Where did the idea of “water security” come from? How did countries around the world come to agree on shared goals for drinking water, sanitation, river basin management and sustainable development? And why does water still lack the kind of global institutional architecture that exists for climate change and biodiversity?

In this episode, Dr Roberto Lenton, one of the world’s leading voices on water security and international development joins host Veena Srinivasan for a conversation on the evolution of global water policy over the last eight decades.

Roberto has spent more than six decades working across engineering, research, philanthropy, global institutions and water policy. His career has taken him from the Ford Foundation in India to the founding of the International Irrigation Management Institute, now the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and to being an early proponent of the Global Water Partnership.

Drawing on his book, Confronting Water Insecurity: Global Institutions and the Transformation of Water Science, Policy and Practice, Roberto traces the history of global water cooperation from the creation of the United Nations after World War II to the Sustainable Development Goals and the water challenges ahead.

Veena and Roberto discuss why global water institutions emerged after 1945, how UNESCO came to host the International Hydrological Programme, and how the Harvard Water Programme helped shape early ideas around integrated planning and managing water for multiple purposes.

The conversation also explores the first UN Water Conference at Mar del Plata in 1977, the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade, the Dublin Principles, the Rio Earth Summit, the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goal 6.

Roberto explains how the term “water security” became more than a question of water scarcity. It brought together drinking water, sanitation, irrigation, floods, droughts, pollution, ecosystems and resilience into one wider framework.

The episode also examines the more difficult side of global water governance: the accountability mechanisms that emerged around dams and development projects, the limits of privatisation-led reforms, and the reasons why global institutions have often struggled to translate new ideas into real improvements on the ground.

Finally, Veena and Roberto look ahead to the future of water governance in a changing world shaped by climate extremes, AI data centres, demographic shifts and growing scepticism about multilateral cooperation. They ask whether water needs a stronger global science-policy mechanism, perhaps something equivalent to the IPCC for climate change.

The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water, hosted by Veena Srinivasan.

For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-robert-lenton/

Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app—and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.

Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts!

Recording by Vraj Acharya and Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Srisabari Varaguna Pandian. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar, Kanishka Goyal and Oishika Goswami. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

How can satellites measure crop water use from space? Can they help farmers irrigate more precisely, improve yields, and make water distribution fairer across canal systems?

In this episode of the Water Data Podcast, Veena Srinivasan speaks with Professor Wim Bastiaanssen, a pioneer in satellite-based evapotranspiration mapping and the original developer of SEBAL — the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm.

Professor Bastiaanssen explains how satellite imagery can estimate actual evapotranspiration, soil moisture, crop water stress, and irrigation performance by combining land-surface temperature, vegetation data, and the surface energy balance. The conversation traces the journey from early field validation of SEBAL to its application across farms, irrigation systems, and river basins around the world.

Wim and Veena discuss how farmers can use simple satellite-based advisories to identify dry patches in their fields, prevent crop stress, and use water more productively. They also explore how the same data can help irrigation agencies understand whether canal water is reaching head-end and tail-end farmers equitably.

The episode further examines water accounting, data-model integration, the commercialisation of scientific tools, and the growth of platforms such as IrriWatch and HydroSat. It is a wide-ranging conversation on evapotranspiration, precision irrigation, water productivity, and how satellite data can support water security at scale.

The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water, hosted by Veena Srinivasan.

For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wim-bastiaanssen/

Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app—and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.

Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts!

Recording by Anukriti Shaw, Nabina Chakraborty and Vraj Acharya and Video editing by Srisabari Varaguna Pandian. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar, Kanishka Goyal and Oishika Goswami. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

Why do canal irrigation systems repeatedly produce head-tail inequality? Why do some farmers receive reliable water while others are systematically deprived for decades?

In this episode, Veena Srinivasan speaks with Professor Peter Mollinga, a leading scholar of irrigation and water governance, about the politics of canal irrigation systems in India. Drawing from nearly 40 years of research on the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal in Karnataka, the conversation explores the origins of “protective irrigation,” the spread of paddy cultivation, migration and agrarian change, groundwater salinity, farm ponds, irrigation reforms, and the political economy shaping canal systems across India.

The episode examines why irrigation systems are never purely technical systems, but social and political systems shaped by power, institutions, incentives, and historical choices.

The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water, hosted by Veena Srinivasan.

For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-peter-mollinga/

Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app—and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.

Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts!

Recording by Vraj Acharya, Anukriti Shaw and Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Srisabari Varaguna Pandian. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar and Oishika Goswami. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.