TRM News: Is Bhabodah going to be water logged again??

The River Shri (also called Hari) will no longer flow in coming days – an old farmer opined by last January, 2013. People, living villages near Beel Khuksia informed that in this year from mid January they found huge sedimentation in the river. Siltation in river bed has already been restarted on the upstream of Shri Bridge within few days after closing the free tidal movement towards beel Khuksia (the wet land at Keshobpur upazila under Jessore District in Bangladesh where Tidal River Management (TRM) was run over last 6 years). During end of December 2012, local people closed the embankment cut by standing against to the Government authority. They said that the proposed time to implement TRM in beel Khuksia has been over and they want to start cultivation in the beel from this year. They think, this is the high time to go TRM to beel Kapalia, the next selected TRM basin in the upstream of the Shri catchment. But the authority (i.e BWDB) has never been able to start TRM in beel Kapalia yet due to public demonstration on last June 2012. So, now the river has no place to spread out the silt load, it carrying from the Bay. According to BWDB and concern experts, if TRM will not be started immediately at beel Kapalia or any other beel near Bhabodah, it will be difficult to keep alive the river Shri/Hari-Mukteshwari and the surrounding area will go to be water logged again.

In beel Kapalia, one community group with some NGOs are aware about the upcoming stress on the river but another group are not. In this situation, a public meeting was held near Bhabodah sluice gate on 28 January 2013 where people committed to open the embankment near the Bhabodah gate and connect river to beel Kapalia within two weeks by self labor (Daily Prothom Alo, 5 Feb, 2013). But, the second group with marginal farmers oppose to install TRM in that beel during this season because they just finished Boro cultivation in the beel. Finally, the first group was going to open the embankment to allow river flow to beel Kapalia at mid night on 3 February. They cut 200 ft embankment. On next morning (4 February), the opposition group started to close the cutting point. That time two groups fought there!! It is reported that one person, Mr. Halim of Pachakori village at Monirampur upazila was injured (by bullet), though police said there was no shooting. The BWDB act was also no more focused there. 

However, the reality is that the people of beel Kapalia (especially small farmers) will lose their Robi crop (winter crop is their major practice in this low land) if tidal water goes to beel just now. One the other hand, TRM should be started immediately otherwise the life in this Bhabodah area and the entire Hari-Muktheswari catchment will start suffering more again by coming monsoon.    

Golden Artery Nature - looking for water

On the 29^th of January I witnessed a 2,5 hour discussion in De Balie on the value and future of nature in relation to water management. It was called 'golden artery nature' in relation to water. And yes, you can taste some disappointment here, because interaction with the audience was virtually absent – no invitations for questions, feedback, comments etcetera from the people, who took the trouble to travel to Amsterdam. Anyway - you’ll find the full podium-monologue via the recordings:

The stories were quite interesting and strongly related to my research themes. The NGO Natuurmonumenten organized this debate. Against the background of reduced investments in the Ecological Structure (the policy plan to create nature reserves and connect them throughout the Dutch delta), and I would also not be surprised, about the abolishment of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries, Natuurmonumenten intends to explore future and progressive collaboration with the water sector. Not only to work on nature conservation, but also to see how nature can be beneficial or supportive in water management.
Huib de Vriend (director Ecoshape) and Katheleen Poels (Royal Haskoning DHV) gave a very complete overview of projects and initiatives in the Dutch delta, that fall into the broader ecological conceptualization of water (and flood) management. The examples ranged from nature-inclusive (more room for the river) to nature-based (ecoshape) solutions. They both concurred that the incorporation of ecosystems dynamics and functions has taken a flight during the last years – the projects working in the line of thought of Ecoshape, now outnumber the formal Ecoshape projects. Classifying the projects based on landscapes, as Katheleen did, comes very handy in understanding which types of projects could be applicable to which kind of landscapes – whether it would be in the Dutch, Bangladesh, or Vietnamese deltas.

My short talk over drinks with Frans Vera, one of the authors of the Plan Stork (in turn one of the landmark publications that supported the ecological conceptualization in flood management), was also very interesting. He agreed with the ecological conceptualization 'movement' in water management and found my classification of nature-inclusive and nature-based approaches to floods appropriate and useful for my research.

Bird Paradise

Yesterday it was announced that the Dutch Government is investing 30.000.000 Euro in a plan to create a new Island in the Markermeer. The island will become an "unequalled bird paradise!".

Check the animated impression of the island below. A shame that they forgot to ask sir. David Attenborough for the voiceover... (or, in line with my last post, use Elbow's - "the birds" as the soundtrack)



What will be the next step? An island that serves as an "unequalled paradise" for humans?

Scholar-Songpop?

How nice to once in a while find nice references to (pop)songs in academic literature. Makes you think scientists might be human after all. Today I started reading a paper on the role of future scenarios which started like this:

“Unlike many environmental scientists (and Fleetwood Mac), most social scientists do not think yesterday has gone and do not much want to think about tomorrow—at least not in their work”

Pulver and VanDeveer 2009 in Global Environmental Political.

Another one that I really like was a bit more hidden. Anna Wesselink et al in their “Dutch Dealings with the Delta” (2007, Nature and Culture) sneaked in Paul Simons:

“I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises”.

Does anybody know any other examples?

Tidal river management in East and West.

Problems in tidal rivers such as the Hari-Mukteswari and Kobadak river in Bangladesh are much related to 1) water and 2) sediment. If we look carefully at the Dutch and Belgian delta , we can find water and sediment also as a major cause of trouble in tidal rivers. The Westerscheldt, the Eems and other water bodies under tidal influence (such as the seaport of Oostende) need to be carefully managed in order to prevent problems caused by an accumulation of sediment. Often, this involves dredging.

If problems in the two countries show similarities, can the solutions be similar as well? In Oostende, a very large tidal basin is constructed in order to keep the harbor free of sediment (picture 1). In Paal (Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen), a small tidal basin (“Spuikom” in Dutch) keeps the harbor of Watersport Vereniging Saefthinghe open by flushing it twice daily (picture 2).

Can strategically placed tidal basins be used in other tidal rivers in the Netherlands to influence the rate and location of sedimentation? Could tidal basins form an alternative solution to the siltation problems in the tidal river of the Eems, instead of creating an artificial island (picture 3) and continued dredging? Or are the two countries and the rivers not comparable?

Picture 1: a large spuikom in Oostende that fills up during high tide, and flushes the harbor during low tide.

Picture 2: a "spuikom" in action in Paal (Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen), used to help keep the harbor free of sediment.

Picture 3: newspaper article describing the plans to build an artificial island to help the river Eems. 

Full article: trouw.nl/tr/nl/4332/Groen/article/detail/3366142/2012/12/20/Nieuw-Waddeneiland-moet-natuur-in-de-Eems-redden.dhtml

Another Man's World

Just another day,
In another man’s world,
Not mine...

With 2012 coming to an end I want to look into the rear view mirror just a little bit. A little looking back on what I’ve done over this last year? Going through my notebook it seems that it has been a lively year. I’ve presented my research ideas at various occasions, at the IVM/VU University, at an ICCWaDS workshop at ZEF in Bonn, at the Water@Leeds group, to Ken Oye (MIT), to WUR-ILW students, at the Bangladesh stakeholder workshop in Dhaka and of course meetings with the WOTRO project team. Eventually this has resulted in a finished research proposal that I’ve submitted to the WASS research school. In all this has been a very inspiring period in which I’ve navigated across many epistemological positions. Though this is a wearing, confusing and in the eyes of some utterly useless (I still don’t agree) process, this eventually resulted in a approach for my research that I think is quite useful (and very exciting!). The two main sources of inspiration are Paul Feyerabend’s notion of Abundance and the idea of Ontological Politics (see e.g. the work by Annemarie Mol and John Law). If you are interested in reading my proposal, please let me know and I’ll send it to you. I cannot put it online because some parts of it are currently under review.
After the summer holidays I shifted my attention from thinking about doing research to doing actual research (about thinking). This has resulted in two papers which will hopefully be published next year. The first paper is a further deepening and elaboration of earlier work that I’ve done on the Philipsdam in the Netherlands. The second paper, which I was able to present at a very inspiring workshop in Lisbon, deals with the nature of Climate Change as an actor in Dutch Delta management. At the moment I have started two new case studies, one in collaboration with the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency on the future of the Dutch south-western Delta and the other on histories and trends in Bangladeshi Delta management.

Before shutting down my computer for this year I want to misuse this blog for thanking just a few of the people that contributed to making the past year such an exciting year. Why should I wait with thanking people until I can write the acknowledgements in my thesis? Thank you Flip and Arthur for your ever inspiring support. Margreet, thank you for making time to listen to my stream of consciousness. Bert for the many reflexive lunch walks. The WOTRO-team, IWE PhD discussion group (let’s revive this initiative!) and the Science and Values cluster at the IVM-VU for lovely discussions.

I am truly looking forward in continuing this wonderful journey called a Phd in 2013!

Merry Christmas to all!

Arjen

For all those interested in the multiple ontologies, multiple realities stuff, and for those of you interested in obscure Scottish pop-music, check out the song Another Man’s World by a band called Immaculate Fools.

Three sides of the delta

The last two weeks the research team enjoyed an excellent time in Bangladesh. I’d like to share with you some personal impressions and lessons learned from the trip.

The workshop on the 2nd of December confirmed the interest in and opportunities for research on greener flood management solutions and strategies, from a Bangladesh perspective. Especially in the parallel discussion it showed that this would fill a gap between water related research versus more environmental related research. On the other hand, it also became clear that the terminology needs some tuning: despite attempt to define ‘green flood management’ it was still understood in multiple ways; as in green economy (solutions contributing to sustainable economic growth), green growth (measure to ensure higher agricultural production to feed the country), to considering the environmental impacts of planned flood infrastructures. So, my first task is to re-check terminology and possible alternative formulations of the research theme.

The second part of the trip involved field visits to the Jessore-Khulna region. It was great to have an impression of the delta, which reminded me also about my work in Vietnam some years ago. Very remarkable to see (nearly) the same practices, rice and fish production, similar kind of houses, and the general 'delta looks'. We visited some of the beels in which Tidal River Management is on-going, took place or is planned. TRM is a nice example of ecosystem-based flood management, as the practice departs from the dynamics in the river and broader ecosystem functioning simultaneously. Especially the social dimension of TRM is interesting: people developing, hijacking, promoting, opposing the concept. I also enjoyed the discussions with Mahmouda, Farhana and Arjen on our individual research plans and shared interests. We also had a intensive session in which we developed an outline for a joint paper.

To conclude this short story, for me the trip ‘joined’ the three sides of the delta: the Netherlands, Vietnam and Bangladesh.