Floods, Farmers, Vulnerability and Policy:

What they want, what we give and what really happens?

ByDipak Gyawali

Pragya, Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology

Research Director, Institute for Social and Environmental Transition

Source: Moench, Dixit and Caspari, Rethinking the Mosaic, 1999

Kulekhani Catchment 1993

Source: Ajaya Dixit, Basic Water Science, 2002

Extreme Combination

Kulekhani Sedimented Upper End

1993 Bagmati Barrage

Source: Ajaya Dixit, Basic Water Science, 2002

Source: Ajaya Dixit, Basic Water Science, 2002

Sediment yield Designed 700m3/km2/yearAfter 1993 floods 38095 m3/km2 1994 83333 m3/km2

Average (1981-1994) 12000 m3/km2/year

Us

Vs

Them

EGALITARIAN VULTURES(unstructured but bound enclaves)

+veGroup

(strong affinity, fettered competition)

Risk minimizingprocedural rationality

TABOO

MANAGE

HIERARCHIST WOLVES(ranked and bounded)

COPE

COMMODITIZE

Risk avoidingcritical rationality Nature fragile

Risk takingsubstantive rationality

Nature robust

INDIVIDUALIST HAWK S(unbound, unstructured

networks)

-veGroup

(weak affinity, unfettered competition)

Risk absorbingfatalist rationality

Naturecapricious

FATALIST DONK EYS(atomized, unbound, unstructured)

(asymetrical transactions,inequality, strong ascribed order)

+ve GRID

(symetrical transactions,equality, weak ascribed order)

- ve GRID

Nature robustwithin limits

Limits

Ryots:

“Silt is one among many woes about which we can do nothing”.

Department of Irrigation:

“Silt is a danger to be controlled”.

Zamindars:

“Silt is opportunity”.

Ganga Mukti Andolan:

“Silt is a diversion from other evils in our midst”.

Multiple definitions of what the problem is !

Bureaucracies

Population - too many

people - is the problem :

ProfligacyPricing

Population

Markets Social Auditors

Pricing is the problem: solution is to remove controls and subsidies

Profligacy is the problem: solution is to reign in our greed

Climate Change

solution is to manage it