ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of contestation and appropriation of water has a long-standing history and is receiving renewed attention with the rising water crisis globally and locally. Two interlinked concepts of water grabbing and waterscape development are discussed at the local scale. Water grabbing is a situation where powerful people or organisations take control of a water resource who then negotiate for appropriation with the local users who were once independent and self-organising the goods and services produced by that resource and ecosystem. Waterscape developments like riverfronts, lakefronts, dams, reservoirs, and canals are entangled with implicit water grabbing. Water grabbing in the waterscape development process in Ahmedabad is discussed through the characteristics of groundwater extraction; imported water; designation and delineation; deepening, desilting, and dredging; wastewater discharge; life in/on the water; drainage courses; stepwells and borewells; and all of these embedded in value grabbing. The key learning is that local water grabbing occurs legally and legitimately in the guise of urban development, while the changing value of water as infrastructure has serious impacts on the water ecosystem and even urban resilience. Thus, local land-induced water grabbing requires more scholarly attention.
