Water, Climate Change and the Boomerang Effect Unintentional Consequences for Resource Insecurity Earthscan Studies in Water Resource Management Series

In line with COP21 agreements, state-led climate change mitigation and adaptation actions are being undertaken to transition to carbon-neutral, green economies. However, the capacity of many countries for action is limited and may result in a ?boomerang effect?, defined as the unintended negative consequences of such policies and programmes on local communities and their negative feedbacks on the state. To avoid this effect, there is a need to understand the policy drivers, decision-making processes, and impacts of such action, in order to determine the ways and means of minimizing negative effects and maximizing mutually beneficial policy outcomes.

This book directly engages the policy debates surrounding water resources and climate actions through both theoretical and comparative case studies. It develops the ?boomerang effect? concept and sets it in relation to other conceptual tools for understanding the mixed outcomes of state-led climate change action, for example ?backdraft? effect and ?maldevelopment?. It also presents case studies illustrative of the consequences of ill-considered state-led policy in the water sector from around the world. These include Africa, China, South Asia, South America, the Middle East, Turkey and Vietnam, and examples of groundwater, hydropower development and forest hydrology, where there are often transboundary consequences of a state's policies and actions. In this way, the book adds empirical and theoretical insights to a still developing debate regarding the appropriate ways and means of combating climate change without undermining state and social development.

1. Introduction: Theorizing the Boomerang Effect 2. Nothing’s Always Perfect: Lessons from the Three Gorges Dam 3. Four Countries One Aquifer: The Guarani Aquifer and the Duty to Cooperate 4. Shifting Waters: Changing Water Discourses and the Farakka Barrage 5. The Belo Monte Dam: from local protest to national boomerang effect 6. An Assessment of UN-REDD in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam 7. ‘We have the right to do anything we like’: The Boomerang Effects of the Illisu Dam 8. Can Climate Change Challenges Unite a Divided Jordan River Basin 9. A Gendered Analysis of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) as a Strategy for Strengthening Adaptive Capacity in Ghana’s Tolon District 10. Unintended Consequences of Dams and Water Security: An Insight into Women’s Vulnerability and the Spread of Malaria in Ethiopia

Larry A. Swatuk is a Professor in the School of Environment Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo, Canada and Extraordinary Professor in the Institute for Water Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Lars Wirkus is a Researcher and Head of Section, Data and GIS at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Germany.