This document discusses how cultural values influence water policies by examining case studies in the United States and India. In the US case of the Santa Fe River watershed, the document traces how the river's values have changed from the ancestral Pueblo who saw the river as a living being, to the Spanish who valued water sharing through acequias, to current American water law that views water as an economic resource without inherent rights. In India, the Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project aims to increase agriculture but misses important local cultural values around traditional crops, knowledge systems, and watershed management. The document argues that making values explicit can lead to more equitable and sustainable water policies that respect diverse cultural perspectives.

1. Applying Cultural Analysis
to Water Policies:
Lessons from
the United States and India.
David Groenfeldt
Water-Culture Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
www.waterculture.org
University of Delhi 24 March 2011

2. Contents
•
•
•
Introduction (Why this topic?)
How culture drives water policies
Examples
 New Mexico (USA)
 Chhattisgarh (India)
•
•
Discussion of the (cultural) values
Conclusions

3. Introduction
• Water crisis due to:
– Increasing population
– Growing / polluting economies
• River ecosystems already under severe
stress from past bad management
– Straightening and constricting river channels
– Dams and diversions
– Pollution
• Climate Change will increase stress

4. Introduction (cont.)
• Conventional paradigm
– Not equitable socially
– Not sustainable environmentally
– Not [appropriate] culturally
• New Water Vision:
– Participatory governance
– Peaceful co-existence with Nature
– Culturally enhancing (functionalism)

5. 2. Culture and Water Policies
•
•
Policies are expressions of values.
Values “serve as standards or criteria to guide not only
•
Values can be shared by a society or “culture”, or by
a sub-group, family, or individual.
Policies are negotiated within society, and constitute
(widely) shared understandings and “values”
Values, and policies, are dynamic; they change.
•
•
action but also judgment, choice, attitude, evaluation,
argument, exhortation, rationalization, and, one might add,
attribution of causality” [Rokeach, M. 2000 . Understanding
Human Values, 2nd edn. New York: Simon and Schuster].

6. Western water values are changing
from “command and control”

7. …to a greater emphasis on
ecosystem function

8. Values about water are
complicated and hidden
• Same outcomes can result from different
values and behaviors
– Valuing Ecosystem Services => E-Flow
– Nature worship => E-Flow
• Values need to be “unpacked” and
identified before they can be analyzed.

9. Case Study: Santa Fe River

10. Santa Fe River Watershed

12. Santa Fe River “Facts”
• Municipal Water Authority owns rights to
most of the river’s flow.
• State water law requires “economic use”
• Dams for municipal water supply keep
river dry (no environmental flow)
• Groundwater provides ~50% water supply
• Pipeline will allow minimum e-flows

13. Water Governance
• State water law protects property (water)
rights holders.
• River is legally unprotected
• Municipal Water Utility advocates
responsible use (self-identifies as “green”)
• Local politics are democratic and effective
• Corruption not a major factor

14. Santa Fe Water Policies
• What’s Included:
– Prior Appropriation water rights
– Beneficial Use
• What not included:
– Rights of the River
– Rights of future generations

15. History of River Values
• Ancestral Pueblo
• Spanish
• American

16. Pueblo River Values
• River is a living being
• Inherent right and duty to flow
• Essential to natural cycle of rain, flow,
evaporation, clouds, rain, etc.
• Seamless connection with the land and
soil.

17. Spanish “River Values”
• Oriented around acequia (small canal)
agriculture
• Water is for growing, and sharing
– “…water is always shared….The tacit, underlying
premise is that all living creatures have a right to
water.” (Rodriguez, p. 115)
– “The principle of water sharing belongs to a larger
moral economy that promotes cooperative economic
behavior through inculcating the core value of
respecto and gendered norms of personal
comportment.” (p. 116)

18. Diffusion of American
Values
• American annexation - 1848
• Railroad built - 1880
• First water company formed - 1880
– Privatization
– Commodification
• First dam built - 1881 (small)
• Second dam - 1893 (15x bigger)

19. American Water Era
• Majority of acequia agriculture abandoned
after WW-II (1945)
– water rights lost
– River flow interrupted
– Channel downcutting precluded surface
diversions
• 1970s policy to encourage downcutting for
flood control

20. Santa Fe’s River Values
• Water should support economic
“beneficial use” (state law)
• Water can also support any other
municipal uses excluding the river
• River is a water “consumer”; Flow should
be “offset” through new supplies
• The river has no inherent right to exist.

21. River Voices (Values)
• City water staff: “The river has to live within its means”
• Homebuilders Association: Green building can save
water for the river
• Environmental groups (A): Flowing river is fundamental
to sustainability
• Environmental groups (B): River should flow more often
(but not all the time)
• Churches: River is heart of community
• Tourism industry: river flow is a valuable amenity;
• Individual religious leaders: River flow expresses respect
for nature; river should have the first right to water

22. Case Study #2 - Chhattisgarh

24. Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project (CDIP)
Project Goals
“The overall project goal is to improve rural
livelihoods and reduce rural poverty
through improved irrigation service
delivery, enhanced agricultural practices,
and strengthened water resources
management to increase the productivity
of irrigated agriculture in Chhattisgarh”
- Report of the President 2005

25. Water Values in the CIDP
• Economic value of water through
Agriculture
– Value of agriculture is income
– Value of income is “development”
• Social value of water
– Gender equity, livelihoods

26. Missing from the Calculations
• Cultural reinforcement from agriculture
– Traditionally meaningful crops and diet
– Local sources of inputs
– Strengthen ties to local landscape
• Watershed management
• Local ecological and Agric. Knowledge
• Social empowerment from irrigation mgmt.
– Not identified as an objective
• Environmental stewardship and spirituality

27. Implicit Nature of Values
• Values, like culture, are too obvious to be
easily seen by the value-holders
• Water projects blindly adopt conventional
values from the water sector, which reflect
an essentially materialist agenda.
• Anthropologists are trained in identifying
values and bringing them into awareness
and discourse

28. Cultural Values, Environmental Ethics,
Anthropology, and Water Policy…
• What can we do to bring clarity about
values in water (and other) policies?
• How can we help represent the interests
(cultural and otherwise) of traditional
cultures and especially Indigenous
Peoples?
• What can we say, to whom, and how?

29. From Values to Ethics
“All ethics…rest upon a single
premise that the individual is a
member of a community of
interdependent parts. His instincts
prompt him to compete…but his
ethics prompt him also to cooperate….The land ethic simply
enlarges the boundaries of the
community to include soils, waters,
plants, and animals, or collectively:
the land.”
- Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic, 1949

30. Thank-you !
www.waterculture.org