TY - JOUR
T1 - The landscape technology of spate irrigation amid development changes
T2 - Assembling the links to resources, livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity-food in the Bolivian Andes
AU - Zimmerer, Karl S.
N1 - Funding Information:
The 2007–2010 phase of this research was funded as part of NSF HSD 110626. Earlier research on the project was supported through parts of the Kellett (1994–1996) and Romnes (1996–2000) Faculty Awards of the University of Wisconsin-Madison among other sources of fieldwork funds beginning in 1987. Research on irrigation trajectories, development transitions, and agrobiodiversity change was conducted as a part of my one-year fellowship of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University in 2004–2005. Research collaboration and assistance involved a large number of institutions and individuals in Bolivia and elsewhere. Special gratitude is owed to Bolivia-based Non-Governmental Organizations (ARLL; AGRUCO; CERES; CIDRE; CENDA) and Bolivia-based researchers (Luis Rojas, Teresa Hosse, and their teams; Nelson Tapia, Freddy Delgado, Stephen Rist, Delfín Álvarez, Rosemarry Camacho, Freddy Villagomez, Julia Román, Zenobio Siles, Gonzalo Muñoz, Susan Paulson, and Wil McDowell). Substantive inputs were received from research assistants at Penn State and UW-Madison, especially Martha Bell, Eric Carter, and Brent Moats. Comments and inspiration from my colleagues working on water, development, global change, and Andean agriculture-food systems included Tom Perreault, Rutgerd Boelens, Margreet Zwarteveen, Hallie Eakin, Don Nelson, Enrique Mayer, Steve Brush, Clark Erickson, and Judy Carney. Helpful suggestions were received from anonymous manuscript reviewers, and also during my invited lectures at AGRUCO in Cochabamba, Bolivia (July 2009, November 2009, June 2010), Syracuse University (April 2005), University of California, Davis (September 2008), Rutgers University (October 2008), the Institute of Andean Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (January 1997) and during presentations of portions of this research at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers (2007, 2008, 2010), with the latter owing to the special sessions on climate change of Arun Agrawal and Ashwini Chhatre.
PY - 2011/8
Y1 - 2011/8
N2 - Spate irrigation is increasingly recognized as contributing to potential of accessible water-resource use, local food production, and resource sustainability. This study constructs an approach to spate irrigation as a landscape technology by selectively fusing concepts of resilience ecology, political ecology, and actor-network theory. It is applied to a case study of the Calicanto area (Cochabamba, Bolivia) with emphasis on the 1990-1993 period. Calicanto spate irrigation provided an effective landscape technology over more than 15km2 and 3500 fields via a 65-km canal network, thus comprising the largest spate-irrigated area of Latin America. Use of this irrigation technology was linked to climate variability and environmental variation as well as landscape features, livelihood diversification including widespread migration, and innovative high-agrobiodiversity land use, in addition to community resource management, settlement patterning, population density, and production intensity. Notwithstanding social-ecological resilience and versatility, the trajectory of this irrigation underwent major change with new waterworks launched in 1993. Key lessons for the related social-ecological sciences, development policy, and sustainability perspectives include: (i) versatility and viability of spate irrigation hinges on multiple social-ecological links; and (ii) its limitations include eclipse via irrigation trajectories lacking social-ecological analytic and conceptual capacities, and widespread albeit largely unacknowledged biases against the landscape technology of spate irrigation.
AB - Spate irrigation is increasingly recognized as contributing to potential of accessible water-resource use, local food production, and resource sustainability. This study constructs an approach to spate irrigation as a landscape technology by selectively fusing concepts of resilience ecology, political ecology, and actor-network theory. It is applied to a case study of the Calicanto area (Cochabamba, Bolivia) with emphasis on the 1990-1993 period. Calicanto spate irrigation provided an effective landscape technology over more than 15km2 and 3500 fields via a 65-km canal network, thus comprising the largest spate-irrigated area of Latin America. Use of this irrigation technology was linked to climate variability and environmental variation as well as landscape features, livelihood diversification including widespread migration, and innovative high-agrobiodiversity land use, in addition to community resource management, settlement patterning, population density, and production intensity. Notwithstanding social-ecological resilience and versatility, the trajectory of this irrigation underwent major change with new waterworks launched in 1993. Key lessons for the related social-ecological sciences, development policy, and sustainability perspectives include: (i) versatility and viability of spate irrigation hinges on multiple social-ecological links; and (ii) its limitations include eclipse via irrigation trajectories lacking social-ecological analytic and conceptual capacities, and widespread albeit largely unacknowledged biases against the landscape technology of spate irrigation.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.04.002
DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.04.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79960041808
SN - 0959-3780
VL - 21
SP - 917
EP - 934
JO - Global Environmental Change
JF - Global Environmental Change
IS - 3
ER -
