Article

Rules, Norms, and Injustice: A Cross- Cultural Study of Perceptions of Justice in Water Institutions

July 2013

DOI:10.1080/08941920.2012.723302

Authors:

Amber Wutich

Arizona State University

Alexandra Brewis

Arizona State University

Abigail Mara York

Arizona State University

Rhian Stotts

Arizona State University

Access to water is often inequitable, and perceived as unjust by stakeholders. Based on qualitative analysis of 135 ethnographic interviews in Bolivia, Fiji, Arizona, and New Zealand, we conduct a cross-cultural analysis to test for shared notions of justice in water institutions (i.e., rules, norms). A key finding is that institutional rules are a common concern in evaluations of justice, but institutional norms were prominent in justice evaluations only in the Bolivia site (where water access problems are most acute). Similarly, while concerns related to distributive and procedural justice were widely shared across community sites, interactional justice was only a salient concern in Bolivia. We propose that the study of water and other natural resource institutions will benefit from an expanded concept of environmental justice that includes interactional injustices and also a more explicit analytic focus on institutional norms, particularly for communities that face resource scarcity and less-developed economic conditions.

Desalination and the reproduction of water injustices in the San Andrés island water crisis

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2023

Caribbean islands are particularly vulnerable to extreme events like droughts, co-occurring with groundwater pollution, water inequalities, and weak governance. Consequently, many island communities that rely on tourism are experiencing ongoing and deepening water crises. Technical solutions like desalination are regularly employed throughout the Caribbean, yet water crises persist despite these mitigation strategies. This research focuses on San Andrés, a Colombian Caribbean Island. Following the 2016 water crisis, residents saw the crisis as social: pre-existing social inequalities led to differential water access, quantity, and distribution during the crisis. In contrast, organisational leaders attributed the water crisis to a natural hazard (drought or, more broadly, climate change), even if they recognised disproportional distribution. Interviews revealed strong support from all participants for the use of desalination to address the crisis, despite the inequities that characterise the implementation of this strategy. We argue that San Andrés is moving towards technological water dependence, disconnected from traditional local forms of collecting water and rendering islanders less able to control the resource. We posit that there is a connection between injustice, desalination, and water crises. When a water crisis occurs, it often reveals pre-existing injustices in the social system. Instead of resolving the injustices, desalination, which is often seen as the main solution to the crisis, perpetuates and reinforces them. The result is a cycle of crises that persist over time.

Environmental justice and drinking water: A critical review of primary data studies

Article

Full-text available

May 2023

Though safe drinking water for all is a global public health goal, disparities in access persist worldwide. We present a critical review of primary‐data based environmental justice (EJ) studies on drinking water. We examine their findings in relation to the broader EJ and drinking water literatures. Using pre‐specified protocols to screen 2423 records, we identified 33 studies for inclusion. We organized our results using the following questions: (1) what sampling and data collection methods are used; (2) how is (un)just access to water defined and measured; (3) what forms of environmental injustice are discussed; (4) how are affected communities resisting or coping; and (5) what, if any, mechanisms of redress are advocated? We find that while many studies analyze the causes and persistence of environmental injustices, most primary‐data studies on drinking water are cross‐sectional in design. Many such studies are motivated by health impacts but few measure drinking water exposures or associated health outcomes. We find that, while distinct types of injustice exist, multiple types are either co‐produced or exacerbate one another. Recognitional injustice is emerging as an undergirding injustice upon which others (distributional or procedural) can take hold. Tensions remain regarding the role of the state; redress for inequitable water access is often presumed to be the state's responsibility, but many EJ scholars argue that the state itself perpetuates inequitable conditions. The accountability for redress under different forms of water governance remains an important area for future research. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Methods

Sustainable water tariffs and inequality in post-drought Cape Town: exploring perceptions of fairness

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2022
SUSTAIN SCI

Fair allocation of diminishing natural resources is increasingly central to sustainability. This includes the allocation of costs related to providing access, such as dams, pipes and pumps delivering clean water. Water tariffs are often designed to both recover these costs, meet social needs of water services to the poor, and incentivise conservation in dry times. However, strained public finances, prolonged droughts and economic inequality can undermine these goals and force prioritisations that many see as unfair. This happened in Cape Town, South Africa, during its 2015–2018 water crisis. This study investigates what residents in three different socioeconomic contexts view as fair water tariffs 1 year after the crisis. Using Q method, we describe five distinct perspectives on fairness: ‘the Insurer’, ‘the Individualist’, ’the Bureaucrat’, ‘the Humanitarian’, and ‘the Prepper’. These, we argue, can help distinguish between different ideas of what fairness implies, and what is required to promote it. We exemplify this by examining how viewpoints might have been shaped by specific communities’ experiences during and after the apartheid state’s discriminatory segregation policies. Using distributive, procedural and interactional interpretations of fairness, we discuss how the complex layers of poverty, inequality, mistrust, privilege and discrimination might produce different experiences and ideas of who should pay for and benefit from water services. Using these insights, we also reflect on the merits of tariffs that emphasise cost recovery and resource conservation over social needs, and the risks this poses for growing informal settlements in climate-stressed cities of the global South. Graphical abstract Using Q method, we identified five distinct perspectives with different views on what constitutes a fair water tariff.

Can Informal Water Vendors Deliver on the Promise of A Human Right to Water? Results From Cochabamba, Bolivia

Article

Mar 2016
WORLD DEV

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Water Dialogues: A Review and Conceptualization

Article

Apr 2023

In the United States, the lack of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) in water governance and management has been identified as a serious problem that affects the validity of decisions. Because water governance and management institutions, processes, and practices at all scales involve dialogue, it is important to understand DEIJ in water dialogues. This paper reports on the results of a systematic literature survey that was undertaken to guide efforts by The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center to improve diversity and inclusion in its engagement practices and outreach strategies. Three questions are explored: 1) How is DEIJ defined, conceptualized, and measured in water dialogues?, 2) How does a lack of DEIJ in water dialogues affect water‐related outcomes and actors?, and 3) What are the approaches that can be used to increase DEIJ in water dialogues, especially with respect to underrepresented groups? The review synthesizes definitions of DEIJ and examines theories and methods from the literatures on discourse, diversity, social learning, and environmental justice. The lens of dialogue focused these disparate literatures on how people with diverse voices can be engaged and enabled to effectively participate in water dialogues. Despite the paucity of DEIJ literature relating to water resources in general, and to water dialogues more specifically, the review identified characteristics of DEIJ, factors that contribute to DEIJ issues, general lessons, and pathways that apply to increasing DEIJ in water dialogue participation. Further, this paper articulates a conceptual framework for understanding and addressing DEIJ failures in water dialogues. A concept of “just water dialogues” emerged that integrates insights from the literature reviewed with notions of environmental justice to help with identifying and resolving “water dialogue justice” (i.e., DEIJ failures). Review results suggest that DEIJ in water resources dialogues depends on the distribution of knowledge resources, and on broader issues that include cultural, political, and other often ignored contextual factors. Importantly, addressing DEIJ problems through the creation and maintenance of just water dialogues requires tackling power imbalances, enhancing individual and organizational capacity, and building bridges through effective engagement of diverse voices, especially those of underrepresented groups. Strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness in other contexts are highlighted, and future research needed to improve practices to enhance DEIJ in water dialogues is outlined.

The unjust distribution of urban green infrastructure is just the tip of the iceberg: A systematic review of place-based studies

Article

Oct 2021
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

Many cities are turning to greening efforts to increase resilience, but such efforts often favor privileged groups, thereby resulting in injustices. In this systematic review, we analyze 71 place-based studies of green infrastructure (GI) justice in cities worldwide. We draw from environmental justice scholarship, as well as climate and water justice literature to assess the state-of-the-art knowledge of urban GI justice. We examine the way GI is researched to improve our understanding of the types of injustices that exist in GI planning, siting, and implementation, providing rich insights into why injustices exist and pathways to address GI injustice. We find that research on GI justice in cities is growing and expanding its scope in terms of both the types of justice issues analyzed, and the groups of people excluded from the benefits of GI. We find that GI injustice stems from a history of unequal investment and non-participatory decision-making processes, where the unequal distribution of GI is only the “tip of the iceberg”. To address GI injustice around distribution, cities would have to offset a decades-long lack of investment and inclusivity in decision-making processes. Pathways to achieve GI justice point to assessing unbalanced power structures, directing continuous funding to community engagement programs and greening efforts, leveraging existing infrastructure through the multifunctionality of GI, and dedicating funding mechanisms for safety and maintenance. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research is needed to integrate the different dimensions of GI that are tailored to the community on the ground, and to monitor progress toward justice.

The rural–urban equity nexus of Metro Manila’s water system

Chapter

Jun 2020

Water insecurity: An agenda for research and call to action for human biology

Article

Nov 2019

Amber Wutich

Water insecurity—the lack of adequate and safe water for a healthy and productive life—is one of the greatest threats facing humans in the coming century. By 2030, half of the world is expected to be living in water‐stressed conditions, given current climate change scenarios. A key goal of the UN Water Action Decade and Sustainable Development Goal 6 is to improve water security for the three billion people globally affected, but the future looks grim. For many communities, from Cape Town, South Africa to Flint, United States, the imagined dystopian future of severe water shortages has already arrived—shaped not so much by lack of water, but by aging infrastructure, underfunded utilities, social exclusion, politicized commodification, and environmental racism. Stepping off from my biocultural research in Cochabamba, Bolivia, I discuss how recent research is dramatically advancing our understanding of water insecurity, such as new findings around the biocultural causes and consequences of dehydration, contamination, and water stress. But, much more needs be done to support local communities in creating fair and just water systems. I discuss how human biologists can make crucial contributions toward the advancement of a much‐needed science of water insecurity, while highlighting some practical and ethical challenges to advancing a core mission of providing safe, sufficient water to all.

O que é uma boa participação pública? Conceitos, desafios e guias para reflexão

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2019

RESUMO O Brasil introduziu, desde o marco constitucional de 1988, uma série de avanços no envolvimento potencial da sociedade em tomadas de decisões. A participação pública é um conceito abrangente que se realiza em diferentes escalas e com diversos atores envolvidos. Analisou-se neste estudo se a imprecisão conceitual do que é participação pública alimenta expectativas diversas e contraditórias, limitando a efetividade desse conceito central da gestão. A pesquisa se baseia em um estudo sobre governança participativa na bacia hidrográfica do rio São Francisco, tendo o comitê dessa bacia como um caso, e um estudo de escala municipal da mesma bacia hidrográfica. Ambos os estudos utilizaram observação participante e entrevistas. Derivamos critérios de boa e má prática na participação pública da literatura e comparamos a situação da participação pública nas duas escalas. A participação em ambos os casos continua sendo uma atividade de um grupo especial. Outros atores ainda devem rever as suas atividades e assumir novas tarefas nesse novo sistema. Assim que as condições do processo melhorarem, a avaliação temática pode ocorrer. Sugere-se uma série de perguntas para provocar e contribuir no discurso social sobre o conceito político da participação pública. Aponta-se à justiça interacional como uma dimensão relevante até agora pouco contemplada.

Perceptions of fairness in common-pool resource access: farmer responses to new agricultural water use restrictions in Idaho

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2019

This study examines farmers’ perceptions of fairness regarding an agricultural water use policy change in Idaho: the 2015 settlement agreement, a compromise between ground- and surface water farmers in Idaho’s Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA) that requires reductions in groundwater withdrawals of about 13% for all groundwater farmers. We characterize the agreement as an attempt to solve a common-pool resource social dilemma and draw on Elinor Ostrom’s seven ‘design principles’ as a conceptual framework. Using data from 43 interviews and 265 mail surveys, we find a split between farmers who grudgingly accept the agreement as necessary to keep the region’s agricultural productivity sustainable, and those who consider it unnecessary, unfair, or even illegal. A belief in the importance of protecting groundwater resources and support for local control was cited by farmers backing the agreement, whereas dissenting farmers believed outside interests had exerted too much influence throughout the negotiation process and generally mistrusted the state’s groundwater data. Given that residents of the American West are likely to continue having to address declining water availability in the future due to climate change, our findings can help policymakers design effective and equitable water policies in a way that advances rural environmental justice.

Public Attitudes to Inequality in Water Distribution: Insights From Preferences for Water Reallocation From Irrigators to Aboriginal Australians

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2019
WATER RESOUR RES

Water allocation regimes that adjudicate between competing uses are in many countries under pressure to adapt to increasing demands, climate‐driven shortages, expectations for equity of access, and societal changes in values and priorities. International authorities expound standards for national allocation regimes that include robust processes for addressing the needs of “new entrants” and for varying existing entitlements within sustainable limits. The claims of Indigenous peoples to water represents a newly recognized set of rights and interests that will test the ability of allocation regimes to address the global water governance goal of equity. No study has sought to identify public attitudes or willingness to pay for a fairer allocation of water rights between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous people. We surveyed households from the jurisdictions of Australia's Murray‐Darling Basin, a region undergoing a historic government‐led recovery of water, and found that 69.2% of respondents support the principle of reallocating a small amount of water from irrigators to Aboriginal people via the water market. Using contingent valuation, we estimated households are willing to pay A

21.78 in a one‐off levy. The aggregate value calculated for households in the basin's jurisdictions was A

74.5 million, which is almost double a recent government commitment to fund the acquisition of entitlements for Aboriginal nations of this basin. Results varied by state of residency and affinity with environmental groups. An information treatment that presented narrative accounts from Aboriginal people influenced the results. Insights from this study can inform water reallocation processes.

The rural–urban equity nexus of Metro Manila’s water system

Article

Feb 2019

This article examines equity concerns and inherent conflicts related to rural–urban water supply allocation and use, with focus on Metro Manila. Going beyond the much-discussed difficulty farmers experience from an allocation policy prioritizing urban water requirements, it shows that inequity in raw water allocation is linked to, and further exacerbated by, inequities in urban domestic water provision. Moreover, it highlights the need for broader equity reviews, using the concept of the rural–urban water equity nexus to draw attention to key equity considerations across space and scale that otherwise might remain invisible.

Hard paths, soft paths or no paths? Cross-cultural perceptions of water solutions

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2014

In this study, we examine how development status and water scarcity shape people's perceptions of "hard path" and "soft path" water solutions. Based on ethnographic research conducted in four semi-rural/peri-urban sites (in Bolivia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the US), we use content analysis to conduct statistical and thematic comparisons of interview data. Our results indicate clear differences associated with development status and, to a lesser extent, water scarcity. People in the two less developed sites were more likely to suggest hard path solutions, less likely to suggest soft path solutions, and more likely to see no path to solutions than people in the more developed sites. Thematically, people in the two less developed sites envisioned solutions that involve small-scale water infrastructure and decentralized, community-based solutions, while people in the more developed sites envisioned solutions that involve large-scale infrastructure and centralized, regulatory water solutions. People in the two water-scarce sites were less likely to suggest soft path solutions and more likely to see no path to solutions (but no more likely to suggest hard path solutions) than people in the water-rich sites. Thematically, people in the two water-rich sites seemed to perceive a wider array of unrealized potential soft path solutions than those in the water-scarce sites. On balance, our findings are encouraging in that they indicate that people are receptive to soft path solutions in a range of sites, even those with limited financial or water resources. Our research points to the need for more studies that investigate the social feasibility of soft path water solutions, particularly in sites with significant financial and natural resource constraints.

Geografía, Ecología Política y cambio transformativo en el Siglo 21

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Resumen Desde el viraje normativo de la Geografía en los años setenta, la Ecología Política ha sido un campo dinámico que busca comprender las causas de fondo de desafíos socioambientales y a la vez proponer soluciones. En este artículo se reflexiona sobre el potencial de aporte del campo geográfico de la Ecología Política al cambio transforma-tivo necesario para orientar a la sociedad hacia la sostenibilidad en el siglo XXI, a la luz de apremiantes retos. Esto se logra primero identificando tres ejes concretos y su-perpuestos de contribución de la Ecología Política al cambio transformativo basándose en los enfoques temáticos generales de este campo, y luego relacionando la Ecología Política con recientes marcos analítico-conceptuales sobre cambio transformativo. Fi-nalmente, se sugiere algunas áreas de mejora en la Ecología Política para robustecer más el aporte al cambio transformativo.

Ensuring Availability and Sustainable Management of Water Supply Services in Enugu, Nigeria

Thesis

Full-text available

Nov 2023

Winifred Maduko

Access to improved and sustainably managed water supply services is a basic human right and critical to ensuring adequate public health, socio-economic development, and environmental wellbeing. Yet, Enugu State, Nigeria experiences significant perennial water scarcity and poor water quality. For example, about 89% of persons living in Enugu do not have access to safely managed drinking water and over 74% of people in Enugu drink water contaminated with Escherichia coli (E.Coli). While bulk of research in Enugu has focussed on the burden of water scarcity faced by residents, minimal consideration has been given to possible sustainable water supply and management policy options that can be adopted to end perennial water scarcity in the State. Even much less consideration has been given to the legal and policy frameworks surrounding this issue. Hence, this policy report addresses these gaps by exploring sustainable water supply and management options for Enugu, especially from a policy perspective. Drawing on extant relevant literature and employing the environmental justice (EJ) analytical framework, this report critically reviewed the Enugu State Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy in the context of existing relevant documents in the Enugu water sector. Finally, this report developed a new Concession-Public-Private Partnership (C-PPP) plan, based on the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA), to address the criticisms against privatization in the prevailing sustainable water supply debate.

Justice and injustice in “Modular, Adaptive and Decentralized” (MAD) water systems

Article

Dec 2023

Water Security, Crime and Conflict

Chapter

Feb 2016

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.

Securing urban water supply through reservoir reoperation–An analysis of power resources and equity in cases from India, Spain and the USA

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

Laura Turley

This paper examines intersectoral water allocation, in particular how cities secure water vis-à-vis rural users, and assesses the equity of this (re)allocation. We use the distribution theory of institutional change, and argue that urban water providers mobilize power resources (positional, financial and informational) to secure water. We adapt the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to study this empirically, with case studies from India, Spain and the United States that centre around a large reservoir and its reoperation. Results show the importance of financing power in all cases, and also suggest that cities may lack the positional power needed to implement drinking water priorities. The ‘hybrid equity approach’ reveals the diversity of equity considerations on rural-to-urban water reallocation, both in terms of local perspectives and also regarding universal equity principles. Finally, it is fruitful to study power and equity together, as the former generally has profound distributional and procedural implications which are at the heart of equity.

A Water Resource Equilibrium Regulation Model Under Water Resource Utilization Conflict: A Case Study in the Yellow River Basin

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022
WATER RESOUR RES

The mismatch between the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of water resources and recent regional socioeconomic development threatens social stability and sustainable development, particularly in river basins affected by water scarcity. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt a water resource regulation model to address these new challenges. Based on the theory of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the Gini coefficient, in this study, a water resource equilibrium regulation model is constructed from the demand side and applied to the Yellow River Basin (YRB). Different from fairness, equilibrium is a stable state under the influence of diversity of interests and other factors. The results show that the model realizes the spatial and temporal equilibrium regulation of water resources. The water supply assurance rates of ecological and agricultural water users increase significantly to 94.1% and 74.3%, respectively. In particular, in dry years, the rigid demands of water users can be well met, and irreversible losses can be avoided. Compared with Scheme 1987, the proportion of water supply for upstream provinces increases to 42.34%, which will contribute to the balanced development of the basin. This model has the potential to be used in a wide range of applications, providing not only theoretical and technical support for the adjustment of Scheme 1987 in the YRB but also a reference for other governments and water resource management institutions around the world.

Urban climate resilience and water insecurity: future scenarios of water supply and demand in Istanbul

Article

Apr 2022

For millennia, cities have invested in inter- and intra-regional infrastructure to transfer water from neighboring sources. This study analyzed how climate change can affect the balance of water supply and demand in the megacity of Istanbul, Turkey over the next 100 years. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) method was used to examine three long-term scenarios for water availability based on differences in water supply: 1) a continuation of current supply sources; 2) expansion of water resources based on construction of additional water infrastructure; and 3) reduction in water resources to rely on local resources only. Our findings show that extending dependence on inter-regional water supplies is not only likely to increase Istanbul’s own water insecurity, but may also affect the human populations, biodiversity and economies of neighboring cities, representing an unsustainable solution that can only exacerbate regional water insecurity in the long run.

A dynamic over games drives selfish agents to win–win outcomes

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2020

Understanding human institutions, animal cultures and other social systems requires flexible formalisms that describe how their members change them from within. We introduce a framework for modelling how agents change the games they participate in. We contrast this between-game ‘institutional evolution’ with the more familiar within-game ‘behavioural evolution’. We model institutional change by following small numbers of persistent agents as they select and play a changing series of games. Starting from an initial game, a group of agents trace trajectories through game space by navigating to increasingly preferable games until they converge on ‘attractor’ games. Agents use their ‘institutional preferences' for game features (such as stability, fairness and efficiency) to choose between neighbouring games. We use this framework to pose a pressing question: what kinds of games does institutional evolution select for; what is in the attractors? After computing institutional change trajectories over the two-player space, we find that attractors have disproportionately fair outcomes, even though the agents who produce them are strictly self-interested and indifferent to fairness. This seems to occur because game fairness co-occurs with the self-serving features these agents do actually prefer. We thus present institutional evolution as a mechanism for encouraging the spontaneous emergence of cooperation among small groups of inherently selfish agents, without space, reputation, repetition, or other more familiar mechanisms. Game space trajectories provide a flexible, testable formalism for modelling the interdependencies of behavioural and institutional evolutionary processes, as well as a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation.

Too Insecure: Water and Security

Chapter

Apr 2018

‘Environmental security’ has been defined as ‘[t]he current and future availability (determined by the factors—supply, accessibility and management) of life-supporting ecosystem services and goods for human needs and natural process which contribute to poverty alleviation and conflict deterrence’ (Hecker 2011: 12). While other permutations have been offered, in general, the concept of environmental security tends to ‘link environmental degradation and the associated scarcity of resources with human conflict at individual, group, and state levels’ (Hall 2013: 228; 2015: 44–45; South 2012: 104–109). With the end of the Cold War and increasing knowledge of the negative effects of environmental degradation, scholars have come to recognize that environmental destruction and despoliation present severe threats to ‘human security’ (itself a contested term: compare Bennett and colleagues (2015); Cao and Wyatt (2016); Mobley (2011); Newman (2016); Shearing (2015); Valverde (2014)) and all life of Earth—that the harms and crimes of air and water pollution, deforestation and soil erosion from civilian and military activities can and do adversely and dramatically impact our living conditions—and that such environmental damage can be both a cause and consequence of environmental conflict (Graeger 1996; see also Brisman et al. 2015).

Achieving Urban Water Security: a Review of Water Management Approach from Technology Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2020
WATER RESOUR MANAG

The term water security (WS) shows an overwhelming superiority in both policy and academic circles. Firstly, the paper reviews the multiple interpretations of WS. Specifically, we emphasize that urban water security (UWS), as one of the human sustainable development goal, consists of three pillars: water resources security focusing on water scarcity issue; water environment security focusing on water pollution issue, and water disasters security focusing on water-related hazards and vulnerability issue. Secondly, it compares and contrasts the development backgrounds and properties of three water management approaches to UWS--integrated water management, adaptive water management, and intelligence-based water management (skill and equipment intensive). Thirdly, it mainly discusses the development situation of smart water grid and lessons learned from intelligent (smart) water management. Finally, this paper presents the achievements and challenges of the water management approaches. Although every water management approach has its own advantages and disadvantages, our comparison can provide a map for water policy makers and stockholder companies to guide the future development of water management and realizing UWS.

Governing Urban Water Conflict through Watershed Councils—A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2020

Raul Pacheco-Vega

Cities face substantial water governance challenges, even more so when their activities are water-intensive, as global tourism is. As the lower-most level of government, municipalities face important challenges when dealing with water stress. Designing robust urban water policy thus may require us to challenge currently popular modes of governance by river basin councils, as predicated by the integrated water resources management (IWRM) paradigm. In this paper, I conduct a public policy analysis of a case study of intra-urban water conflict in the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende (SMA), an extremely popular tourist destination with substantive water scarcity challenges. I draw insights from an application of the Institutional Grammar Tool, IGT (as proposed by Ostrom and Crawford) on a series of textual datasets derived from ethnographic, qualitative longitudinal field research, document analysis, and elite interviews with stakeholders to explain the reasons underlying community concerns about urban water supply which have derived in conflict in San Miguel de Allende and increasingly manifested over the past few years (2017–2020). My analysis suggests that to tackle growing intra-urban antagonism derived from increasing water insecurity in San Miguel de Allende, a more localized, micro-watershed approach might be more fruitful than a traditional river basin council strategy.

Cyber-Physical-Social Interdependencies and Organizational Resilience: A Review of Water, Transportation, and Cyber Infrastructure Systems and Processes

Article

Jun 2020

Building resilience in critical infrastructures for smart and connected cities requires consideration of different types of interdependencies. Previous research has mainly conceptualized three types of interdependencies including cyber, physical, and social. To develop resilient and sustainable design, operations, and managerial strategies, domain knowledge for each infrastructure along with its organizational characteristics needs to be integrated with those of other infrastructures. In this review paper, an infrastructure-oriented approach is taken to systematically examine different types of interdependencies and resilience quantification techniques for water, transportation, and cyber infrastructures. Design, operations, and managerial strategies are identified and categorized into short-term, mid-term, and long-term plans that can potentially improve the resilience of the underlying infrastructures. Future research needs, in terms of resilience metrics, interdependency, and strategies, are discussed.

Social inequality and water use in Australian cities: the social gradient in domestic water use

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020

This paper explores the impact of social inequality on household water use in urban communities in first-world contexts, an under researched field. We report on an in-depth qualitative study of six communities in two Australian cities to determine the connections between levels of social advantage and household approaches to water use. The different meanings, materials and understandings that underpin domestic water use in each of these communities are documented. We found these elements were influenced by socioeconomic status alongside broader systems and infrastructures, technologies and biophysical influences in each city context. Socially advantaged communities used water for leisure and luxury while disadvantaged communities struggled to meet their health and welfare needs. We propose that there is a social gradient in urban water use, which influences the types of sustainability and levels of resilience and liveability people can achieve in cities. The implications for ensuring socially inclusive urban sustainability are discussed. ARTICLE HISTORY

Climate Change as an Involuntary Exposure: A Comparative Risk Perception Study from Six Countries across the Global Development Gradient

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2020
Int J Environ Res Publ Health

Climate change has been referred to as an involuntary exposure, meaning people do not voluntarily put themselves at risk for climate-related ill health or reduced standard of living. The purpose of this study is to examine people’s risk perceptions and related beliefs regarding (1) the likelihood of different risks occurring at different times and places and (2) collective (government) responsibility and personal efficacy in dealing with climate change, as well as (3) explore the ways in which climate risk may be amplified when posed against individual health and well-being. Previous research on this topic has largely focused on one community or one nation state, and so a unique characteristic of this study is the comparison between six different city (country) sites by their development and national wealth. Here, we collected 401 surveys from Phoenix (USA), Brisbane (Australia), Wellington (New Zealand), Shanghai (China), Viti Levu (Fiji), and Mexico City (Mexico). Results suggest that the hyperopia effect characterized the sample from each study site but was more pronounced in developed sites, suggesting that the more developed sites employ a broader perspective when approaching ways to mitigate their risk against climate-related health and well-being impacts.

A dynamic over games drives selfish agents to win-win outcomes

Preprint

Jul 2019

Understanding the evolution of human social systems requires flexible formalisms for the emergence of institutions. Although game theory is normally used to model interactions individually, larger spaces of games can be helpful for modeling how interactions change. We introduce a framework for modeling "institutional evolution," how individuals change the games they are placed in. We contrast this with the more familiar within-game "behavioral evolution". Starting from an initial game, agents trace trajectories through game space by repeatedly navigating to more preferable games until they converge on attractor games that are preferred to all others. Agents choose between games on the basis of their "institutional preferences," which define between-game comparisons in terms of game-level features such as stability, fairness, and efficiency. Computing institutional change trajectories over the two-player space, we find that the attractors of self-interested economic agents over-represent fairness by 100% relative to baseline, even though those agents are indifferent to fairness. This seems to occur because fairness, as a game feature, co-occurs with the self-serving features these agents do prefer. We thus present institutional evolution as a mechanism for encouraging the spontaneous emergence of cooperation among inherently selfish agents. We then extend these findings beyond two players, and to two other types of evolutionary agent: the relative fitness maximizing agent of evolutionary game theory (who maximizes inequality), and the relative group fitness maximizing agent of multi-level/group selection theory (who minimizes inequality). This work provides a flexible, testable formalism for modeling the interdependencies of behavioral and institutional evolutionary processes.

Water Misallocation: Governance Challenges and Responses

Preprint

Full-text available

Feb 2017

This report was commissioned by the World Bank’s Global Water Practice in 2016 to provide: (1) an overview of water misallocation whereby water use (including in situ use) at a particular place and time is not allocative inefficient or inter-temporally inefficient or inequitable, as determined by the locally established norms of distributive justice; (2) barriers to water reallocation whereby there is a reassignment of physical volumes of water or changes in water quality or in terms of the timing and location of water delivery to achieve specific goals and/or particular outcomes; and (3) policy responses to improve water allocation.

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2019

Christopher Schulz

While many studies have investigated governance‐related values such as sustainability, economic efficiency, or social justice as dimensions of good water governance, the concept of governance‐related values as a separate category of values has received considerably less attention. The present study reviews existing, mostly normative work on governance‐related values and water governance from various disciplines, including policy‐oriented and water ethics literature. The review points towards a lack of studies that seek to understand empirically how governance‐related values are perceived and related in the mind of the public as well as among relevant stakeholders. The study proceeds with an illustration of how quantitative research methods can be used to study these linkages in practice. It uses data from a large household survey on public preferences for governance‐related values conducted in the Upper Paraguay River Basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil, and examines these with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The results suggest that there may be three relevant broad categories of governance‐related values, namely democratic governance‐related values, economic governance‐related values, and scientific governance‐related values. The article concludes by pointing out the need for further empirical research and academic debate on the fundamental ways in which governance‐related values are interrelated as dimensions of good water governance, and environmental governance more broadly. This article is categorized under: • Human Water > Water Governance • Human Water > Value of Water • Engineering Water > Planning Water

Advancing human capabilities for water security: A relational approach

Article

Jul 2017

Our aim in this paper is not to abandon, but rather reconceptualize, water security in ways that explicitly link to broader social and political relations that enable benefits to water related services (e.g., drinking, recreation, productive uses, cultural practices) rather than focus on the materiality of access to water in and of itself. Our conceptualization of water security draws on Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s ‘‘capabilities approach,1” a moral and political philosophical framework that centers on wellbeing, human development, and justice. We envision water security as both grounded in the social relations of access to water as well as critical to a set of relations and functionings that advance human flourishing. As such, we challenge the dominant view of water security that identifies water as a predominantly material object (‘H2O’) that needs to be ‘secured,’ a view that points towards interventions to capture water to alleviate or address situations where it is deficient or scarce. Instead, we reposition water security as a hydrosocial process rather than a static goal or objective.

Optical water quality and human perceptions of rivers: An ethnohydrology study

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2016

Rivers are revered worldwide for their ecologic, scenic, and recreational value. The capacity to communicate effectively among human groups with vested interest in rivers hinges on understanding the nature of human perceptions of water quality and the extent to which they vary intraculturally. Recognizing the intersection between measured water quality and the characteristics of rivers that influence human perceptions facilitates potential for better communication across disciplines and among stakeholders. We conducted interviews and a pile-sort task with water quality experts and nonexperts. Our analysis suggested human evaluation of water quality is guided by culturally constructed criteria, regardless of respondent expertise, experience, or demographics. Cluster analysis results implied that measured physical and chemical parameters of rivers were directly related to the visible attributes used in human judgments. We suggest that, regardless of variability among individual stakeholders, observable characteristics may be the foundation for a common understanding of water quality in rivers.

Optical water quality and human perceptions: A synthesis

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2015

Because humans have such strong physical and emotional connections to water in the environment, it follows that individuals and groups will have strong ideas and expectations of that environment that must be related to visible features. Optical water quality describes the scattering and absorption of light in water as governed by its dissolved and particulate composition. Mineral suspended sediment, dissolved organic matter, and living and nonliving particulate organic matter have different influences on the behavior of light in water. The physical sciences endeavor to define variability in water quality, be it natural or anthropogenic, for use in water resource management. However, a more holistic approach to water resource management is becoming increasingly advocated, which requires investigation of the human dimension. The directly visible attributes of color and clarity of water are among the strongest influences on human perceptions of water quality. The observed environment is perceived through cognitive processes that are defined by spiritual and cultural beliefs and evolve with personal experience, creating the mental model. Water color and clarity can provide a critical link between water quality and human perceptions. Ethnohydrology is the study of culturally constructed knowledge and understanding of water. An interdisciplinary approach, integrating optical water quality measurement and ethnohydrology methods, may help achieve better awareness, communication, participation, and support in water resource management and sustainability endeavors. WIREs Water 2016, 3:167–180. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1127 This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented

Equity in REDD+: Varying logics in Tanzania

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2015

Equity is frequently cited as one of the key design aspects of environmental governance regimes. In the context of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), a forest-based climate change mitigation instrument, the manner in which ‘equity’ is understood will be of critical importance for the impacts and acceptance of REDD + policies and initiatives. Whereas the concept has been extensively studied in the academic literature, references to equity in REDD + policy debates and documents are often vague, leaving room for various interpretations and modes of implementation. In our case study of the Tanzanian national REDD + policy domain, we provide a conceptual framework based on an institutional logics approach for analysing the various underlying rationalities in the ‘equity in REDD+’ debate. We apply it to demonstrate how the involved policy actors draw from heterogeneous equity logics in their support for and opposition to different governance models, highlighting the importance of precise contextualization and operationalization of broad international principles in national REDD + initiatives.

Voice, power, and history: ensuring social justice for all stakeholders in water decision-making

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2014

Public participation in water decision-making is an accepted and expected practice. It is expected to lead to better decisions and ensure fairness by satisfying peoples' understanding of democracy and their “right” to participate in decisions that affect them. However, despite years of experience and “best practices”, governing bodies at all levels struggle to implement successful, genuine participation that leads to fair decisions. Ultimately, decision-making about natural resources such as water is a process that takes place in a wider power context where some groups have greater access to sources of power and entitlements. This research applies a “Social Justice Framework” (SJF) to examine the experiences of different stakeholder groups in making their voices heard during water reform processes in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia. The experiences of croppers and graziers in two different floodplains show how historical advantages and disadvantages affect the power balance between different stakeholder groups and their ability to participate in and influence water decision-making. Applying the three components of the SJF, distributive, procedural and interactive justice, in water decision-making should lead to greater equity in distribution and underline the importance of good governance in decision-making processes.

Transforming Water Research Through Human Rights-Based Approaches: A Framework for Implementation

Article

May 2025

The integration of human rights-based approaches (HRBAs) into water resource governance has gained significant momentum, particularly in regions facing complex water security challenges. It is now recognized that to address water security, we must address the human side of insecurity, and the HRBA endeavors to do this. Importantly, research projects are primary drivers of water management innovation. As research methodologies directly influence subsequent water management practices, the integration of HRBA in research becomes crucial for ensuring human rights considerations in future water governance. This study examines HRBA implementation in water research programs within the Mekong sub-region, where water insecurity significantly impacts local communities dependent on the Mekong River basin. Through an analysis of six research projects under the Sustainable Mekong Research Network, we assessed HRBA implementation using five dimensions: accountability, transparency, policy engagement, participation, and empowerment. Our mixed methods approach combined document analysis with semi-structured interviews. Projects revealed a spectrum of HRBA implementations from ‘thick’ to ‘thin’ applications, with political sensitivities and varying institutional capacities influencing implementation depth. This study introduces a novel framework for evaluating HRBA in water research, offering practical guidance for researchers and policymakers working in regions with complex socio-political dynamics. The resulting frameworks provide actionable tools that can be immediately applied in research design, stakeholder engagement processes, and policy development, enabling more equitable and effective water governance practices across diverse institutional contexts.

Water Resources Allocation: Iteractions Between Equity/Justice and Allocation Strategies

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2023
WATER RESOUR MANAG

Throughout the past decades, water resource allocation literature has increasingly addressed equity and justice. Despite this, there is a divergence between what different actors in all arenas mean by 'justice and equity'. Meanwhile, the extent to which allocation research has worked to empirically assess and operationalize concepts of equity and justice in practice remains unclear. This study examines how justice and equity are defined and understood within water resources allocation research. It also examines how extensively they are assessed in the allocation literature. We discuss equity/justice from diverse perspectives. We focus on the diversity of societal values related to water resource equitability and the typology of equity factors in water resource allocation. Our argument is that water allocations should be multi-processed to ensure water equitability by analyzing feedback and co-evolving processes and scenarios among economic justice, distributional justice, environmental justice, and institutional justice. We find that the literature has paid more attention to certain aspects of justice (e.g., distributive and procedural justice concerns) on certain topics, such as water resources management and allocation. In order to address this research gap, we call for a multi-scale and holistic approach to justice/equity issues.

Waves of change: A preliminary literature review of non-drinkable water and environmental justice research

Article

Nov 2023

Making Waves: Mental health impacts of inadequate drinking water services — from sidenote to research focus

Article

Jul 2023
WATER RES

The paramount significance of the harmful impacts of poor drinking water services on physical health have been recognized for decades. Besides, over the past twenty years, an additional body of literature on their negative mental health impacts has emerged. With this brief review, we summarise the findings of the scholarship to advance addressing overall health (physical, mental, and social) in the water sector. We furthermore review the key policy documents of this field with a focus on mental health aspects and give recommendations for practitioners and decision-makers on addressing mental health in water service delivery. We reviewed the existing published works (42) assessing psychological impacts of deficient drinking water services in low-income settings. We then identified and compared the different mechanisms causing negative mental health outcomes described in them. For these purposes, we used a water insecurity experience -model and the vulnerability-stress model of clinical psychology. Next, we probed key international and national guiding documents of the water sector to analyse how mental health issues resulting from poor services are addressed today. We found that according to the literature, poor quality and quantity of water was predictably one of the most important psychosocial stressors to users. Surprisingly, however, various kinds of water-service-related inequalities (e.g. between genders, communities or socio-economic groups) showed up as equally significant stressors. Our analysis with the vulnerability-stress model furthermore indicates that insufficient drinking water services may predispose to common mental disorders particularly through external stress. Existing field guidelines have evolved to highlight the values of non-discrimination and participation, whilst mental health aspects remain ignored. This should not be the case. Therefore, practices for addressing mental health effectively in documentation and water service development should be further researched. But already in the light of the existing literature, we urge stakeholders to focus more on the negative mental health impacts of unequal service provision for users and nearby people left without improved services.

Coding Qualitative Data at Scale: Guidance for Large Coder Teams Based on 18 Studies

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2022

We outline a process for using large coder teams (10 + coders) to code large-scale qualitative data sets. The process reflects experience recruiting and managing large teams of novice and trainee coders for 18 projects in the last decade, each engaging a coding team of 12 (minimum) to 54 (maximum) coders. We identify four unique challenges to large coder teams that are not presently discussed in the methodological literature: (1) recruiting and training coders, (2) providing coder compensation and incentives, (3) maintaining data quality and ensuring coding reliability at scale, and (4) building team cohesion and morale. For each challenge, we provide associated guidance. We conclude with a discussion of advantages and disadvantages of large coder teams for qualitative research and provide notes of caution for anyone considering hiring and/or managing large coder teams for research (whether in academia, government and non-profit sectors, or industry).

Household water insecurity and psychological distress in Eastern Ethiopia: Unfairness and water sharing as undertheorized factors

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2021

Elevated levels of mental health symptoms – especially related to depression and anxiety – are observed in water-insecure communities. A small set of ethnographic studies have suggested that inadequate safe and sufficient water does not in itself well explain observed patterns; rather the social contexts of water is critical. The most commonly theorized explanatory mechanism is the distress of perceived unfairness acting as a psychosocial stressor, although direct empirical tests of this are currently lacking. Another theorized and untested mechanism is the stress of social interactions around household water (like participation with neighbors in water sharing systems). Based on a sample of N = 1543 women ages 18–49 years (all with young children in the home) collected in Eastern Hararghe, Oromia, Eastern Ethiopia from June to September 2019, we tested the effects of two theorized mechanisms potentially implicated in why water causes psychosocial distress: perceived unfairness in the water system and level of participation in informal water sharing systems. In these predominantly smallholder agricultural households, and taking into account expected covariates like role-responsibility for water and household food insecurity, we find that perceived unfairness accounted for two-thirds of the effect of household water insecurity on individual depression/anxiety symptom levels. Even taking all these factors into account, high (and assumably predictable) levels of participation in water borrowing were associated with better mental health. However, less frequent (and assumably less predictable) borrowing was associated with worse outcomes. Together these findings provide needed empirical support for the propositions that the negative mental health effects of water insecurity are fundamentally tied to the dynamic social mechanisms around and meanings of water in water insecure communities, much more so than water access in itself.

Servant of too many masters: Residential water pricing and the challenge of sustainability

Article

Apr 2020
Util Pol

Antonio Massarutto

This paper discusses the state-of-the-art of the economic debate around water pricing, focussing on residential water supply and sanitation. Water pricing lays at the crossroads of many fields of economic analysis, and may be used to address many different problems: efficient allocation of water resources, ecological sustainability, guarantee of social rights, financial viability of investments. Different problems require different approaches and solutions. Rather than a “magic stick” that solves all problems by simply “getting the price right”, water charges must be seen as one of the many levers that policymakers can use: possibly a very effective one, but keeping in mind that it cannot solve all problems at the same time. Diversely from a simplistic interpretation of mainstream economics, deeply rooted in the European water policy, full-cost recovery and economic efficiency, social and ecological sustainability are separate issues that must not be confounded. This statement leads the way to a wider and more creative use of public finance.

Reallocating Water

Chapter

Nov 2019

Competition for water is creating pressure for reallocation as a response to shifting supply and demand patterns. This chapter explores the political economy of water reallocation, drawing on global experiences with addressing conflicts over water use. We identify the barriers to water reallocation and examine the policy and institutional responses. An appreciation of the root causes of competition and conflict over water can guide the development, implementation and evaluation of water allocation policy.

Norms, Mobilization and Conflict: The Merowe Dam as a Case Study

Article

Jul 2019

This article investigates dynamics of mobilization over environmental and human rights norms in the context of undemocratic governments. We test the suggestion in norm diffusion theories that the success of domestic struggles in this context depends on the level of internalization of norms brought about by international pressure. We find that the internalization (or lack thereof) of global norms by the Government of Sudan does not explain its recognition of environmental justice claims in this case. Furthermore, the various litigation efforts pursued by affected people outside Sudan did not influence their campaign. However, a combination of the political climate in the country and a unique political interplay between the government and a distinct group of the affected people may have led to the singular success of their campaign. We use a combination of discourse analysis, legal analysis, norm mapping, and semi-structured interviews to reach conclusions.

Data Collection in Cross-cultural Ethnographic Research

Article

Mar 2019
FIELD METHOD

Collecting data for cross-cultural research is time consuming and expensive. We report on techniques for efficient and effective cross-cultural data collection, drawn from 18 cross-cultural studies we conducted in 22 countries. We discuss research design, site selection and collaboration building, ethical review, cross-site protocol design, data collection pitfalls, and data quality checks.

How Many Interviews Are Enough to Identify Metathemes in Multisited and Cross-cultural Research? Another Perspective on Guest, Bunce, and Johnsons (2006) Landmark Study

Article

Apr 2016
FIELD METHOD

There is much debate over the number of interviews needed to reach data saturation for themes and metathemes in qualitative research. The primary purpose of this study is to determine the number of interviews needed to reach data saturation for metathemes in multisited and cross-cultural research. The analysis is based on a cross-cultural study on water issues conducted with 132 respondents in four different sites. Analysis of the data yielded 240 site-specific themes and nine cross-cultural metathemes. We found that 16 or fewer interviews were enough to identify common themes from sites with relatively homogeneous groups. Yet our research reveals that larger sample sizes—ranging from 20 to 40 interviews—were needed to reach data saturation for metathemes that cut across all sites. Our findings may be helpful in estimating sample sizes for each site in multisited or cross-cultural studies in which metathematic comparisons are part of the research design.

Food, Water, and Scarcity: Toward a Broader Anthropology of Resource Insecurity

Article

Aug 2014

Food and water shortages are two of the greatest challenges facing humans in the coming century. While our theoretical understanding of how humans become vulnerable to and cope with hunger is relatively well developed, anthropological research on parallel problems in the water domain is limited. By carefully considering well-established propositions derived from the food literature against what is known about water, our goal in this essay is to advance identifying, theorizing, and testing a broader anthropology of resource insecurity. Our analysis focuses on (1) the causes of resource insecurity at the community level, (2) “coping” responses to resource insecurity at the household level, and (3) the effect of insecurity on emotional well-being and mental health at the individual level. Based on our findings, we argue that human experiences of food and water insecurity are sufficiently similar to facilitate a broader theory of resource insecurity, including in how households and individuals cope. There are also important differences between food and water insecurity, including the role of structural factors (such as markets) in creating community-level vulnerabilities. These suggest food and water insecurity may also produce household struggles and individual suffering along independent pathways.

Food, Water, and Scarcity: Toward a Broader Anthropology of Resource Insecurity

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2014
CURR ANTHROPOL

Amber Wutich

Hard paths, soft paths or no paths? Cross-cultural perceptions of water solutions

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2013
HESSD

In this study, we examine how development status and water scarcity shape people's perceptions of "hard path" and "soft path" water solutions. Based on ethnographic research conducted in four semi-rural/peri-urban sites (in Bolivia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the US), we use content analysis to conduct statistical and thematic comparisons of interview data. Our results indicate clear differences based on development status and, to a lesser extent, water scarcity. People in less developed sites were more likely to suggest hard path solutions, less likely to suggest soft path solutions, and more likely to see no path to solutions than people in more developed sites. Thematically, people in less developed sites envisioned solutions that involve small-scale water infrastructure and decentralized, community based solutions, while people in more developed sites envisioned solutions that involve large-scale infrastructure and centralized, regulatory water solutions. People in water-scarce sites were less likely to suggest soft path solutions and more likely to see no path to solutions (but no more likely to suggest hard path solutions) than people in water-rich sites. Thematically, people in water-rich sites seemed to perceive a wider array of unrealized potential soft path solutions than those in water-scarce sites. On balance, our findings are encouraging in that they indicate that people are receptive to soft path solutions in a range of sites, even those with limited financial or water resources. Our research points to the need for more studies that investigate the social feasibility of soft path water solutions, particularly in sites with significant financial and natural resource constraints.

Shared cultural norms for justice in water institutions: Results from Fiji, Ecuador, Paraguay, New Zealand, and the US

Article

Oct 2012
J ENVIRON MANAGE

The Role of Justice in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis

Data

Full-text available

Nov 2001

The correlates of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were examined using 190 studies samples, totaling 64,757 participants. We found the distinction between the three justice types to be merited. While organizational practices and outcomes were related to the three justice types, demographic characteris-tics of the perceiver were, in large part, unrelated to perceived justice. Job performance and counterproductive work behaviors, considered to be outcomes of perceived justice, were mainly related to procedural justice, whereas organizational citizenship behavior was similarly predicted by distributive and procedural justice. Most satisfaction measures were similarly related to all justice types. Although organizational commitment and trust were mainly related to procedural justice, they were also substan-tially related to the other types of justice. Findings from labora-tory and field studies are not always in agreement. Future research agendas are discussed. ᭧ 2001 Academic Press The study of work-place justice has been proliferating in recent years. Whereas early studies on justice were conducted in the early 1960s (Adams, 1963, 1965), the majority of studies on justice in organizations were published We thank Dr. Dan Ilgen and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Yochi Cohen-Charash, Institute

How Many Interviews Are Enough?

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2006
FIELD METHOD

Guidelines for determining nonprobabilistic sample sizes are virtually nonexistent. Purposive samples are the most commonly used form of nonprobabilistic sampling, and their size typically relies on the concept of “saturation,” or the point at which no new information or themes are observed in the data. Although the idea of saturation is helpful at the conceptual level, it provides little practical guidance for estimating sample sizes, prior to data collection, necessary for conducting quality research. Using data from a study involving sixty in-depth interviews with women in two West African countries, the authors systematically document the degree of data saturation and variability over the course of thematic analysis. They operationalize saturation and make evidence-based recommendations regarding nonprobabilistic sample sizes for interviews. Based on the data set, they found that saturation occurred within the first twelve interviews, although basic elements for metathemes were present as early as six interviews. Variability within the data followed similar patterns.

Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2009

This article examines the distribution of parks in Baltimore, Maryland, as an environmental justice issue. In addition to established methods for measuring distribution of and access to parks, we employ a novel park service area approach that uses Thiessen polygons and dasymetric reapportioning of census data to measure potential park congestion as an equity outcome measure. We find that a higher proportion of African Americans have access to parks within walking distance, defined as 400 meters or less, than whites, but whites have access to more acreage of parks within walking distance than blacks. A needs-based assessment shows that areas with the highest need have the best access to parks but also have access to less acreage of parks compared to low-need areas. Park service areas that are predominantly black have higher park congestion than areas that are predominantly white, although differences are less apparent at the city level than at the metropolitan level. Following Iris Young and others, we argue that conceptions of justice must move beyond distributive justice and address the social and institutional mechanisms that generate inequities. For Baltimore, we examine how segregation ordinances, racial covenants, improvement associations, the Home Owners Loan Corporation, and the Parks and Recreation Board created separate black spaces historically underserved with parks. These mechanisms ultimately fueled middle-class flight and suburbanization and black inheritance of much of Baltimore's space, including its parks. If justice demands just distribution justly achieved, the present-day pattern of parks in Baltimore should be interpreted as environmental injustice.

The Politics of Garbage in Oaxaca, Mexico

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2008

Sarah Anne Moore

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) and politics are common themes in environmental justice. However, insights garnered from the experience of the global north cannot be applied directly to the global south since local processes shape unique landscapes of waste. To this end, my fieldwork in Oaxaca de Juarez, a rapidly urbanizing city in southern Mexico, concentrates on the history and politics of MSWM in the area. Here, the livelihood struggles of local neighborhoods are imbricated with the management of the existing official municipal dump. I argue that it is the marginality of these neighborhoods, both physical and social, that makes it possible for them to block the flow of municipal trash and so reveal it to visitors, residents, and politicians. This case presents a reworking of traditional concepts of environmental justice by examining the contradictory processes of abjection and political activism particular to the global south.

Dumping in dixie: Race, class, and environmental quality

Article

Full-text available

Dec 1991
Rev Black Polit Econ

James B. Stewart

Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2001
WORLD DEV

Bina Agarwal

The idea of people's participation has long been part of development thinking. But today the management of local natural resources by village communities is widely accepted as an institutional imperative. It is therefore essential to examine how these institutions perform, especially from the perspective of the more disadvantaged. Based on extensive fieldwork among community forestry groups in India and Nepal, and existing case studies, this paper demonstrates how seemingly participatory institutions can exclude significant sections, such as women. It provides a typology of participation, spells out the gender equity and efficiency implications of such exclusions, and analyzes what underlies them. It also outlines a conceptual framework to help analyze the process of gender exclusion and how it might be alleviated.

The role of justice in organizations: A meta-analysis: Erratum

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2002

Reports an error in the original article by Y. Cohen-Charash and P. E. Spector (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2001[Nov], 86[2], 2478-321). Tables 2 and 4 contain several errors. The conclusion on pages 293 and 301, the next to last paragraph, should be that this relation is nonsignificant. On page 296, the Table has incorrect information. Conclusions on pages 296, 304, and 309 should be that the corresponding field vs laboratory correlations are not significantly different from one another and that the procedural justice relationship with performance in the field is not much larger that that for distributive justice. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2001-09399-007). The correlates of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were examined using 190 studies samples, totaling 64,757 participants. We found the distinction between the three justice types to be merited. While organizational practices and outcomes were related to the three justice types, demographic characteristics of the perceiver were, in large part, unrelated to perceived justice. Job performance and counterproductive work behaviors, considered to be outcomes of perceived justice, were mainly related to procedural justice, whereas... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

Codebook Development for Team-Based Qualitative Analysis

Article

Full-text available

May 1998
FIELD METHOD

Justice and the Environment

Book

Dec 1998

Andrew Dobson

Environmental sustainability and social, or distributive, justice are both widely regarded as desirable social objectives. But can we assume that they are compatible with each other? This book analyses the complex relationship between these two pressing objectives. Environmental sustainability is taken to be a contested idea, and three distinct conceptions of it are explored and described. These conceptions are then examined in the context of fundamental distributive questions. Among whom or what should distribution take place? What should be distributed? What should the principle of distribution be? The book contains a critical examination of the claims of the ‘environmental‐justice’ and ‘sustainable‐development’ movements that social justice and environmental sustainability are points on the same virtuous circle, and suggests that radical environmental demands involving the preservation of ‘nature’ are only incompletely served by couching them in terms of justice. The conclusion is that inter‐generational justice is the context in which distributive and sustainability agendas are most closely aligned.

Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches

Book

Jan 2009

Congratulations to H. Russell Bernard, who was recently elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences"This book does what few others even attempt—to survey a wide range of systematic analytic approaches. I commend the authors for both their inclusiveness and their depth of treatment of various tasks and approaches." —Judith Preissle, University of Georgia "I appreciate the unpretentious tone of the book. The authors provide very clear instructions and examples of many different ways to collect and analyze qualitative data and make it clear that there is no one correct way to do it." —Cheryl Winsten-Bartlett, North Central University "The analytical methodologies are laid out very well, and I will definitely utilize the book with students regarding detailed information and steps to conduct systematic and rigorous data analysis." —Dorothy Aguilera, Lewis & Clark College This book introduces readers to systematic methods for analyzing qualitative data. Unlike other texts, it covers the extensive range of available methods so that readers become aware of the array of techniques beyond their individual disciplines. Part I is an overview of the basics. Part II comprises 11 chapters, each treating a different method for analyzing text. Real examples from the literature across the health and social sciences provide invaluable applied understanding.

Cross-national environmental injustice and human rights issues - A review of evidence in the developing world

Conference Paper

Jan 2000

Francis O. Adeola

This article focuses on the issues of environmental injustice and human rights violations across nations. using existing documents, the patterns of the transnational toxic waste trade and natural resource exploitation and the bases of global environmental injustice are explored. The dependency/world-system perspective on toxic waste exports and imports and the environmental justice framework Lire used to analyze transnational toxic waste dumping schemes and resource exploitation in underdeveloped nations. With an emphasis on the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, available evidence suggests that environmental activists, powerless indigenous subpopulations, and other minorities face the danger of environmental injustice and human rights abuse, especially under authoritarian regimes. The need for stronger international norms protecting human rights to a safe and sound environment is emphasized, and it is argued their environmental injustice needs to be included as cc component of human rights protocols. Policy implications of theoretical analyses are offered.

Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics

Article

Mar 2012

Gordon Walker

Environmental justice has increasingly become part of the language of environmental activism, political debate, academic research and policy making around the world. It raises questions about how the environment impacts on different people’s lives. Does pollution follow the poor? Are some communities far more vulnerable to the impacts of flooding or climate change than others? Are the benefits of access to green space for all, or only for some? Do powerful voices dominate environmental decisions to the exclusion of others?

Defining Environmental Justice

Book

May 2007

David Schlosberg

The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by ‘justice’ in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, and participation. Throughout, the goal is the development of a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature.

Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality

Article

Jan 2000

Third World Environmental Justice

Article

Jul 2008

This special issue relates the key analytical constructs of environmental justice scholarship - distributive justice, procedural justice and environmental racism - to a series of Third World case studies. It calls attention to the need to theorize both distributive burdens and benefits; treat the relative salience of race as a category of differentiation as an empirical question; and examine new avenues of procedural justice that have opened up to transnational environmental justice activists. The basic position advanced in the collection is that the core issues at the heart of environmental justice struggles are universal. In this sense, the case studies presented here should be read not as though they were part of exceptional Third World circumstances, but instead as part of broader patterns of distributive, procedural and racial injustice with global significance.

Environmental justice: concepts, evidence and politics

Article

Jun 2012

S. G. Hughes

Cross-National Environmental Injustice and Human Rights IssuesA Review of Evidence in the Developing World

Article

Jan 2000

Francis O. Adeola

This article focuses on the issues of environmental injustice and human rights violations across nations. Using existing documents, the patterns of the transnational toxic waste trade and natural resource exploitation and the bases of global environmental injustice are explored. The dependency/world-system perspective on toxic waste exports and imports and the environmental justice framework are used to analyze transnational toxic waste dumping schemes and resource exploitation in underdeveloped nations. With an emphasis on the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, available evidence suggests that environ mental activists, powerless indigenous subpopulations, and other minorities face the danger of environmental injustice and human rights abuse, especially under authoritarian regimes. The need for stronger international norms protecting human rights to a safe and sound envi ronment is emphasized, and it is argued that environmental injustice needs to be included as a component of human rights protocols. Policy implications of theoretical analyses are offered

Environmental justice in a landscape of tragedy

Article

Apr 2007
Tech Soc

Craig E. Colten

Hurricane Katrina exposed a landscape of tragedy in New Orleans in the wake of the storm, concentrations of poverty and minority populations and disproportionate suffering among those groups prompted discussions about environmental injustices. Federal policies seek to foster environmental justice, but all too often they respond inadequately to long-standing injustices and fail to address the moral issues that underlie the public understanding of environmental justice. Additionally, local and state plans for addressing future hurricanes offer little impetus to environmental justice concerns.

Environmental Justice as Process and New Avenues for Research

Article

Sep 2008

Christopher G. Boone

Environmental justice is too often interpreted as a state rather than a process. This can lead to erroneous conclusions about the role of race and privilege in the distribution of environmental disamenities. Toxic facilities are concentrated disproportionately in Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles and in white neighborhoods in Baltimore. However, these seemingly contradictory results are both the legacies of decades of racist practices and white privilege. Explanation in environmental justice research should therefore focus on fairness of process in addition to outcome. Promising new avenues for research can build on theories, data, and methods from other fields and approaches, including land use law, industrial and housing location theory, hazards and vulnerability, political ecology, public health, and ecology. Environmental justice research should turn some attention to the distributive and procedural justice of environmental amenities, social variables beyond race and class, and analyses at the house...

Environmental Justice and the Construction of Scale in Brazilian Agriculture

Article

Jul 2008

Wendy Wolford

In Brazil, one of the most pressing issues for environmental justice scholars (and movements) is unequal access to land. Over the past 20 years, people have mobilized collectively to demand both access to resources (distributional equity) and the right to participate in decisions over their distribution (procedural equity). In this article, I analyze the recent development of large-scale soybean production in the Brazilian cerrado. I argue that distributional inequities in the cerrado have been produced through a state-led process of development that favored large farms and modern, agro-industrial development. Popular discourse, however, fetishizes the efficiencies that accrue to large-scale agriculture, naturalizing the comparative advantage of wealthy farmers and erasing the importance of the state and geopolitical context for development in the region.

“If They Only Knew”: Color Blindness and Universalism in California Alternative Food Institutions

Article

Aug 2008

Julie Guthman

This article takes on the cultural politics of “if they only knew” as it relates to alternative food practice. It draws on surveys and interviews of managers of two kinds of alternative food institutions—farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture—to illustrate the color-blind mentalities and universalizing impulses of alternative food discourse. The ways in which these discourses instantiate whiteness may have a chilling effect on people of color who tend not to participate in these markets proportionate to whites. Minor exclusionary practices may have profound implications for shaping projects of agro-food transformation.

Is there more to environmental participation than meets the eye? Understanding agency, empowerment and disempowerment among black and minority ethnic communities

Article

Oct 2010
AREA

We centred the research gaze on the cultural and ethnic interpretations of environmental dis/engagement among black and minority ethnic groups, which has been under-explored in the UK literature on public participation. We conducted focus groups with black and minority ethnic communities and in-depth interviews with community representatives and key actors facilitating sustainability policy. We identified from our analysis the sub-themes of a ‘different mindset’ and ‘self-empowering spaces’ that demonstrated the contextual, diverse and contested perceptions and experiences of agency, empowerment and disempowerment in environmental behaviours and initiatives. Our conclusions draw on the implications of our findings for the environmental and sustainability policy and planning community.

Equity, Equality, and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be Used as the Basis of Distributive Justice?

Article

Jul 1975
J SOC ISSUES

Morton Deutsch

The concept of justice is discussed, and the thesis is advanced that “equity” is only one of the many values which may underlie a given system of justice. Hypotheses about the conditions which determine which values will be employed as the basis of distributive justice in a group are proposed, with discussion centered about the values of “equity,” “equality,” and “need” and the conditions which lead a group to emphasize one rather than another value.

Institutions and Environmental Governance: A Reconceptualization

Article

Jun 2007
ECOL ECON

Jouni Paavola

This article presents the conceptual revisions needed to extend the new institutional approach to environmental governance from its current local and international domains of application to all governance solutions, including national environmental and natural resource use policies and multi-level governance solutions that are increasingly used to address global environmental change. The article suggests that environmental governance is best understood as the establishment, reaffirmation or change of institutions to resolve conflicts over environmental resources. It also explains why the choice of these institutions is a matter of social justice rather than of efficiency. The article suggests a way to understand formal and state-centered governance solutions as forms of collective ownership not unlike common property. The article demonstrates how institutional analysis can gain resolution by looking at the functional and structural tiers, organization of governance functions, and formulation of key institutional rules as key aspects of the design of governance institutions.

Case Study Research: Design & Methods

Book

Jan 2009

R.K. Yin

Understanding Institutional Diversity / E. Ostrom.

Article

Jan 2005

Elinor Ostrom

Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical research, and clinical innovation.Understanding Autism, a social history of the expanding diagnostic category of this contested illness, takes a close look at the role of emotion--specifically, of parental love--in the intense and passionate work of biomedical communities investigating autism. Chloe Silverman tracks developments in autism theory and practice over the past half-century and shows how an understanding of autism has been constituted and stabilized through vital efforts of schools, gene banks, professional associations, government committees, parent networks, and treatment conferences. She examines the love and labor of parents, who play a role in developing--in conjunction with medical experts--new forms of treatment and therapy for their children. While biomedical knowledge is dispersed through an emotionally neutral, technical language that separates experts from laypeople, parental advocacy and activism call these distinctions into question. Silverman reveals how parental care has been a constant driver in the volatile field of autism research and treatment, and has served as an inspiration for scientific change. Recognizing the importance of parental knowledge and observations in treating autism, this book reveals that effective responses to the disorder demonstrate the mutual interdependence of love and science.

International environmental justice: A north-south dimension

Article

Jan 2004

Ruchi Anand

This study examines the question: Is the theory of environmental justice, as has been used at the national US level, a useful theoretical tool to analyze and inform the North-South schism in global environmental politics? I hypothesize that the case for environmental justice can be replicated at the international level where countries of the South have to bear disproportionate environmental burdens. I use three international environmental case studies, namely the export of hazardous waste, the ozone regime and climate change to investigate this hypothesis. This study highlights that although issues of justice and fairness arise in all international negotiations, they are usually not the most crucial considerations. At the international level, individual countries with different power potentials and national interests characterize the playing field where each country seeks to maximize its power and benefits from negotiation while simultaneously minimizing costs and the question of how to divide costs and benefits. This then becomes the heart of treaty-negotiation and acceptance, and the foundation for how to define justice. Justice, defined in terms of the distribution of costs and benefits is also the greatest cause of discord, disagreement and failure of an international treaty. From discussions that ensued from the three case studies, I found an interesting relationship between three factors: responsibility, vulnerability and capacity. I also found that vulnerability of the North plays a crucial role in determining how readily the North would agree to the needs of the South in order to foster international cooperation. This in turn gets framed as justice.

Discrimination and the Political Economy of Environmental Inequality

Article

Aug 2002
ENVIRON PLANN C

Rachel Morello-Frosch

Over the last decade there has been a surge in academic and scientific inquiry into disparities in environmental hazards among diverse communities. Much of the evidence points to a general pattern of disproportionate exposures to toxics among communities of color and the poor, with racial differences often persisting across economic strata. Although results have implications for the politics of environmental decisionmaking, most of these analyses are limited to illustrating how inequities in exposures and health risks are spread across the landscape, while shedding little light on their origins or the reasons for their persistence. Previous attempts to theorize the causes of environmental inequality have focused on procedural justice in the regulatory arena, emphasizing civil rights jurisprudence and social theories on individual and institutional discrimination. Although these approaches offer insights into the epistemology of environmental inequality, they fail adequately to account for the political economy of discrimination relating to industrial location behavior and racialized labor markets. By integrating relevant social and legal theories with a spatialized economic critique, this paper formulates a more supple theory of environmental discrimination. How the political economy of place shapes distributions of people and pollution and ultimately gives rise to environmental inequality are revealed by exploring the following factors: historical patterns of industrial development and racialized labor markets; suburbanization and segregation; and economic restructuring. This multidisciplinary approach to theorizing the dynamic of environmental discrimination provides a new framework for future policymaking and community organizing to address environmental and economic justice. Implications of this broader framework for policy and politics are discussed in the conclusion.

Disrespect and the Experience of Injustice

Article

Feb 2001

Dale T. Miller

This review analyzes research and theory pertaining to the psychology of injustice, using as its organizing theme the role that the perception of disrespect plays in the experience of injustice. The analysis focuses primarily on the links between disrespect and anger, disrespect and injustice, and anger and injustice. Determinants of the intensity of people's reactions to injustices are also reviewed. In addition, the review examines the goals of retaliation as well as the forms that retaliation can take. Parallels between justice reactions to those acts of disrespect directed toward the self and those directed toward others are noted. Finally, the review discusses the implications of justice research for understanding the specific and general entitlements that people believe are their due.

Participatory exclusions, community forests and gender: An analysis for South Asia and a conceptual framework 14 A. Wutich et al. Downloaded by [Arizona State University] at 15:23 30 International environmental justice: A North–South dimension

1623-1648

B Agarwal

Agarwal, B. 2001. Participatory exclusions, community forests and gender: An analysis for South Asia and a conceptual framework. World Dev. 29(10):1623–1648. 14 A. Wutich et al. Downloaded by [Arizona State University] at 15:23 30 November 2012 rAnand, R. 2004. International environmental justice: A North–South dimension. Hampshire, England: Ashgate

Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Perceptions of Injustice in Water Institutions

Jan 1994

R K Yin

Yin, R. K. 1994. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Perceptions of Injustice in Water Institutions

When consumption does violence: Can there be sustainability and environmental justice in a resource-limited world?

Jan 2003
99-124

W E Rees
L Westra

Rees, W. E., and L. Westra. 2003. When consumption does violence: Can there be sustainability and environmental justice in a resource-limited world? In Just sustainabilities: Development in an unequal world, ed. J. Agyeman, R. D. Bullard, and B. Evans, 99-124. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Interactional (in)justice: The sacred and the profane

Jan 2001
89-118

R J Bies

Bies, R. J. 2001. Interactional (in)justice: The sacred and the profane. In Advances in organizational justice, ed. J. Greenberg and R. Cropanzano, 89-118. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature

Jan 2007

Cambridge
Ma

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Justice and the environment: Conceptions of environmental sustainability and dimensions of social justice

Jan 1998

A Dobson

Dobson, A. 1998. Justice and the environment: Conceptions of environmental sustainability and dimensions of social justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Agua para todo el Cercado depende de tres proyectos [Water for the entire Cercado region depends on three projects]

Apr 2012

La Opinion

La Opinion. 2012. Agua para todo el Cercado depende de tres proyectos [Water for the entire Cercado region depends on three projects]. March 18. http://www.opinion.com.bo/ opinion/informe_especial/2012/0318/suplementos.php?id=2679 (accessed 10 August 2012).

International environmental justice: A North–South dimension Analyzing qualitative data: Systematic approaches

Jan 2004

R Anand

Anand, R. 2004. International environmental justice: A North–South dimension. Hampshire, England: Ashgate. Bernard, H. R., and G. W. Ryan. 2010. Analyzing qualitative data: Systematic approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability

Jan 2006
FIELD METHOD
59-82

G Guest
A Bunch
L Johnson

Guest, G., A. Bunch, and L. Johnson. 2006. How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18(1):59-82.

Understanding institutional diversity Institutions and environmental governance: A reconceptualization

Jan 2005
93-103

E J Ostrom

Ostrom, E. 2005. Understanding institutional diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Paavola, J. 2007. Institutions and environmental governance: A reconceptualization. Ecol. Econ. 63:93–103.

Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature

Jan 2007

D Schlosberg

Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rules, Norms, and Injustice: A Cross- Cultural Study of Perceptions of Justice in Water Institutions

Abstract

No full-text available

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