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Irrigation has a long history and important developmental role in India and Nepal. Even then it is faced with critical challenges as new scarcities and environmental stresses emerge, for which understanding technology and institutional choices is vital. Through case studies conducted in these two countries, Controlling the Water explores the means of controlling water used in irrigation management, looking at the sources and technologies in practice, and the institutions evolving around them. This volume shows the range of irrigation technologies developed in different agro-ecological zones-large-scale public canal systems; small-scale farmer-managed canal systems; ponds and tank irrigation systems; and groundwater-based and conjunctive use settings, including micro-hydel systems developed alongside irrigation. It thus portrays not only the complexities of water environments and systems in irrigation, but also the diversities present in technological and institutional trajectories. It also provides a synthesis of theoretical ideas and conceptual frameworks that have been used to study these dynamics of water control. Salient Features In-depth study of irrigation technologies and management dynamics in India and Nepal. Interdisciplinary research through field studies in these two countries. Case studies by well-known scholars in irrigation research in India and Nepal, as well as international scholars. Discusses water management and related development questions. Table of Contents List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Dik Roth and Linden Vincent: Introduction: Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Water Management-Match or Mismatch? 1. Linden Vincent and Dik Roth: Analysing Water Control: Interdisciplinarity, Socio-technical Approach, and Institutions in Water Management 2. Vishal Narain: Decentralization, Water Rights, and Markets: Bridging the Technology-Policy Gap in Indian Irrigation 3. Bala Raju Nikku: The Local Politics of Policy in the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Reforms, India 4. Puspa Raj Khanal: Irrigation Technology and Irrigation Management Reform: The Case of the Terai Region in Nepal 5. Umesh Nath Parajuli: Irrigation Technology, Agro-ecology, and Water Rights in the Mid-hills of Nepal 6. Suman Rimal Gautam: Groundwater Irrigation Development, Conjunctive Use, and the Evolution of Water Use Complexes in the Nepalese Terai 7. Anjal Prakash: Social Differentiation and the Politics of Access to Groundwater in North Gujarat 8. Esha Shah: Transformation of Tank Irrigation Policy and Technology on the Interface of a Recursive State-Society Relationship 9. Jyothi Krishnan: Property Rights, Water Resources, and Technology: The Missing Ecological Link 10. R. Manimohan: The Political Economy of Tank Management in Tamil Nadu 11. Amreeta Regmi and Linden Vincent: Microhydel and Irrigation: Is Any Other Water Technology Different? 12. Peter P. Mollinga: Boundary Concepts for Interdisciplinary Analysis of Irrigation Water Management in South Asia Glossary Bibliography Notes on Contributors