Urban Water Governance as a Function of the ‘Urban Hydrosocial Transition’

Abstract

Urban governance is as much about infrastructure as it is about people and processes. In particular, the history of urban governance is closely intertwined with the history of urban water services. Historically, as urban areas became larger and more densely inhabited, the collective need for better water services (drinking water, sanitation and fl ood protection in particular) became overwhelming. Cities simply could not grow beyond a certain relatively modest size without the simultaneous articulation of an integrated water services infrastructure to replace the piecemeal local arrangements previously in place. This necessarily implied new and more complex governance arrangements, in this case the institutionalisation of water services management in functional departmental structures, linked to political decision-making, fi nance, quality assurance and related functions. Whilst other papers have presented case studies of the urban hydrosocial transition (UHT) in terms of the physical extension of water services (e.g. water supply, sanitation and surface water management), this chapter focuses specifi cally on urban governance of water. We argue that the progressive breakdown of Fordist neo-corporatism in water services has opened up the fi eld to a proliferation of 'glocal' (to use Swyngedouw's useful neologism) governance arrangements. Whilst integrated water resource management (IWRM) principles imply a supra-urban scale of governance, the fact that urbanisation brings with it local concentration of water-related impacts means that there is an ineluctable local and urban dimension to water governance. It is therefore not surprising that cities around the world are asserting themselves as central players in water governance. Brief case studies from around the world are presented by way of illustration.

Advancing methods for research on household water insecurity: Studying entitlements and capabilities, socio-cultural dynamics, and political processes, institutions and governance

“…Well-known theoretical framings such as coupled social-ecological systems (Liu et al, 2007) and sociohydrology (Srinivasan et al 2017) may not go far enough in deconstructing the nature/culture dualism at the heart of much current work. Newer conceptual frameworks that encompass complex, multiscalar socio-ecological dynamics, such as the hydrosocial “cycle” (Linton and Budds 2014) or “transition” (Staddon, Sarkozi and Langberg 2016), may offer the best ways forward.…”

Groundwater Resilience Assessment in a Communal Coastal Aquifer System. The Case of Manglaralto in Santa Elena, Ecuador

“…Studies have been presented in the water context based on the development of indicators to measure the sustainability and resilience of different aspects of these systems. Some examples are the development of the water provision resilience indicator, a measure of the capacity of the water system to maintain or improve the percentage of the population with access to safe water in the water supply sector (supply, infrastructure, service provision, finance, water quality, and governance) [44]; the application of a framework of nine indicators of water resource management at the level of the watershed (water quality, water quantity, system stability, water-use efficiency, user-sector productivity, institutional preparedness, equitable water services, water-related well-being, public participation) [45]; the use of indicators of wastewater treatment systems for sustainability assessment, highlighting key indicators such as organic matter, nutrients, cost, heavy metals, and land area [46] and work proposed by Polonenko et al [47] studying indicators within the role of institutions and communities in urban water systems, as well as indicators for various areas such as social, institutional, governance, economic, technological, and environmental, especially in such systems [48][49][50][51].…”

Embedding social inclusiveness and appropriateness in engineering assessment of green infrastructure to enhance urban resilience

“…Greater attention and effort are needed to shift the balance in resilient SET systems toward socially inclusive design and engineering processes. That is, whilst it is clients who commission engineers to build assets, engineers must take on board that the clients of those clients are people and communities, and it is these communities that ultimately use and benefit or suffer due to those assets (Staddon, Sarkozi, and Langberg 2017b).…”

“…To embed community scale resilience in SET water systems to subsequently enhance urban resilience, participatory approaches and social impact assessment methodologies require embedding in engineering assessments, particularly for GI and NBS. Resilience emerges not only from 'what' things are done in relation to critical SET infrastructure systems, but in the 'how' of their conception, co-creation and integration across scales (Staddon, Sarkozi, and Langberg 2017b;Winz, Brierley, and Trowsdale 2011), which can only be recognised through the inclusion of the 'whos' behind the 'how' (Spano et al 2017). Who participates, how do they participate, using what interventions and for what ultimate goal?…”