Three Engineering Paradigms in the Historical Development of Water Services: More, Better and Cheaper Water to European Cities

Abstract

International audienceThe size and complexity of large cities creates the ‘urban water’ sustainability issue: where water transport and treatment technologies, public water services, including public water supply, sewage collection and treatment, and storm water control, had become the object of specific policies, separate from water resource allocation. Today, large metropolitan areas cannot take natural abundance for granted any more, and they need to protect and to manage water resources, if only to reduce the long term cost of transporting and treating water. In this chapter, we describe the historical development of water services in European metropolitan areas, placing the technological developments in their geographic, socio-economic, and political contexts. Our framework follows the successive contributions of three paradigms: civil engineering, sanitary engineering, and environmental engineering. Civil engineering has to do with the ‘quantity of water’, and it allows water to be moved in and out of cities, up hills, and under floors. Sanitary engineering has to do with ‘water quality’, and water treatment has given cities more freedom to take water from nearby rivers and to reduce impacts of sewer discharge. Lastly, environmental engineering has the potential to overcome supply-side shortcomings: it can use demand-side management, water conservation, water allocation flexibility; it can also provide an integrated approach to water services, water resources management, and land use policies

Water Conflicts and Hydrocracy in the Americas. Coalitions, Networks, Policies

“…The denunciation of a "predatory rentier economy" is, therefore, based on a focus on "new vulnerabilities" caused by the destruction of ecosystems, soil erosion, and uncontrolled mining activities (Budds & Hinojosa, 2012). Conflicts concerning water have been confined to a field of expertise restricted by the limits of the territories studied and the engineering solutions applied (Barraqué, 2015).…”

“…For example, the state of Rio de Janeiro reveals a specific political and institutional history, characterized by the power of technical groups, politically and entrepreneurially competing for power and financial resources. If the domain of civil engineers remains little challenged (Barraqué, 2017), one has also to understand that social struggles involve institutional shareholders in the public sphere, such as in the case of the State of Rio de Janeiro, between the public company (CEDAE) and the Environmental Institute (INEA) of the Environmental Secretariat. This recognition of environmental constraints cannot be separated from the debates surrounding the private management of the service.…”

“…Thus, while conventional governance approaches (Young, 1994;Castro, 2004Castro, , 2007) make internationalization the simple outcome of creating horizontal networks outside the sphere of the State, national spaces of power constitute an essential dimension of these processes (Dezalay, 2007). How does analysis not consider the national technical groups -civil engineers in particular (Barraqué, 2017) -, and their social and political power?…”

“…In terms of implementing recycling solutions to deal with the emergency, no individuals received any encouragement from the institutions, either regarding funding or education; furthermore, nothing was done collectively in this area. While the water shortage has doubtless led to changes in perceptions and uses of water, it does not seem to have affected the "core values" underpinning water policy in Bolivia, which is based on a quantitative administration of the resource (Barraqué, 2003) and a regional approach described by Mark Carey (2010) as "engineering the Andes." Consequently, in terms of development programs, the practical expertise accumulated on the ground by the EPSAS in tandem with the neighborhood organizations was marginalized.…”