All Paths Lead to Rain: Explaining why Watershed Development in India Does Not Alleviate the Experience of Water Scarcity
研究发现印度流域开发项目因政策叙事与当地体验共同将缺水自然化，反而强化了水资源短缺的体验，而非解决它。
Watershed development (WSD) projects in India are key to meeting a range of human development goals in rain-fed agrarian landscapes. However, outcomes are often observed to be partial and short-lived. We offer a novel perspective on the reasons. Our analysis shows that the dominant ‘water narratives’ of WSD policy and practice and the lived experience of local people contribute to a naturalisation of water scarcity, resulting in widespread views that WSD is primarily a means for increasing irrigation water supply. We show how this over-simplifies the complex problem of agricultural water use and perversely contributes to a continuing experience of water scarcity rather than its resolution.