Hydro-social dynamics of miningscapes: Obstacles to implementing water protection legislation in Mongolia

Schoderer, Mirja, Karthe, Daniel, Dombrowsky, Ines and dell'Angelo, Jampel, (2021). Hydro-social dynamics of miningscapes: Obstacles to implementing water protection legislation in Mongolia. Journal of Environmental Management, 292 1-12

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Schoderer, Mirja
    Karthe, Daniel
    Dombrowsky, Ines
    dell'Angelo, Jampel
    Title Hydro-social dynamics of miningscapes: Obstacles to implementing water protection legislation in Mongolia
    Appearing in Journal of Environmental Management
    Volume 292
    Publication Date 2021-08-15
    Place of Publication Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Publisher Elsevier Inc.
    Start page 1
    End page 12
    Language eng
    Abstract Waterscapes with mining activities are often sites of water resource degradation and contestation. To prevent this, policy-makers deploy an increasing number of measures that purportedly align the interests of different water users. In Mongolia, mining-related protests led to the prohibition of mining in and close to rivers. However, implementation of these regulations has been slow. In this paper, we investigate why that is the case, drawing on an extended elaboration of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to disentangle the web of formal and informal rules, incentive structures, discourses, and other elements that characterize Mongolian miningscapes. We find that i) a combination of insufficient resources for lower-level actors, large areas to cover and high mobility of extractive operations, ii) a lack of information among implementing entities, combined with time pressure on decision-making and a lack of involvement of local actors, and iii) cultural norms and political context conditions that privilege the pursuit of private interests are key obstacles. Irrespective of these challenges, the prohibition of mining in riverbeds entrenches a social imaginary in the Mongolian governance framework that prioritizes water resources protection over resource extraction, offering a counterweight to dominant discourses that cast mining as a necessary requirement for social and economic development. Our analysis illustrates the usefulness of looking at implementation processes through the lens of mining- and waterscapes to identify how social power is embedded in social-political artifacts and impacts hydro-social outcomes. Strong discrepancies between the formal description of governance processes and interactions on the ground support the need to look at how processes play out in practice in order to understand implementation obstacles.
    Keyword Water governance
    Extractive industries
    IAD framework
    Power
    Policy implementation
    Political ecology
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2021
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112767
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    Created: Mon, 02 Aug 2021, 22:40:59 JST by Eric Siegmund on behalf of UNU FLORES