Jump to Content

Media Release

December 12 2006

International fellows tap into UniSA’s groundwater expertise

Finding solutions for critical groundwater issues in their home countries is the aim of a research training program being run by the University of South Australia for senior fellows from India and Pakistan this month.

The three fellows were awarded fellowships from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to learn about groundwater governance in Australia.

Australia’s groundwater laws and policies are the major focus of the program, according to Professor of Business Law and Director of UniSA’s Centre for Comparative Water Policies and Laws, Jennifer McKay, who is leading the program. A national and international authority on groundwater laws and policies, Prof McKay is the Australasian Representative for the International Water Law Association.

Participating in the program are the Reader in Environmental Economics from the University of Jammu, Dr Falendra Kumar Sudan, and the Additional Director for the Department of Science and Technology Government of India, Debapriya Dutta, both from India; and Professor Bakshal Khan Lashari, Director of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan.

“Our program involves meeting with many different organisations and gathering data from different regions. We will compare Australia’s groundwater policies and management with the groundwater situation in our countries and then work out how we can modify and implement policies in our own countries. We hope to go away from Australia with an overall framework for groundwater governance that can be used in our countries,” Prof Lashari said.

“We will present our findings and discuss what we have learnt with fellows from other countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and China, who are undertaking similar fellowships in the United States.

“It will be a major exchange of information and learning that we hope will lead to the implementation of sustainable groundwater policies,” Prof Lashari said.

“Pakistan has groundwater policies but they are not being implemented effectively and little is known about the impact of over use. The situation is critical. Regulations that were developed are not being implemented because they are not enforced by government. Compounding this are ownership issues. Nobody knows if the water is the property of the government or landowners. These are critical areas that we have to tackle.

“This training program will be very valuable for our country. We hope that it will provide examples of ways to change water policy in our government,” Prof Lashari said.

While India has a central groundwater policy implemented by government in seven states, it is much too centrally operated and too autocratic, according to Dr Dutta.

“The government understands that the groundwater situation is critical and is looking for solutions that suit our country’s conditions,” Dr Dutta said.

“How to get the people involved in groundwater issues is one point that we want to learn here in Adelaide. We have in our own mind what we want to achieve but need to find out how.

“We would like to see corporate governance in India because we believe that it would enable us to involve user institutions in finding solutions for our groundwater issues,” Dr Dutta said.

“India does not have an accurate measure of its groundwater supply. Land owners have individual access to groundwater and because that water is part of a much bigger system underground that is unseen, many could be using more than their fair share.

“We want to make this supply a visible map of the groundwater throughout the entire country and work out the spatial distribution of that supply. This is something that we can learn from Australia because Australia is at the forefront of infrastructure development,” Dr Dutta said.

“From our learning and that of the whole group, we hope to be able to put together the best solutions for critical groundwater issues in our countries and then convince our governments to implement them.”

Contact for interview

Media contact

top^