Societal organization and human water use: tipping points in socio-hydrology

Abstract:

Societies in water scarce basins have often evolved along a river network. Often settlements appear in isolated parts along a network, grow into larger entities over time, connect with each other and start sharing a common identity. How these settlements get interconnected, for e.g. via trade, determine the 'organization' of the society that the settlements are part of. Using a semi-synthetic case study in Western India, this paper demonstrates a set of conditions that may trigger emergence of diverse spatial patterns of societal organization in water scarce basins. It shows that the emergence of diverse spatial patterns of basin scale socio-hydrology depend on how water is valued along the river network. These conditions in effect define thresholds, which when crossed lead to appearance of different spatial patterns of societal organization.