to meet the SDGs on social issues, there's no option but to redistribute water, which is also the story you're bringing up. This is about equity and justice. But to end on a little bit of an ironic note, when it went for review, the reviewers came back and said, but you don't discuss technology and we wrote back to them saying that we're talking about 2018. Because every time that you talk about 2050, people say, oh, technology will solve the problem. And we were saying in 2018 technology cannot solve the problem. So unless you can tell me now, we can do it. And in 2023 it can't solve the problem. So, you know, you're not going to postpone meeting the basic needs of people and meeting boundary boundaries at infinity, because you think technology will mean that law doesn't have to redistribute. It's a very big challenge and I needed that and I won't show much of it. We have some time for what's online in terms of questions, but maybe we start with the room. Questions, comments, do you want to know more about the service study? It's your chance. So I have a lot of questions, but I'll hold back for now to give you the chance. Or we can go and start the trainings and we can have the questions. Keep you here until there are at least three questions that you have to answer before that. Yes. Exactly. Well, thanks, Eger, and congratulations again. I was wondering if among the case studies that you compared, you also looked at how could you say equity is grounded in environmental law or should be. I was wondering, what is it in these countries, these different countries? I just heard about the Indian example and I think it seems to me. And then there's probably a different levels also, like centrally. So how would you say that that equity and sustainability aspect as well is already there? Are many of these when all laws are immature and actually do not know or are not aware of how you would address equity here? Thank you for the question. Yeah, that's also a question that I had and that's why I wanted to look at that. And you will see that in many different legislations, it will take you some time to find equity because it's not like, you know, which sustainability is different. And actually I made a detailed case of all the laws in the book and then you will see sustainability is out there. It's like, okay, we need sustainable use, we need sustainable yield, we need to, so it's clear about the equity. It's always like, okay, equity through participation, for example, or equity through needs to relocate some things when this has happened. But it's always like, so yeah, it's very blurry and you need to go into all the legislation and read it like almost with, you know, like. Yeah, maybe that's why it's difficult to apply or why you don't see back in practice. Exactly. That is why it's very, I mean, there are always mechanisms, as I said, but you need to look very, very into all the laws and with a lot of detail to find it. But yes, it's not that, okay, we need to have this or this redistribution or this, you know, equity as defined as this is not the case. And interesting, if you compare it with sustainability, sustainability is always out there, right? I don't know if it's just because it's more fashionable or it's just easier. Exactly, it's easier. So it's okay, sustainable use. Let's say we are going to, you know, in some legislation, you will say you will see that, okay, sustainable use is like, you don't use the aquifer more than its own recharge capacity. So that is just easier. But equity is like, how do we be sure that water is being used in an equitable way? So that is more complex. Yeah, the law also finds that and then they put like different ways and If I can just add to what she said, because the human right to water has been there in most cultures. And that's just only for that 50 liters, 200 liters per day storyline. But before the Anthropocene began, it was just small uses. So there was not so much competition.  And that's when the inequity came. And that inequity is, we still have to fight on that. It's one of the most complex sense of stability. And if they both involve redistribution, we need to redistribute between humans and non-humans in order to not excite their boundaries. It's also... Yeah, no, of course it is. I'm just saying that in the laws, it's easier to find sustainability. They found, okay, very simple. If you use the recharge, you know, the equipment less than its own recharge capacity, then it's sustainable. So why do you think it is simpler for lawmakers? Because I think with equity, they cannot give, you know, like this kind of formula, you know, you can just use that. With equity, we cannot just say, okay, give everybody the law that they need, even though we have it, the human right to water. So everybody has the right to do that. And in many legislations, you will find it. But to apply it is much more difficult. And the sustainability, of course, is also difficult. We are seeing many problems. But I would say that somehow it's better in better shape, let's say, than your next book. Yeah, I had two more questions. No, okay, then it was you, Amit, and then the other person. Congratulations on your book. And I want to problematize the notion of, especially we talked about the India case study in New York. For example, the constitution would guarantee protection around caste and class in terms of accessing groundwater compared to perhaps for the community organization. Especially around caste in terms of who gets to access groundwater and who doesn't, especially the landlis and others. So I'm trying to understand how does the contradiction work, where equity at the local level, where these laws are emerging from is also very problematic. Yeah. But the constitution actually guaranteeing protection. Yes, for the Indian case study, I put a lot of attention to that. And actually, in the book, I put it like that. When we talk about equity, it's very, very difficult to think, okay, communities are a very good example for this or community practices because of all practices of injustice and caste and discrimination. But many different caste, only one, but gender and many different. So yeah, that is definitely there. But in this particular case, they also address like in the same way that the constitution does, they also address, because I also even talked to landlis people there and they always said like, okay, no, we don't have wells here in our, but we are able to use, because they don't have private wells. They have community wells so everybody can use them. So they can also use it. Of course, there is no complete equity because they don't have land while most of the other ones they have. But to access water, and I explained that in the book, they can have the access to these community wells and they use the water that they need. So they still have the water needs completely, you know, like guaranteed in that particular case in the Hebrew and Zahra. So it's very, very interesting to see because those contradictions, as I said, aren't there in India everywhere. But in this particular case, that's why such a like, yeah, nomadic case, because they are also taking into account that gender and caste and try to redistribute as in the best way they can. And I think again, the leader of the community, Popatra Ophawa, I also interviewed him and asked this particular question. And he is, you know, like on top of that, so that is something that is happening. Thank you for the question. You first. Thank you. Congratulations. I have two questions. Have you seen across the case study if centralized or decentralized system is key for improving the situation of the governance on the ground? And the second one is that do you think or do you think that the different history, if knowledge, understanding of what is happening of the governance process and etc. By the local community also is key or can improve their ability to not to solve but to deal with the power of governance. Yeah, let's go to the first one first and I will say that in all the cases and with all the knowledge that I have so far, I will always recommend decentralized way because in the end the groundwater is a very local resource. And again, people know their wells, people know their water resources, their groundwater resources, they know how to use it, they know if there's a problem, they will feel it immediately. So I think the more that you can decentralize that it will be the best. And of course at the national level or even at the international level, I will always suggest let's have these guiding principles again like equity or sustainability. But the more day to day, how are we going to implement this or how equity will look like here. It has to be at the very decentralized way. And the second question, sorry, I forgot. No, but of knowledge, understanding because communities to understand what is happening or their resource to us the right fight. Yes, that is also a very interesting point because that was one of my first entry question for them. Okay, how is the situation here with groundwater? So I saw that when there is a problem, people just get involved and they look for information. And I think all of us will do the same, right? If suddenly you open your tab and you don't have water, you will just go and look for information. Yes, but I will say that people react very late for everything. If nobody would be doing, if nobody wouldn't get to that point, if we were doing things in the right manner to begin with. But what I saw from all these people that I talk and again with my boring case that everything was kind of, they are not doing really anything because it was like, yeah, the government is fine, we don't have problems. Just one day they have one big thing, but most of that it was okay. So, yeah, I think when they have problems, when they have these so-called crisis is when people start wondering, okay, what is happening? For example, with the irrigators in Australia that I say they were the same once causing their problems because when there is somebody else it's more complex. But in that case I told them and they told me like, we didn't know, we were just using and using and using and we thought we were having water forever. What we had the problem is that we thought, okay, we need to do something. And then we started doing research and we told the government, you have to come and teach us. And then they got the expert from the government like hydro-geologies and hydrologies and a lot of people teaching them, okay, how the proofers work and how they recharge and how all that. And then they were building this knowledge that then they just took it to the next level of this when they started doing a lot of these activities too, okay, we are going to do many different things. I just want to nuance her previous answer because in ancient Islamic law they basically said if you have a well with water and your neighbor's well is dry, another community, you must share. And the problem is if you decentralize too much, those who have the water will not share with those who don't have. So I seriously think not total decentralization because it would be just like with the problem that you're having now with the international groundwater law. That countries are saying this is my water, groundwater, I'm not going to share it with you and you have to watch out for that. So I would say you still, for the sharing aspect, you may need to go beyond completely decentralized. Yes, that's what I said, I think mainly decentralize but there has to be something national about equity or distribution or even taking it to the next level. Yeah, avoiding pollution or deforestation, of course there has to be something broader. But I think for the day to day you know how much groundwater can be used, the permits that they do, that it is very, very local. Because for example one of the people that I was talking in Costa Rica that was telling me, oh to drill this well I need a permit. But I need to go to San Jose and for me that is the entire day, I can never take a day off so I'm using water without a permit. So if they were having something more local maybe there will be better. So that's not decentralization, that's simply making facilities available also. Let's keep that. Let me also take one more question before we move to the next question. It's not actually a question but first of all it's on the book and it's just for the Indian case of equity and sustainability. Like we see it's very difficult to get equity in terms of it cannot be quantified. But why in sustainability gets picked up in policies is because it's not only related to indicators of groundwater recharge. But what happened, what's called the case of this specific case is that now there people had like the per capita income of around 12 US dollars in 1990. Now they have per capita income of around 450 or 500 US dollars. So that became a case, it's about a case about 60 million years in a village and only three or four families below the poverty line. So that picked up the case and then it got more government talking into it like why happened and everything. And then the Popatlal Power, the surpunch, is now appointed as the head of 100 villages to replicate the same model only based on the sustainability of what he achieved during the model. So it's not only I think about the equity for indicators but also about other indicators such as low income level or everything. That increased only this particular case but we are not sure without starting the equity case if it is sustainable in 100 other villages as well. Yes, no thank you for adding that because yeah in the case of India that was the case. I know just the improvement regarding water but everything productivity. Now they even have like cheese, they want to know cheese then. Sorry, paneer and they have a brand. And they have a brand. So it's like in Ramassar, like we know with the community development and this and that. So all these things are also benefitting this community. A lot of people call me to see them when I was there in many rural communities in India. When I was there they were always like looking at me like hey somebody weird but in that one they were so used to foreigners.  I don't know if you have been there but they have like prices for the best community initiative for this, for this. So it's like a very, very, so yeah a lot of things are also happening beyond groundwater recharge and sustainable use of drama. Do we have any questions left or is everyone waiting for the drinks? Not that we couldn't continue the discussion over drinks. So I would suggest we leave it at that. There will be drinks in the cafeteria and the bar area but before we go there, Congrats again. Participated online, not sure which camera is, but thanks a lot.


Boutrent is a fascinating UNESCO World Heritage Site that boasts within a beautiful natural setting several well-preserved monuments from its rich history. As a Greek colony, a Roman city, a bishopric that was later ruled by a Byzantium that occupied by the Venetians before its eventual abandonment as late as the 19th century under Ottoman control. We'll explore the key phases and monuments of this incredible archaeological site, always threatened by its changing local environment as we'll see. Boutrent is in southern Albania, just 20 kilometers south of Saranda. The territory and this hill was already occupied as early as 50,000 BC. The hill is located in the saltwater lagoon, Lake Boutrent, connected to the Mediterranean by the Vivari Channel. Located just in front of the island of Corfu, it occupies a strategic location along the Adriatic coast. Ancient Boutrent was known as Boutroton. It was founded originally as a city of the Epirot tribe of the Cionians, in close association with the Corinthian colony Corsaira on modern Corfu. With its strategic location giving access to the Straits of Corfu, it really was at a critical point between the Greek and the non-Greek worlds. The fortified Acropolis was first occupied from the 7th century BC through the 5th century BC, and in the 4th century it expanded to include a temple of Asclepius and an Agorah and a theater, all of which still stand today. The temple platform on the Acropolis was overlooking the theater and the urban center. The outermost wall protecting the Acropolis of nearly 10 acres was extended by circa 380 BC, including the famous Lion Gate, which we can still admire today. Just inside the gate is an impressive fountain, where signs of use are evident still today. The city below, with the Agorah and theater, as well as residential district, were defended by a separate distinct wall circuit. One of the most striking features in the theater is a wall inscribed with the names of slaves that were freed in the Hellenistic era, continuing in the Roman period. Already in 228 BC, ancient butrant had become under the protection of Rome, along with Corfu. Then in 146 BC, it became part of the new province of Macedonia. And then in 44 BC, Julius Caesar designated the city as a Roman colony to be occupied by soldiers who had fought for him against Pompey the Great. The marshland was being reclaimed under Julius Caesar, but it wasn't until Augustus that the city took on its grand shape and scale. Fresh from his victory at Actium in 31 BC over Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Augustus finished what Caesar started in this veteran's colony. It included the construction of an aqueduct that was an impressive new feature, spanning the distance over the lagoon to reach Butrant, the channel source was from nearby springs. The aqueduct and the lagoon must have been an impressive site. We don't have that portion of it, but we do have the Castellum Aquae and related Nympham Fountain preserved still today on site. We can see here leading out from the Castellum Aquae are the peers of the aqueduct. And in this particular point, they turn going over a former Hellenistic gate on their way to the form area of the Roman period. Here's a reconstruction that lets us understand just how complex this portion was in the city of the Roman era. The aqueduct allows for the creation of a large bath complex located near the Agorah and the theater. The remains are still visible. Here we clearly can see some of the hypercost system, the elevated hollow floor through which the hot air would pass. There were also a lot of new constructions inserted into the area at this time around the new Roman Forum as well. There were also more residential quarters created for the increased population making this a truly thriving city. Tying to this activity was the work of the Roman epic poet Virgil, who included the ancient site Butrint in the Aeneid. Virgil wrote that Aeneis visited this very site and that it had been founded by another refugee from the destruction of Troy, that is, Hellenists, a son of Priam as well. Also occupying the city, Neoptolomus, a son of Achilles, and his concubine Andromache, who was the widow of the great warrior Hector. So powerful was this Roman tradition that it was the impetus for the eventual 1928 Aetan excavations under Mussolini, ever interested in making connections to Rome's past for his own gain as Italy's leader. But it really is the character of Augustus that sets the stage for the history of Butrint. And in fact, found in the theater of Butrint, they were discovered a cache of Augustan-era statues, including a portrait of Augustus, his wife Livia, and his right-hand man, Agrippa. These are the cast of characters that were forever associated with Butrint and its rise to glory. Excavations reveal that in the third century, a massive earthquake substantially damaged the entire town and the area around the Vrina Plain. However, the city continued to live on, and it was still a major port in the province of Old Apyrus. And one of the great standout features of late antiquity in Butrint is this grand Triconque palace, which was the residence of an elected official built around the early 5th century AD. Also in the 5th century, Butrint became an Episcopal center with a large church, which was substantially constructed in the 6th century, the remains of which we can still admire today. Nearby the church is the Baptistry, which is one of the great Paleo-Christian baptisteries of the Christian world. It's very well preserved with its mosaic pavement intact. Dating back to the 6th century AD, it was excavated in 1928 by the Italian Mission, and what it reveals is that the Baptistry, with a diameter of over 14 meters, was built within a large rectangular structure pre-existing that was probably previously a Roman bathhouse. So there are some of the remains nearby the Baptistry of a Caldarium Hypocost system. But what we're astounded by is the reuse of all of these columns to create something new in the city of Butrint in the Christian era, and we have this extraordinary amount of mosaic floor still preserved, recalling life in the Christian world in the 6th century. The town had become heavily fortified and continued to flourish as a Christian center, but then the Slavs arrived in the 580s, leading to the abandonment of much of the city. Robert Giscard, the Norman, arrived in 1081, but was expelled shortly thereafter by the Byzantines, who remained in control of the area until the 13th century. Let's think of the 1204 sack of Constantinople, and then the area turned over to the despotate of the Purists. Then came the Angevins, the Venetians, and again the Byzantines. And in all this time, the fortifications, the walls were rebuilt and maintained, and we can admire so many of them, particularly the Venetian ones, that line much of the site as you make your way to the archaeological park. But it was in the 15th century that the Venetians created the triangular fortification on the south side of the channel, and this is where the life of the city gravitated towards in this period. Continual wars between Venice and the Ottomans eventually led to the Ottoman control in 1799, and remained in their control until Albania gained its independence in 1912. That is such amazing history for one site. Butrant is one of the great archaeological sites of Albania, and really is one of our great cities of the Roman Empire. You can explore more of the Roman Empire with us as we continue on our series of Cities of the Roman Empire. Sign up for our newsletter at ancientromelive.org, leave your comments, and we'll see you somewhere in the Roman Empire.