MOOC: Water, Society And Sustainability

ENGAGE4Sundarbans team is delighted to invite you to join the MOOC course “Water, Society and Sustainability”.

This course is led and designed by our Indian PI, Jenia Mukherjee. 
Join the course for heated discussions and exchanges!
You can enrol and register by accessing https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc23_hs92/preview
The last date of enrollment is August 21, 2023.
See you all in the forum and during the live session.

ABOUT THE COURSE :

The global water scenario is beset by multiple challenges: water availability, severe inequity to water access and entitlements across social and spatial lines, frequent floods and droughts, disputes over corporate control of limited water resources, etc. The world appears to be on track to halve the number of people without access to safe clean water. However, in the urban Global South, this success masks regional and local inequalities and a process of urbanization without infrastructure, which is particularly acute in the growing peripheries of existing cities. Interestingly enough, lessons can be learnt from small-scale community water conservation practices and localized needs-driven initiatives. Within this context, it is important to understand and address water beyond the physical and technical attributes and explore the complex and cyclical processes through which water shapes, and, is in turn shaped by society. The course is located at the intersections across water, technology, science and society towards sustainable future. It combines fundamental theoretical, methodological approaches and empirical case studies to introduce and familiarize students with water-society relationship: the contemporary challenges and prospective potentials.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Located at the intersections across science, society, technology and sustainability, the course will be highly relevant for students from different disciplinary backgrounds including agriculture,
water resource engineering, environmental sciences, rural development, civil engineering, geology, humanities and social sciences.
INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Other companies’ interests (some of which have approached the instructor) can be explored.

Course layout

Week 1:
1. Setting the Context
2. Beyond Hydrology
3. Socio Hydrology
4. Political Ecology of Water
5. Hydrosocial
Week 2:
6. Critical Physical Geography
7. The South Asian Context
8. Water Harvesting and Water Use Techniques in Ancient India 1
9. Water Harvesting and Water Use Techniques in Ancient India 2
10. Water Harvesting and Water Use Techniques in Ancient India 3
Week 3: 
11. Water Technology in Medieval India 1
12. Water Technology in Medieval India 2
13.‘Colonial Hydrology’
14. Dams and Development in Contemporary India
15. The Farakka Barrage Project: Historical and Technical Details
Week 4: 
16. The Farakka Barrage Project: Socio-environmental Implications
17. Urban Waters: Historical and Political Ecological Perspectives
18. Transforming Trajectories of Blue Infrastructures of Kolkata
19. Peri-urban Water Justice in the Global South
20. Discussion and Conclusion

Books and references

  1. Acharya A (2015) The cultural politics of waterscapes. In: Bryant RL (ed) The International Handbook of Political Ecology. Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.373–386.
  2. Allen A, Hofmann P, Mukherjee J and Walnycki A (2017) Water trajectories through non-networked infrastructure: insights from peri-urban Dar es Salaam, Cochabamba and Kolkata. Urban Research & Practice 10(1):22–42.
  3. Bakker K (2003) Archipelagos and networks: urbanization and water privatization in the South. The Geographical Journal 169(4): 328–341.
  4. Bouleau G (2014) The co-production of science and waterscapes: The case of the Seine and the Rhône Rivers, France. Geoforum 57: 248–257.
  5. Budds J, Linton J and McDonnell R (2014) The hydrosocial cycle. Geoforum 57: 167–169.
  6. Budds J (2009) Contested H2O: Science, policy and politics in water resources management in Chile. Geoforum 40(3): 418–430.
  7. D’Souza, R (2006) Water in British India: The Making of a ‘Colonial Hydrology. History Compass 4/4: 621-28.
  8. D’Souza R (2009) River as resource and land to own: the great hydraulic transition in Eastern India. In: Conference on Asian environments shaping the world: conceptions of nature and environmental practices, 19-21 March, 2009, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
  9. Mukherjee J (2018) From hydrology to hydrosocial: historiography of waters in India. In: J. Caradonna (ed.), Routledge Handbook of the History of Sustainability (UK: Routledge).
  10. Klingensmith D (2007) One valley and a thousand: dams, nationalism, and development. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  11. Swyngedouw E (2009) The political economy and political ecology of the hydro-Social Cycle. Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education 142(1): 56–60.