River of Contention: Scarcity Discourse and Water Competition in Highland Peru

• Citation: Vol. 42 No. 1
• Publication year: 2013
• topic: Environmental Law

RIVER OF CONTENTION: SCARCITY DISCOURSE AND WATER COMPETITION IN HIGHLAND PERU

Barbara Lynch^*

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 70

II. WATER SCARCITY AS A DRIVER OF WATER POLICY ........................ 71

III. SCARCITY AND WATER POLITICS IN PERU........................................ 78

A. Scarcity and Water Commodification ........................................ 82
B. Peruvian Water Politics and the Production of Scarcity ........... 84

IV. WATER COMPETITION AND SCARCITY IN THE SANTA WATERSHED ...................................................................................... 85

V. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 92

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I. Introduction

The policy prescriptions of international institutions seeking to transform fresh water governance in Latin America are driven by fear of an impending crisis due to an absolute scarcity of fresh water. The assumption that scarcity is the fundamental problem for the governance of fresh water resources leads to adoption of three main types of policy solutions. one is to build a new institutional architecture to support integrated water resource management (IWRM) at the national and river basin levels. The second is to emphasize new infrastructure to capture free flowing water, the transfer from regions of abundance to regions of deficit, and new technologies that make water delivery more efficient (e.g., drip irrigation). The third solution is to treat water as an economic good by pricing it, creating transferable rights in water, and supporting the development of water markets.

These policy prescriptions, coupled with World Bank and InterAmerican Development bank loans, have driven recent water reforms in Peru, a country where water conflicts have been numerous and often severe, posing difficult if not insuperable challenges for water governance. Is water scarcity the reason for these conflicts, or are other factors equally if not more important? And, are policies shaped by a fear of impending scarcity part of the solution or part of the problem?

Glacial retreat due to climate change has led to predictions of water scarcity, and Peru is no exception. This perception of impending scarcity is acute in Peru's Rio Santa watershed, which extends from the snowcapped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca down to arid coastal lands in the regions of Ancash and La Libertad. Fed by meltwaters from the world's largest tropical glaciated land mass, the Santa watershed has become an international poster child for climate change.¹ There is some debate among hydrologists as to whether and when river flows will diminish, but competition for the Santa's waters is already severe.² However, it is not clear from my analysis of water conflicts in the valley or from meetings and interviews with irrigators,

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fishers, local officials, and water managers that water competition is an artifact of scarcity. Nor is it clear whether the water shortfalls experienced in the watershed are due to demography, climate change, or rising demand. It is clear, however, that understanding water competition and conflict in terms of scarcity will have implications for technological and economic approaches to water management and, more broadly, for institutional approaches to water governance. These approaches will have outcomes that may or may not be equitable.

What are the implications for water management and water governance when water competition is understood in terms of scarcity? To address these questions, I first review several different positions on water scarcity and their policy implications. I then ask how these are reflected in the Peruvian water regime that has taken shape in the past decade. Then, I look at water competition and conflict in the Rio Santa Valley and ask whether and how they relate to scarcity and scarcity discourse. I conclude by suggesting alternative approaches that might lead to more equitable or inclusive water governance and do more to prevent the water crisis predicted by international experts.

II. Water Scarcity as a Driver of Water Policy

The idea of scarcity underlies much of the contemporary writing about water governance, writing that comes from a transnational network or epistemic community of water experts and, in many cases, proponents of IWRM.³ In 1992, members of this network crafted the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, a set of very general policy guidelines prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The statement opens with the following paragraph:

Scarcity and misuse of fresh water pose a serious and growing threat to sustainable development and protection of the environment. Human health and welfare, food security, industrial development and the ecosystems on which they depend, are all at risk, unless water and land resources are

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managed more effectively in the present decade and beyond than they have been in the past.⁴

Similarly, the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report argues that agriculture is "by far the largest user of water, contributing to water scarcity."⁵ The challenge, it states, is "to use less water in the face of growing water scarcities."⁶ The World Bank opens its discussion of issues in a document entitled "Sustaining Water" by stating, "Water is a scarce resource that has a multitude of interdependent uses (irrigation, drinking water, sanitation, energy and environmental services)."⁷ A 2007 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) bulletin warns, "By 2025, 1,800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions."⁸

Not all members of the fresh water epistemic community are equally convinced that the world is running out of water. The 2006 Human Development Report talks about a global water crisis but casts it in terms of water insecurity or deprivation of access to water.⁹ "The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis," it argues, "is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability," and it identifies the underlying cause of scarcity as institutional and political rather than physical.¹⁰ Since 2010, preoccupation with risk and uncertainty has displaced scarcity discourse to some extent, and the term water stress is used with increasing frequency.¹¹ That said, the idea of scarcity continues to inform water governance debates.

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Water scarcity is attributed to population growth, economic development, growing demand for food and other agricultural products, and urbanization on the one hand and inefficient, wasteful, and profligate use on the other. It is widely thought that climate change will bring scarcity to an unprecedented level, creating new problems whose solutions are not to be found in traditional water management repertoires. Glacial retreat in the Andean "water towers" is emblematic of this issue. The 2010 World Development Report on Development and Climate Change states that changes in water availability "may be so rapid and unpredictable that traditional agricultural and water management practices may no longer be useful. . . . This is already the case for the indigenous communities in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, where farmers are facing such rapid changes that their traditional practices are failing."¹² Thus, the report deploys the specter of climate-induced scarcity to delegitimate the local knowledge, institutions and practices of campesino communities¹³ and small farmers to justify the transfer of water management authority to state agencies.

Viewing the problem of freshwater access in terms of absolute, physical scarcity has policy implications. One set of policy prescriptions, emanating from a belief in scarcity emphasizes institutional change. "Meeting the water scarcity, challenge," according to the World Bank, "will require integrated management of water use at river-basin levels for better water allocation across sectors, and greater efficiency in the use of water within irrigation systems."¹⁴ It goes on to argue that decentralized governance models are more likely to be successful than those reliant on centralized bureaucracies.¹⁵

The question is whether water governance policies designed to manage water more efficiently produce inequities in water allocation and distribution that deprive some groups of access to the water essential for their lives and livelihoods. On this point, Swyngedouw argues that "particular social groups lack access to water not because of real or alleged water scarcities, but because of differential entitlements associated with differential power

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relations."¹⁶ He goes on to say that scarcity may be produced when fear of a "hydro-socio-ecological disaster" is used to justify investment in big water projects and water commodification.¹⁷ The 2006 UNDP Human Development Report puts it even more bluntly: "scarcity," according to the report, is "manufactured through political processes and institutions that disadvantage the poor."¹⁸ Thus, when coupled with policies that favor water consuming industries and the construction of large public works for water storage and transfer, political institutions and processes that under-represent the interests of poor and highly vulnerable water users can produce scarcity.

Infrastructural approaches to addressing scarcity have also received considerable attention. This is not surprising given the abundance of engineers in the epistemic community that has grown up around freshwater management and governance. Addressing the problem of glacial retreat in the Andes and the Himalayas, the World Bank suggested additional investments in water storage, irrigation planning and system design.¹⁹ Criticized in the 1990s for its initial investment in the chixoy, Narmada, and other ill-conceived...