Holding water?

Life on a floodplain is often precarious. But flooding, particularly in countries like Bangladesh becomes a way of life for the rural poor, who rely on the floodplains for their livelihoods. These people have adapted to the seasonal relationship between land and water and the majority are not just rice farmers or fishers but will be both. However, in recent years, introduction of policies favouring one use of the resource over another is leading to conflict of interests over the control of the sluice gates for managing the seasonal inundation of the floodplain. So how can these conflicts be resolved in a manner that allows the different local resource user groups to work out their differences?

A seasonal interaction

credit: P.Thompson, ICLARM Dhaka

During the dry season (rabi) a crop of irrigated rice (boro) is grown. Irrigation water may come from groundwater sources or may be taken from surface water (the beel), which then conflicts with those whose livelihoods depend on ample water for fishing. However, as the beel shrinks in the dry season, fish are concentrated into shallow water, and fishing activities become very intense as they become easier to catch. As the annual monsoon arrives, floodwater allows fish to spawn but early inundation can lead to problems for the rice farmers as rain leads to grain shedding and germination of grain in the head. With the rising floodwater, agricultural land is covered and only high land and homesteads remain above water. Jute and long-strawed rice may be grown although, with the development of small-scale irrigation, irrigated dry-season crops are more often favoured. Hence, as the floods start to recede, farmers are keen to drain and reclaim their land as soon as possible in order to start cropping once again. But, as may be expected, those involved in fishing activities wish to retain the water for as long as possible.

Previous development interventions to help address Bangladeshi farmers' and fishers' needs have often failed to take into account these complex interactions in floodplain systems. In particular, traditional development for agricultural production has been promoted at the expense of flood plain fisheries. However, an estimated 73% of (predominantly poor) rural households in Bangladesh are at least partially dependent on fish capture for their livelihoods and nutrition. In addition, development activities that are focused on floodplains are found to focus on wealthier farmers. For instance, stocking floodplain waterbodies with a commercially attractive fish species often leads to decline in stocks of indigenous species that are typically harvested by poorer households. The outcome results in very little positive impact and, consequently, the marginalized rural poor continue to face declining income and an uncertain future.

From conflict to consensus

In these potential conflict situations, water is the common denominator and the challenge is to manage drainage control of the sluice gates and abstraction of irrigation water from water bodies, so that the needs of both farmers and fisherfolk are met. A difference of interests of this type is not just restricted to Bangladesh or even to the other delta or wetland regions of Asia; other regions also have to contend with conflicts that arise where people live and depend on both land and aquatic resources. In resolving conflict, an important starting point is to differentiate how various groups make use of the resources.

To this effect, a project funded by the UK Department for International Development began by identifying, as far as possible, to what extent different groups are dependent on the land and water resources for their livelihoods. The groups were found to differ slightly from one location to another but it was generally found that four categories could be distinguished, that is landless labourers, small-medium scale farmers, larger landowners/landlords and fulltime fishers. Between the groups, three key areas of dependency were revealed: the labour market, sharecropping land, and water use. Larger landowners often face labour shortages, and so hire in labour. Alternatively, they may enter into sharecropping arrangements with small entrepreneurial farmers who buy in agricultural day labour to assist them. The poorest are unable to engage in sharecropping, as they are unable to afford the necessary inputs, so labour is one of their few assets.

Once different resource-user groups had been identified, their concerns, priorities and local solutions were highlighted through a participative workshop. Individual groups were also enabled to identify the key constraints in their livelihoods. By bringing these together, it was revealed that the importance of water resources emerged very strongly from the entire community as a key issue and that the management of water-bodies was of concern to all, although different perspectives were naturally evident. As a result of the consensus building methods used during the workshops, communities around perennial water-bodies were able to draw up action plan agreements on co-management of the resource.

Further to this, the process has been adopted by the Centre for Natural Resources Studies in Bangladesh and used for participatory planning of community-based natural resource management in the coastal zone, the deeply flooded Sylhet basin, and around shallow floodplain water bodies. It is also being tested with other organizations in the context of a community-based fisheries management project. And, at a different level, greater awareness on the issue has resulted in an increased appreciation by government and development organizations on the benefits of integrated or 'systems' approaches to floodplain management.

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