IGS: Current and Recent Graduate Research
Alexandra Girard
Socio-economic implications of traditional and non-traditional water storage systems in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, India
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Academic Profile
Alexandra is a DPhil student at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. She graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2008 after completing with distinction an M.Eng in Environmental Engineering. As part of her studies in Nottingham she spent a year at the Universitat de Girona in Spain where she started developing a strong interest for water-related issues. She was involved in an innovative project to decontaminate water using organic waste from the Catalan wine industry. Once back at University of Nottingham for her final year, she applied her newly built knowledge of bioremediation onto a water-issue of greater significance to humans: contamination of drinking water with arsenic in rural parts of Bangladesh. She focused her research on designing a simple and cheap device to treat groundwater using the seeds of a widely available tree, the Mollinga oleifera. Her passion for water-related issues, notably in developing countries, grew stronger when she moved to the University of Oxford in 2008 to study the one-year MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management. While at Oxford, she developed a new interest for the social science side of water-issues, notably with the topic of water and wars. For her dissertation, she investigated the use of water as a weapon in three ancient civilizations: Mediterranean, Indian and Chinese. In addition, the question of how geographical, religious, socio-cultural and technical background can create predispositions to such war practises was also evaluated. For her current DPhil research, Alexandra has brought together her engineering background with her social science interest to research the topic of water storages for irrigation in the Himalayan Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
Alexandra speaks fluently English, French, Polish and Spanish. She also has a basic knowledge of Russian, German, Chinese and Catalan.
Awards
- 2010 - Roger Hay's Memorial Trust Scholarship
- 2008 - Water Conservators' Scholarship
- 2005 - The University of Nottingham Top Class Performance Scholarship
- 2004 - The University of Nottingham Top Class Entry Scholarship
Current Research
Alexandra's interest lies in the inter-disciplinary topic of water storage enhancement for irrigation in the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in India. These two regions are both highly dependent on agriculture for their economic development and present uniquely comparable geographical, climatic and hydrologic conditions amidst very diverging cultural background, socio-political stability and legal opportunities.
In recent years, increasing climate variability and uncertainty over rates of glacial melts has led the World Bank to launch watershed development programs and sponsor new, non-traditional water storage systems for capturing runoffs from monsoon rain, snowmelt and glacier-melt. These aim to supplement traditional rainwater harvesting structures, such as using small and annually dug drainage lines (kuhls).
Alexandra's research addresses the socio-economic repercussions of traditional and non-traditional systems in a comparative study of the rural parts of the Valley of Kashmir (J&K) and the Kangra Valley (HP). More specifically, it investigates the trade-offs between traditional and non-traditional water management regimes through comparative analysis of technical, institutional and socio-economic characteristics of selected study communities within two similar natural experiment landscapes but with unique and divergent political and cultural backgrounds.
In these regions where the management of water is of major importance for dealing with an increase in water scarcity, Alexandra's study aims to contribute to knowledge gaps on this issue of national, regional and global policy, security and development concern.
Hobbies
When not reading about water, Alexandra spends a great part of her time being on the water. Since a young age she has been involved with rowing and notably with coxing which she does at an international level. She is the coxswain of the women's eight in the French National Team, aiming to qualify the boat for the 2012 London Olympic Games. In her first years in Oxford she was also involved with the Oxford University Men's Rowing Team, trialling for the Boat Race.
In addition, Alexandra is very keen on running, which she does almost everyday in an attempt to discover every single footpath around Oxford. She ran her first marathon in 2010 in Prague and is now aiming on running at least one marathon per year, each time in a different country.