Questioning the Constructed Intangibilities of Water Resources within the Modern Household
Downloads
The built environment defines how societies shape relationships within hydrological systems to ensure water security within natural and constructed limitations. Globally, due to geographic, climatic, and anthropogenic reasons, the experience of water scarcity is highly unequal. Within water-secure households, water is often taken for granted as a resource; this is in stark contrast to over a quarter of the world, including at least two million American citizens, for whom water insecurity intersects with the risk of losing residential tenure and heightened disease burden (Urban Waters Learning Network, n.d.; Fedinick et al. 2019).
In this paper, I show how centralized water governance models typically result in highly varied levels of household water security. Globally, public and private water authorities have adopted an economic model of scarcity in water management. Governments and service providers attempt to forestall unsustainable environmental degradation, costly energy intensity, and the mismanagement crippling large-scale infrastructural systems with the revenue they derive from treating water as an economic good. However, these models do not guarantee water access, safety, or affordability and have resulted in the unequal distribution of water scarcity between households.
The issues with centralized water management and the burden on communities are discussed through a case study of the ‘Day Zero’ drought in Cape Town, South Africa, which took place from 2015-2018. I discuss water access in two households before and during this three-year drought and emphasize how the built environment factors into consumption patterns, water tariffing, and the regulation of water access.
In contrast, I argue that decentralized and on-site water management could mediate regional and socio-economic disparities through increasing local water access. I foreground urban disparities in local water access to advocate for the decentralization of water infrastructure and an increase in access to and support for household water and energy security. Residential-to-neighborhood structures for on-site water management could provide more equitable resource negotiation within the built environment, increasing access and widespread security as locally attuned hybrid-decentralized systems.
Acevedo Guerrero, Tatiana. 2018. “Water Infrastructure: A Terrain for Studying Nonhuman Agency, Power Relations, and Socioeconomic Change.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 5 (5): e1298.
Bakker, Karen. 2003. “A Political Ecology of Water Privatization.” Studies in Political Economy 70 (1): 35-58.
———. 2007. “The “Commons” versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization, Anti‐Privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South.” Antipode 39 (3): 430-455.
———. 2012. “Water: Political, Biopolitical, Material.” Social Studies of Science 42 (4): 616-623.
Boelens, Rutgerd, Jaime Hoogesteger, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos, and Philippus Wester. 2016. “Hydrosocial Territories: A Political Ecology Perspective.” Water International 41 (1): 1-14.
Broyles, Lauren MT, Emily L. Pakhtigian, Asher Y. Rosinger, and Alfonso Mejia. 2022. “Climate and Hydrological Seasonal Effects on Household Water Insecurity: A Systematic Review.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 9 (3): e1593.
Chipkin, Ivor. 2003. “’Functional’ and ‘Dysfunctional’ Communities: The Making of National Citizens.” Journal of Southern African Studies 29 (1): 63-82.
Designated National Authority (DNA). n.d. Clean Development Mechanism Programme of Activities in South Africa. Pretoria: Department of Energy, Republic of South Africa. https://cdm.unfccc.int/DNA/comm/winners/poa_sa.pdf. Accessed 23 March 2023
Enqvist, Johan P., and Gina Ziervogel. 2019. “Water Governance and Justice in Cape Town: An Overview.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 6 (4): e1354.
Fedinick, Kristi Pullen, Steve Taylor, Michele Roberts, Richard Moore, and Erik Olson. 2019. Watered Down Justice. 52. New York, NY, USA: Natural Resource Defense Council.
Hays, Samuel P. 1999. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920. No. 40. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Hejazi, Mohamad, James Edmonds, Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Evan Davies, and Jiyong Eom. 2013. “Scenarios of Global Municipal Water-Use Demand Projections over the 21st Century.” Hydrological Sciences Journal 58 (3): 519-538.
Hoekstra, Arjen Y. 2013. The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society. Routledge.
Jansen, Ada, and Carl‐erik Schulz. 2006. “Water Demand and the Urban Poor: A Study of the Factors Influencing Water Consumption Among Households in Cape Town, South Africa.” South African Journal of Economics 74 (3): 593-609.
Larkin, Brian. 2013. “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure.” Annual Review of Anthropology 42 (1): 327-343.
Linton, Jamie. 2010. What is Water?: The History of a Modern Abstraction. UBC press.
Mehta, Lyla. 2003. “Contexts and Constructions of Water Scarcity.” Economic and Political Weekly: 5066-5072.
———. 2013. The Limits to Scarcity: Contesting the Politics of Allocation. Routledge.
Mekonnen, Mesfin M., and Arjen Y. Hoekstra. 2016. “Four Billion People Facing Severe Water Scarcity.” Science Advances 2 (2): e1500323.
Murwirapachena, G. 2021. “Understanding Household Water-Use Behaviour in the City of Johannesburg, South Africa.” Water Policy 23 (5): 1266-1283.
Netshiozwi, E. E. 2019. “Causes of Failure of the South African Solar Water Heating Programme and the Forgone Social Benefits.” Review of Social Sciences 4 (1): 1-15.
UN General Assembly, 10 December 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 217 A (III) New York: United Nations General Assembly.Otto, Friederike EL, Piotr Wolski, Flavio Lehner, Claudia Tebaldi, Geert Jan Van Oldenborgh, Sanne Hogesteeger, Roop Singh et al. 2018. „Anthropogenic Influence on the Drivers of the Western Cape Drought 2015–2017.“ Environmental Research Letters 13 (12): 124010.
Rockström, Johan, Malin Falkenmark, Tony Allan, Carl Folke, Line Gordon, Anders Jägerskog, Matti Kummu et al. 2014. “The Unfolding Water Drama in the Anthropocene: Towards a Resilience‐Based Perspective on Water for Global Sustainability.” Ecohydrology 7 (5): 1249-1261.
Rodina, Lucy, Lawrence A. Baker, Mary Galvin, Jaqueline Goldin, Leila M. Harris, Thomani Manungufala, Muchaparara Musemwa, Catherine Sutherland, and Gina Ziervogel. 2017. “Water, Equity and Resilience in Southern Africa: Future Directions for Research and Practice.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 26: 143-151.
Roy, Ananya. 2005. “Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 71 (2): 147-158.
Savelli, Elisa, Maria Rusca, Hannah Cloke, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre. 2021. “Don’t Blame the Rain: Social Power and the 2015–2017 Drought in Cape Town.” Journal of Hydrology 594: 125953.
Shiklomanov, Igor A. 1998. World Water Resources: A New Appraisal and Assessment for the 21st Century. 40. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Sinclair‐Smith, Ken, Susan Mosdell, Gisela Kaiser, Ziyaad Lalla, Leandre September, Collin Mubadiro, Sarah Rushmere et al. 2018. “City of Cape Town’s Water Map.” Journal: American Water Works Association 110 (9).
Sousa, Pedro M., Ross C. Blamey, Chris JC Reason, Alexandre M. Ramos, and Ricardo M. Trigo. 2018. „The ‘Day Zero’ Cape Town Drought and the Poleward Migration of Moisture Corridors.“ Environmental Research Letters 13 (12): 124025.
South Africa Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (SA – CoGTA). https://www.cogta.gov.za/.
Sulla, Victor, Precious Zikhali, and Pablo Facundo Cuevas. 2022. “Inequality in Southern Africa: An Assessment of the Southern African Customs Union.” Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.
United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 64/292, July 28, 2010. “The Human Right to Water and Sanitation.” https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/687002?ln=en.
United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). n.d. International Decade for Action Water for Life 2005-2015. “Focus Areas | The Human Right to Water and Sanitation.” https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml.
Zoë Roller, Gasteyer, S, Nelson, N., Lai, W., and Shingne, M. 2019. Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States: A National Action Plan. Dig Deep and U.S. Water Alliance. Accessed Oct 12, 2021from: https://uswateralliance.org/sites/uswateralliance.org/files/Closing%20the%20Water%20Access%20Gap%20in%20the%20United%20States_DIGITAL.pdf Veolia, I. F. P. R. I. 2015. The Murky Future of Global Water Quality: New Global Study Projects Rapid Deterioration in Water Quality. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Von Schnitzler, Antina. 2008. “Citizenship Prepaid: Water, Calculability, and Techno-Politics in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34 (4): 899-917.
Water Services Act 108 of 1997. Republic of South Africa Government Gazetter. No. 18522. 19 December 1997
City of Cape Town. 2003. Informal settlement handbook prepared for The City of Cape Town, Blackwell Synergy, Cape Town. Xenos, Nicholas. 2017. Scarcity and Modernity. Routledge.
Yates, Julian S., and Leila M. Harris. 2018. “Hybrid Regulatory Landscapes: The Human Right to Water, Variegated Neoliberal Water Governance, and Policy Transfer in Cape Town, South Africa, and Accra, Ghana.” World Development 110: 75-87.
Ziervogel, Gina. 2019. “Unpacking the Cape Town Drought: Lessons Learned.” Cities Support Programme, Climate Resilience Paper. African Centre for Cities (February).
Copyright (c) 2023 Mandi Pretorius
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal which is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).