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Riparian commons
Overview statement
These web pages focus on traditional property rights to land (specifically banks) adjoining watercourses and water bodies (including, e.g., canals, channels, lakes, ponds, rivers and tidewaters). In terms of aquatic resources, riparian rights will be understood to cover: water, resources available in the aquatic environment and the adjoining banks, and the water bodies themselves.
Existing work on aquatic resources management has largely been limited to marine areas and the coastal zone, and has mostly focused on fisheries, and riparian commons have received little attention. A comprehensive and comparative perspective on riparian commons is thus long overdue. Riparian commons present new challenges, including: (i) the often preeminent premise of physiographic processes (specifically alluvion and diluvion) on human habitation and subsistence practices; (ii) the interface between forest, land, and water; (iii) types of commons, their evolution and eventual demise; and (iv) the implications of the fact that watercourses often constitute international boundaries.
The focus will be on understanding the evolution of, and cross-cultural variability in, riparian commons through reliance on historic data, and in relating such data to present-day ethnographic data. The panel aims to advance the study of riparian commons through constituting them both in theory and practice: (i) describe and analyze them in a situation prior to their change or demise (in most cases a consequence of penetration of external forces), as well as the process of enclosure itself; and (ii) address pertinent issues of institutional analysis and reform connected with efforts to support, reinstate, establish and/or create modern and viable riparian commons regimes. Along the way, a number of key issues need to be addressed, including: (i) the existing knowledge about riparian commons; (ii) the conditions and factors that, alone or in combination, may lead to development of riparian commons; and (iii) in the ongoing process of destruction of riparian commons, the relative importance of - as well as interaction between - external factors, on the one hand, and locally specific factors, on the other hand. Relevant external factors include large-scale infra-structure projects for flood prevention, irrigation, and hydropower development.
Cross references
Context statement
Activities
Challenges
Resources
To locate and/or access the knowledge resources included below, go to Section Resources and look at, in particular, Categories Regions, Countries, Conferences, Training and capacity building, Internet, Literature, and Topics.
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