Water Governance Group @ Bradford

Members of the group are building a research agenda around issues of water governance and sustainability. Recent and current funded research are listed below:

Member Related Projects

Water Governance Research – Dissemination Project

The project aims to disseminate outputs from the Water Governance seminar series, the Water Governance and Poverty project and other research conducted by members of the group.

Principal researchers: Cleaver and Franks

Funder: DFID

Completion: On-going


Water Governance: Challenging the Consensus

This comprised a series of five seminars exploring current understandings of the concept of water governance.

Principal researchers: Cleaver and Franks

Funder: ESRC

Completion: February 2006


Water Governance and Poverty: what works for the poor?

The project investigated how concepts of water governance work for the poor, drawing lessons from a series of practitioner case studies.

Principal researchers: Cleaver and Franks

Funder: DFID

Completion: June 2005


Capacity-Building for Agricultural Water Management

This project has comprised a series of international workshops looking at the scope of capacity-building for agricultural water management. The workshops commenced in 2003, and are due for completion in 2006. (www.wg-cbte.icidonline.org/home).

Principal researcher: Franks

Funder: ICID (The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage)

Completion: On-going


Water Cycle Management for New Developments

This large consortium project commenced in 2003 and is due to finish in 2007 (http://www.wand.uk.net/). Working with researchers from the Universities of Sheffield and Dundee, the University of Bradford has led the investigation of the circumstances in which sustainable water management innovations are implemented in new developments (WP4: Social and Economic Aspects). It has also used an action research methodology to investigate how sustainable water management innovations can be more effectively communicated with the public (WP14: Risks and Innovations).

Principal Researchers: Sharp, Sefton and Wong

Funder: EPSRC

Completion: On-going



How Participation Evolves: A ‘Model’ Water User Association

This project was an ethnographic study of one community-managed water supply system in Uchira, Tanzania. It details the evolution of the Uchira Water User Association and its’ impacts on water access.

Principal Researchers: Cleaver and Toner

Funder: ESRC

Completion: December 2005


Understanding community action: Exploring the interlinkages between individuals, community workers and institutions.

This project examines how community workers and local institutions can be better supported to facilitate the more equitable delivery of services. It comprises case studies from South Africa and Tanzania.

Principal Researchers: Cleaver and Toner

Funder: DFID

Completion: On-going


Water Efficient New Homes: The Heybridge Project

This research project, which is a collaboration between Bradford and Lancaster Universities, involves exploring the perceptions and water use patterns of residents in a street in Heybridge, Essex. Qualitative data to be collected by Bradford University will be combined with quantitative data from water meters attached to specific devices in the homes.

Principal Researchers: Knamiller, Sefton and Sharp

Funder: Essex and Suffolk Water Company

Completion: On-going


The Millennium Development Goal 7: An assessment of progress with respect to water and sanitation

Part of a project of the World Institute for Development Economics Research to assess and forecast progress of the MDGs

Principal Researchers: Anand

Funder: (UNU/WIDER)

Completion: January 2006


Sharing Water Peacefully: Understanding when collective action for sharing water works and why

The aim of the project is to examine issues related to river water disputes and identify approaches for resolving such disputes with a case study of the ongoing dispute over sharing of the waters of river Cauvery in southern India

Principal Researchers: Anand

Funder: British Academy

Completion:August 2005