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In the area of water governance, there has been little systematic comparison between China and India. The intended contributions of this special issue are threefold. A comparative study of water governance between China and India not only provides opportunities for the two countries to draw lessons from each other, but also sheds light on similar challenges in water resources management in other developing countries. In addition, both China and India are key riparian countries in some of Asia's most important international river basins, and their approaches to water conflicts in these rivers have significant impacts not only on water security but also on regional stability. Finally, comparative water governance is a new and undeveloped field of study. This special volume introduces a Modified Institutional Analysis and Development Framework as a tool to facilitate more systematic, theoretical, and comparative approaches to water governance in the context of comparative study of China and India. It does so by specifying various dimensions of the institutional context and how they could explain variations in the performance of the water sector. The aim is to help advance the current theoretical and applied discourse on comparative water governance as a basis for improving water sector performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special edition is devoted to the theme of water institutions, infrastructure and performance indicators and how they matter to the effectiveness and efficiency of the water sector. It explores many questions which have not been adequately addressed in the literature. For example, what do we know about institutional reforms in the water sector? Can regulation improve the performance of government-controlled water utilities? What explains the choices amongst governance mechanisms in the water sector? How do political institutions affect water sector performance? How do we construct an index of drinking water adequacy? Can the media influence the formation of beliefs about the "yuck" factor in water reuse? Empirical examples are drawn from various countries and regions around the world. Contributors include economists, sociologists, political scientists, consultants, water policy professionals and staff of donor agencies. The methodological approaches employed range from meta-analyses, comparative analyses, content analyses, statistical and econometric analyses, as well as single case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]