Routledge Handbook of Water and Development

Water is essential for human life and at the centre of political, economic, and socio-cultural development. This Routledge Handbook of Water and Development offers a systematic, wide-ranging, and state-of-the-art guide to the diverse links between water and development across the globe. It is organized into four parts:

• Part I explores the most significant theories and approaches to the relationship between water and development
• Part II consists of carefully selected in-depth case studies, revealing how water utilization and management are deeply intertwined with historical development paths and economic and socio-cultural structures
• Part III analyses the role of governance in the management of water and development
• Part IV covers the most urgent themes and issues pertaining to water and development in the contemporary world, ranging from climate change and water stress to agriculture and migration

The 32 chapters by leading experts are meant to stimulate researchers and students in a wide range of disciplines in the social and natural sciences, including Geography, Environmental Studies, Development Studies, and Political Science. The Handbook will also be of great value to policymakers and practitioners.

Sofie Hellberg is associate professor of Peace and Development Research at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She studies, and teaches on, water politics, environmental, climate governance and theories of power and agency. Hellberg has published in leading journals and with international publishers on topics ranging from Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to research methodology. Her previous work on water appears in international journals including Geoforum, Water Alternatives, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space and Local Environment as well as in a monograph on The Biopolitics of Water (Routledge, 2018).

Fredrik Söderbaum is a professor of peace and development research at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and an Associate Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute of Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), Bruges, Belgium. Söderbaum has published extensively in leading journals on comparative regionalism, global and regional governance, development research, security studies, and African politics. His most recent books include Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A Populist Script of Regional Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Rethinking Regionalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Intersecting Interregionalism: Regions, Global Governance and the EU (Springer, 2014).

Ashok Swain is Head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, UNESCO Chair on International Water Cooperation and Director of the Research School of International Water Cooperation at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environment and Security, published by SAGE and the Environmental Peacebuilding Association. He has written extensively on new security challenges, water-sharing issues, environment, conflict and peace, and democratic development issues. His most recent publications includes, Handbook of Security and the Environment (Edward Elgar, 2021) coedited with Joakim Öjendal and Anders Jägerskog.

Joakim Öjendal is professor in Peace and Development Research since 2006 at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden. He has worked on resource politics, peacebuilding, and post-war democratisation for three decades in research, policy and education. He has published widely in leading journals and with international publishers, for instance being the co-editor of Water Security, a Four Volume Set of SAGE Major Works, as well as Transboundary Water Management and the Climate Change Debate, published with Earthscan, both in 2014. His most recent publications includes Handbook of Security and the Environment (Edward Elgar, 2021) coedited with Ashok Swain and Anders Jägerskog.