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Abstract
This review engages with Crow, Lindquist, and Wilson’s "Sharing the Ganges," a study that interweaves hydrology, irrigation engineering, and contentious interstate politics. It highlights the authors’ argument that technological fixes cannot substitute for legitimate political bargains, transparent data, and credible joint institutions. The review underscores insights on seasonality, sediment, and deltaic geomorphology that complicate simple division-of-flow schemes. It also reflects on how domestic coalitions and national narratives shape negotiating space between riparians. The book’s comparative sensibility and synthesis of technical and political analysis make it a key reference for scholars and practitioners.
Full Text
After summarizing the book’s structure, the review evaluates its treatment of design capacities, maintenance, and unintended ecological effects. Section One discusses how power asymmetries and information opacity distort bargaining. Section Two engages with proposals for joint monitoring, floodplain zoning, and demand-side management, relating them to governance realities. Section Three reflects on lessons for Bangladesh and India, including the importance of basin-wide planning and adaptive management under uncertainty. The review concludes by noting the book’s enduring relevance to contemporary water diplomacy, where climate variability and growing demand heighten the stakes of cooperative solutions.