The PhD project will identify the challenges, problems and issues in the water management of mangrove rice production and link them to the on-going academic discourse on water governance, development studies, and sustainability. To do this, the project will be divided into 4 parts: 1) to understand the how socio-cultural and bio-physical factors interact and contribute to the regional difference in water management in Guinea-Bissau; 2) to critically analyse the effects of external intervention projects on the socio-cultural and bio-physical systems of mangrove rice production; 3) to critically evaluate the (technical) efficiency of the water management infrastructures introduced by the external intervention projects; and 4) to examine the interface (and power relations) of exogenous and endogenous knowledge systems in the water management of mangrove rice production.