ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the idea, advanced by Varady et al. (2009), Karkainen (2004) and others that the “aperture of water governance” has widened beyond local, regional or even national initiatives. In the previous chapter I sketched out the very early history at administering water, but Varady and others are suggesting that recently there has been nothing short of a new “ontology of global water initiatives”. Whether these constitute, or come to constitute, a system of hydro-governance rooted at the global scale remains to be seen. Yet, given the persistence of water shortage around the world and indeed its intensification by both climate change and the political economy of “virtual water” exports from already dry countries, there is clearly a prima facie need for a global response. I would go further, arguing there is an increasingly desperate need to colonise Varady’s emergent “aperture” with a new “ontology” founded on ineluctable human and social rights to water.
