Water and the Quest for Sustainable Development in the Ganges Valley (Global Development and the Environment)

For some, 'progress' or 'development' in this region means harnessing the hydropower of Nepal, drilling tubewells in the plains, building bigger and better cities. Others see this line of development as unsustainable for environmental reasons. This book argues that the linkages between human activity and natural processes cannot be unambiguously determined by physical sciences; they vary according to individual perceptions and viewpoints.The book is not a definitive account of water and its role in developmental and environmental issues in this vast and diverse area; such an account would be impossible. Instead, it illustrates the approaches that different experts, from both the physical sciences and the social sciences, take to understanding how society and water interact. A reader who consults all the chapters will come away with a much enhanced understanding of the complexity of human dependence on what is, together with air, the most basic of life-sustaining elements.