Arizona’s water infrastructure: A history of management and use

Infrastructure in the Making: The Chao Phraya Dam and the Dance of Agency

TRaNS Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia ◽

10.1017/trn.2017.19 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 47-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jakkrit Sangkhamanee

Keyword(s):

World Bank ◽

Technical Assistance ◽

The State ◽

Water Infrastructure ◽

History Of ◽

Infrastructure Project ◽

The 1950S ◽

First World ◽

Conflicting Goals

AbstractThe article explores the process behind the construction of the Chao Phraya Dam, the first World Bank-funded water infrastructure project in Thailand, developed during the 1950s. Employing Andrew Pickering's ‘dance of agency’ concept in examining the process of turning financial and technical assistance into a workable project, I argue that development infrastructure, like the Chao Phraya Dam, provides a space to explore the dialectic operations – accommodation and resistance – of agency and the unstable associations among diverse actors, expertise, institutions, and materials, as well as practices. Recounting the history of the dam in the making, I explore a series of entanglements through different dances of agency, namely initiation, assessment, mobilisation, negotiation, adjustment, confrontation, and settlement. Such a multiplicity of dancesinsideandin the makingof infrastructure reflects the techno-political entanglement encompassing the manifold negotiation and adjustment of conflicting goals, interests, recognition, and cooperation among different agencies. The dam, often portrayed as an engineering achievement of the state, is in fact the result of unanticipated relations and the responses to the temporal emerging forms of practices.

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Water and terrorism

Water Policy ◽

10.2166/wp.2006.035 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 481-503 ◽

Cited By ~ 102

Author(s):

Peter H. Gleick

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Health ◽

Terrorist Attack ◽

Water Systems ◽

Water Infrastructure ◽

Historical Evidence ◽

The Public ◽

Industrial Economy ◽

History Of

The importance of freshwater and water infrastructure to human and ecosystem health and to the smooth functioning of a commercial and industrial economy makes water and water systems targets for terrorism. The chance that terrorists will strike at water systems is real; indeed, there is a long history of such attacks. Water infrastructure can be targeted directly or water can be contaminated through the introduction of poison or disease-causing agents. The damage is done by hurting people, rendering water unusable, or destroying purification and supply infrastructure. More uncertain, however, is how significant such threats are today, compared with other targets that may be subject to terrorist attack, or how effective such attacks would actually be. Analysis and historical evidence suggest that massive casualties from attacking water systems are difficult to produce, although there may be some significant exceptions. At the same time, the risk of societal disruptions, disarray, and even overreaction on the part of governments and the public from any attack, may be high. This paper reviews the history of past attacks on water systems and the most pressing vulnerabilities and risks facing modern water systems. Suggestions of ways to reduce those risks are also presented.

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