Working-class water justice: Salvadoran sindicalistas and the fight for a “just and dignified life”

Claudia Díaz-Combs
SUNY Old Westbury, Old Westbury, Long Island, New York, USA; diazcombsc@oldwestbury.edu

ABSTRACT: El Salvador is one of the rainiest countries in Latin America, but it is also one of the most water stressed. State negligence and lack of effective regulation of industrial, agricultural and domestic discharge has meant that, for decades, effluent has flowed unchecked into El Salvador’s freshwater bodies. Today, around 90% of the country’s surface water is contaminated. Various important Salvadoran social movements have rallied around socio-ecological concerns that include protecting public goods, services, land and water from contamination and from the encroachments of privatisation. Among them, the environmental movement is the most prominent. While not centred on water justice struggles, Salvadoran unions continue to play a major role in campaigns against austerity. This article focuses on the Salvadoran labour movement. It observes the ways in which unions have folded water-related concerns into the broader economic and workplace demands. Water justice is complex, diverse and multifaceted and must be approached from different perspectives. In this article, I argue for a working-class water justice framework that uses strategies such as strikes, work stoppages and collective bargaining to secure demands for improved infrastructure, higher wages, and to protect public services like the water network.

KEYWORDS: Water justice, labour unions, political ecology, infrastructure, El Salvador

Exploring the diverse motivations of volunteer water management committees in rural Malawi

Ian Cunningham
Small is Beautiful Consulting; and Honorary Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; ian.cunningham@smallis.au

Juliet Willetts
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; Juliet.willetts@uts.edu.au

Tim Foster
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; Tim.foster@uts.edu.au

Keren Winterford
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney; keren.winterford@uts.edu.au

ABSTRACT: Motivated volunteer water committees are central to the effectiveness of community-based management (CBM) approaches to rural drinking water supply. CBM is the predominant approach to managing rural drinking water supplies, particularly in low-income countries. In CBM, it is assumed that a community’s interest in a sustained water supply will motivate them to take on water supply management responsibilities. However, in practice and in the academic literature, Water Point Committee (WPC) members’ motivations have been oversimplified and are poorly understood. This paper uses Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a theory of motivation, to analyse the types and quality of WPC members’ motivations across six rural locations in Malawi. We found a wider range and quality of motives than has been documented in the literature. WPC members’ autonomous, higher-quality motives included personal benefits from an improved water supply service, the pro-social nature of the committee role, an interest in learning and working with others, and positive changes in self-esteem. Lower-quality motives were experienced as feelings of being pressured and included continued committee participation to avoid shame or to avoid disappointing others. Our study findings show the relevance of SDT in providing a more nuanced understanding of what drives WPC members’ commitment to water management responsibilities. This understanding of, and support for, members’ motivations is critical for sustaining community-based rural water supply services.

KEYWORDS: Motivations, rural water supply, volunteers, community-based, Self-Determination Theory, behaviour change, Malawi

Mekong River dry season changes due to hydropower dams and extractive processes: Making sense of contradictory community observations in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia

Ian G. Baird
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; ibaird@wisc.edu

Michael A. S. Thorne
British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK; mast3@cam.ac.uk

Sirasak Gaja-Svasti
Ubon Ratchathani University, Warin Chamrap, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand; gajasvasti@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The Mekong is amongst the most important rivers in the world with regard to biodiversity and livelihood. Over the last few decades, however, the river has experienced dramatic hydrological changes, mainly due to the construction of large hydropower dams on the mainstream Mekong and its tributaries. Other potentially crucial factors include sand mining, erosion, embankment construction, and water extraction. In March and early April of 2024, we organised focus group interviews to discuss the changes that have occurred during the dry season with local people living in different communities along the mainstream Mekong River: 32 villages in eight provinces in northern and northeastern Thailand, 9 villages in Champassak Province, southern Laos, and 3 villages in Stung Treng Province, northeastern Cambodia. In this paper, we present some of the results of this research, particularly focusing on water level and turbidity changes, as local people along the Mekong River have varied understandings regarding whether there is more or less water in the Mekong River during the dry season. We argue that riverbed incision resulting largely from hydropower dam development and sand mining have, in particular, led many people living along the Mekong between northeastern Thailand and central Laos to incorrectly believe that there is less water in the Mekong River during the dry season compared to the past, while dry season water releases from upriver hydropower dams have led those in northern Thailand, lower northeastern Thailand, southern Laos, and northeastern Cambodia to assess that there is now more water in the Mekong River.

KEYWORDS: Hydrology, sediment, local knowledge, water level, Mekong River, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia