Selma Benyovszky
Human Geography, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, UK; s.benyovszky@pgr.reading.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This study advances social science research on water by providing insights into the interplay between water and energy politics in Algeria, contributing to broader discussions on water governance in fossil-fuel-dependent nations. Using frame analysis, this research examines how water politics is positioned in relation to Algeria’s dependence on fossil fuels. The findings reveal that, despite policy rhetoric emphasising water as a national priority, hydrocarbons remain central to the state’s political strategies. Water issues, such as access and pollution, are often viewed primarily as risks to social stability rather than as ecological challenges. Consequently, water management is dominated by short-term, reactive strategies, often aimed at mitigating social discontent rather than achieving sustainable solutions. This dynamic is evident in municipalities like El Harrach, where promises of improved water quality and access are undermined by the prevailing prioritisation of hydrocarbon interests. By examining energy-water interdependencies not only as technical linkages but as key elements of statecraft and territorial control, the article shows how water governance is shaped also through lived experiences, contested meanings, and power-laden relations embedded in its hydrosocial territory.

KEYWORDS: Water governance, hydrosocial territories, hydrocarbon sector, frame analysis, Algeria

Katharina Lindt
Brandenburgische Technische Universitaet, Cottbus, Germany; katharina.lindt@b-tu.de

Bibiana Royero Benavides
Universidad de Cundinamarca, Fusagasugá, Colombia; pilarbenavides1979@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Community-based water provision in Colombia’s rural areas represents a form of collective resource supply that has historically developed as a countermovement to state fragility and remains the countryside’s only alternative to organised water supply. The Colombian state has legally recognised these water communities to meet constitutional and international commitments to universal drinking water access. However, integration occurs through a control-oriented approach, and is accompanied by administrative demands that most community-based providers cannot meet, which leaves them in a persistent informal status. Findings show that co-production practices reproduce governance fragilities and undermine the very social values the water communities are assumed to embody, even as state institutions depend on their work. The implemented co-production model not only requires constant informal negotiation but also fosters clientelism, corruption, socially harmful practices, and conflicts that cannot be resolved within existing structures. Based on qualitative case studies of seven community-based water providers, this article examines how volunteer representatives of these water communities navigate these contradictions, applying improvised strategies to individually sustain functionality. Meanwhile, these community-based water providers form wider networks and try to shape the public discourse around water co-production in order to achieve inclusion in the policy design process and improve collective support structures.

KEYWORDS: Community-based water supply, rural water supply, drinking water co-production, Colombia

Panos Panagiotopoulos
Aquaculture biology and Fisheries ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; panos.panagiotopoulos@wur.nl

Anthonie D. Buijse
Aquaculture biology and Fisheries ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; and Department of Freshwater Ecology and Water Quality, Deltares, Wageningen, the Netherlands; tom.buijse@deltares.nl

Luc Roozendaal
Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; lucroozendaal@hotmail.com

Hendrik V. Winter
Aquaculture biology and Fisheries ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; and Wageningen Marine Research, Ijmuiden, the Netherlands; erwin.winter@wur.nl

Leopold A.J. Nagelkerke
Aquaculture biology and Fisheries ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; leo.nagelkerke@wur.nl

Annet P. Pauwelussen
Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; annet.pauwelussen@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: In the context of river connectivity restoration, fishways play a crucial role in facilitating the migration of fish past barriers, but their form and functionality are often determined by various sociomaterial complexities. This study uses the case of fishway development in the Waterschap Brabantse Delta management area of the Netherlands to explore such complexities. Taking a network approach, we investigated the implementation and management of fishways as a process of assembling heterogeneous networks that involve both human and non-human actors. Using data from interviews, field observations and document analysis, the research revealed fishways to be networks of actors that included fish, engineers and maintenance personnel. We further demonstrate that fishways are embedded as actors, or 'nodes', within broader networks that exert a reciprocal influence on their functioning. By following fishways across different phases of their development trajectory and tracing the participation or withdrawal of actors, we explore changes in the networks and their subsequent impact on fishway design and performance.

KEYWORDS: Fish migration, fishways, river restoration, sociomaterial networks, the Netherlands

Tade Rücker
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Geographisches Institut, Kiel, Germany; ruecker@geographie.uni-kiel.de

Rainer Wehrhahn
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Geographisches Institut, Kiel, Germany; wehrhahn@geographie.uni-kiel.de

ABSTRACT: This paper explores how access to water in peripheral urban settlements is shaped by micro-scale power relations, material infrastructures, and collective organisation. Engaging with debates on infrastructure and peripheral urbanisation in the Global South, the paper conceptualises access to water infrastructures through the lens of Access Theory. The study examines two recent land occupations in São Paulo, Brazil, which differ significantly in their organisational structures. The comparison reveals that seemingly similar contexts of peripheral urbanisation generate profoundly divergent hydrosocial metabolisms through residents’ differentiated approaches to self-built infrastructure development. It contributes to situated Urban Political Ecology debates by demonstrating how peripheral urbanisation produces heterogeneous socionatural configurations rather than uniform patterns of exclusion. This points to the need for nuanced approaches to 'informal settlements' and highlights residents as active producers of urban infrastructure and distinct territorial subjectivities.

KEYWORDS: Peripheral urbanisation, infrastructure, Urban Political Ecology, water, São Paulo, Brazil

Tanya Baycheva-Merger
Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany, tanya.baycheva@ifp.uni-freiburg.de

Jakob Kramer
Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany, jakob.kramer@ifp.uni-freiburg.de

Kerstin Stahl
Hydrological Chairs, University of Freiburg, Germany, kerstin.stahl@hydrology.uni-freiburg.de

Sylvia Kruse
Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany, sylvia.kruse@ifp.uni-freiburg.de

ABSTRACT: This study explores the user acceptance of Internet of Things (IoT) real-time monitoring systems for groundwater management from the perspective of data governance. While user acceptance is widely acknowledged as key to the adoption of digital technologies, existing research often overlooks how data governance structures shape users’ willingness to adopt and use such systems. Following a case study approach and drawing on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with representatives of public and private organisations in the region of Freiburg, Germany, the study examines how issues of openness, accountability, and power influence user acceptance. The findings reveal that, while openness in data sharing can foster transparency, trust, and collaboration, unresolved concerns related to data privacy, security, quality, and ownership function as barriers to adoption. Smaller organisations in particular face challenges in accessing or benefiting from real-time data, raising questions about equity and inclusion in digital water governance. The study contributes to the emerging debate on digitalisation and data governance in the water sector, showing that user acceptance depends not only on perceived usefulness but also on the institutional, legal, and political context in which digital technologies are embedded. A more critical, inclusive, and context-sensitive approach to digital water governance is therefore needed.

KEYWORDS: Digitalisation, groundwater management, user acceptance, data governance, Germany

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

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

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

Rossella Alba
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geography Department and Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Berlin, Germany; rossella.alba@hu-berlin.de

Tobias Krueger
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geography Department and Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Berlin, Germany; tobias.krueger@hu-berlin.de

Lieke Melsen
Hydrology and Environmental Hydraulics, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; lieke.melsen@wur.nl

Jean-Philippe Venot
UMR G-EAU, IRD, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; jean-philippe.venot@ird.fr

ABSTRACT: Modelling and models influence how water and its flows are understood and governed. It is thus essential to critically explore the roles that models play in producing or addressing uneven water distribution. In this introduction to the Special Issue, we discuss approaches to analysing models and modelling practices. We start by establishing that they deserve special attention because they produce knowledge of another nature that gained from observations and measurements – knowledge that abstracts, generalises and offers access to potential futures and remote places. The paper outlines the ways in which models can appear to have universal relevance because of how they are able to travel between contexts; it also stresses that the rationalisation they offer aligns with the idea of control that underpins the modern water paradigm and related techno-managerial interventions. Despite their widespread appeal and use, the paper stress that models remain rather opaque, difficult to understand and navigate for non-experts and even sometimes for experts. The paper goes on to show how, in the context of water research and governance, models derive authority from the networks and discourses that surround them as well as from the epistemic and non-epistemic values that are shared by particular modelling communities. We present three complementary entry points for engaging with models: first, by interrogating their function as tools of representation; second, by exploring how they are produced and operated within constellations of actors, practices, discourses and material artefacts; and third, by analysing how models are deployed to legitimise water governance decisions that are inherently political. We then expand our critical engagement with water modelling, placing it in the broader context of attacks on science and scientists, particularly in the context of rising post-truth politics. Finally, by discussing the papers in this Special Issue, we conclude that models not only contribute to reproducing water inequalities but that they can also be mobilised to understand and address them. We suggest that future critical water research on modelling should continue to ground models and modelling in local realities, while also being invested in models as knowledge practices. Future research would benefit from bringing the diverse approaches that are showcased in this Special Issue into conversation as they enable rich and plural accounts of the worlds of water modelling.

KEYWORDS: Models, hydrology, politics, ontologies, practices, post-truth, situated knowledges

Andy Kusi-Appiah
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada; andykusiappiah@cmail.carleton.ca

Paul Mkandawire
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Human Rights and Social Justice Program, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada; paul.mkandawire@carleton.ca

ABSTRACT: This paper examines some intimate ways that water constitutes and is constitutive of social relations in urban Malawi in a context where the government-sponsored water supply system has left a large section of the population off the municipal supply grid. Specifically, the paper focuses on the ambiguous role of ganyu, an informal and ad hoc form of labour with deep roots in Malawi’s colonial history. Based on qualitative research (n = 30) and grounded in perspectives rooted in urban political ecology, our findings indicate that ganyu helps poor households cope with acute water shortages. On the other hand, it also binds them to problematic and often exploitative social relationships. Specifically, the findings show that ganyu relations give rise to usufruct rights through which the urban poor can obtain potable water on a day-to-day basis from the homes of the individuals for whom they work. However, material control over potable water by those who own it fosters indentured relations, as it allows these individuals to wield enormous control over the productive labour of the people who work for them. And as these providers of ganyu hold all the cards, they also sometimes weave sexual demands into these ad hoc contracts, locking poor women into a cycle of both labour exploitation and sexual servitude. Underscoring the relational nature of water, overall, these findings contradict simplistic notions of water as a market commodity and show that in urban Malawi water is a mechanism for the generation and exercise of social power, a marker of social differentiation, a force for material reproduction for the well-off, and an instrument for further subordination of women.

KEYWORDS: ganyu, potable water, social relations, gender, political ecology, Malawi

Régis Barraud
Professor in Geography, ER MIMMOC, University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France; regis.barraud@univ-poitiers.fr

ABSTRACT: Environmental activism has been instrumental in the adoption of public policies to protect the last remaining free-flowing rivers. In this regard, the passage of the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in the United States is an internationally recognised milestone. This legislation continues to inspire both other campaigns to protect wild rivers and the development of new conservation measures. The primary objective of this review is to provide a reconstruction of the trajectory of wild rivers as scientific subject matter. This approach allows us to study the processes of diffusion and adaptation of the American Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in other geographical contexts. It also aims to help us better understand the social and political effects of public policies that are geared towards the preservation of wild rivers. To this end, 106 scientific articles on wild rivers covering the period 1967 to 2024 were subjected to a lexical analysis (Step 1), a thematic analysis (Step 2) and a discussion of key issues based on an in-depth reading (Step 3). This review shows that the recreational, cultural and emotional values associated with wild rivers are increasingly being replaced in the scientific literature with the ecological values of free-flowing rivers. Furthermore, while the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act still largely guides scientific research on the subject, this review identifies the controversies underlying its adoption/adaptation in other colonial contexts where the idea of wilderness plays a key role in conservation. Underlying these conflicts is the need to rethink river conservation initiatives based on Indigenous people’s ontologies.

KEYWORDS: Wild rivers, environmental movements, nature conservation policy, nature-culture ontologies

Ehsan Nabavi
Responsible Innovation Lab, The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, The Australian National University; and Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Cultures of Research, RWTH, Aachen, Germany; ehsan.nabavi@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT: In water conflicts, models and their creators are often seen as guides that help public and policy actors make sense of controversies and formulate responses. In such contexts, it is tempting for both modellers and decision-makers to adopt the narrative that models are neutral and that, by extension, they present objective insights. This assumption, however, overlooks two critical issues. First, many choices made by modellers, which significantly shape a model’s outcome, are subjective and context-dependent. Second, water conflicts are inherently sociopolitical processes, and models themselves actively shape how these conflicts unfold. This paper argues that within hydropolitical dynamics, water models become the 'focal points' of a convergence of scientific expertise, political priorities and societal values and expectations. They become 'intervention technologies' that actively shape the very water realities they seek to describe. Drawing on ethnographic research and on insights from Science and Technology Studies, this paper explores this argument through the case of a water transfer controversy in the Zayandeh-Rood River Basin in central Iran. By unpacking how modelling (and countermodelling) practices are entangled with broader sociopolitical dynamics, the paper traces how models intervene in the making of the common resource, common sense and common good, while themselves being in turn shaped by these contested arenas.

KEYWORDS: Politics of modelling, water conflict, co-production, intervention, imaginary, countermodel, common sense, common good, Zayandeh-Rood River

Joshua Cohen
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; j.b.cohen@leeds.ac.uk

Anna Mdee
School of Politics and International Studies. University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; a.l.mdee@leeds.ac.uk

Mark A. Trigg
School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; m.trigg@leeds.ac.uk

Shivani Singhal
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; s.singhal@leeds.ac.uk

Sarah Cooper
University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, Liverpool, United Kingdom; s.j.cooper2@liverpool.ac.uk

Abel Negussie Alemu
Water Technology Institute, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia; nugussie2127@gmail.com

Eden Seifu
Addis Ababa university, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; eden.seifu@aau.edu.et

Cindy Lee Ik Sing
Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom; and Newcastle University Medicine, Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia; cindy.lee@ncl.ac.uk

Mark V. Bernhofen
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom; mark.bernhofen@eci.ox.ac.uk

Ajay Bhave
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; a.g.bhave@leeds.ac.uk

Andrew Carr
Water Consultancy Division, Mott Macdonald, Glasgow, UK; andrew.b.carr@googlemail.com

C.T. Dhanya
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India; dhanya@civil.iitd.ac.in

Alemseged Tamiru Haile
International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Ethiopia; a.t.haile@cgiar.org

Leonairo Pencue-Fierro
GOL/GEA, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán, Colombia; leonairo@unicauca.edu.co

Zulfaqar Sa’adi
Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Water Security, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia; zulfaqar19863@gmail.com

Prabhakar Shukla
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India; prabhakar.gcrf@gmail.com

Yady Tatiana Solano-Correa
Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Colombia; tatiana.solano@javerianacali.edu.co

Jaime Amezaga
Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Colombia; jaime.amezaga@newcastle.ac.uk

Shambhavi Gupta
School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom; guptashambhavi5@gmail.com

Ashok Kumar
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, USA; a.kumar@spa.ac.in

Adey Nigatu Mersha
School of Planning and Architecture; New Delhi, India; adey.n@wlrc-eth.org

Zainura Zainon Noor
Water and Land Resource Centre (WLRC), Ethiopia; zainurazn@utm.my

Alesia Ofori
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia; alesia.ofori@cranfield.ac.uk

Tilaye Worku Bekele
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, UK; tworkcon@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Momentum and interest have gathered around global flood risk datasets and models (GFMs). Such tools are often argued to be particularly useful in contexts where relevant data – such as stream flow and human settlement location – is sparse, inconsistent, or non-existent. As a relatively new technology, the technical limitations of GFMs – as specifically technical methodological challenges – have been quite well explored in existing literature. However, through engagement with literature, government policy documents and plans, and interviews with academic and commercial experts in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, and the UK, we show that their relevance and utility in reality cross-cut the technical, the political, and the social.

We argue that GFMs risk becoming another means through which states and other powerful actors re-imagine floods as technical challenges, while they are at root political-economic dilemmas (cf. Ferguson, 1994). This is linked to the ways that such technologies advance, becoming increasingly computationally powerful and accurate, and to the mutually reinforcing roles they play in relation to various 'fantasy plans' produced by governmental and other agencies (Weinstein et al., 2019). By focussing on an extended case study in the Akaki Catchment, Ethiopia, we argue that such fantasy plans – like those blueprinting urban development – serve to buttress state power through the performance of stability and reliability, while they avoid effectively tackling, or may even exacerbate, the political-economic realities which drive unequitable and unsustainable development. Such forms of development are directly linked to increasing flood risk both locally and globally.

KEYWORDS: Global datasets, global models, flood risk management, politics, fantasy plans

Edward Challies
Waterways Centre, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; edward.challies@canterbury.ac.nz

Marc Tadaki
Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand; Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand; marc.tadaki@lincoln.ac.nz

Jim Sinner
Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand; jim.sinner548@gmail.com

Margaret Kilvington
Independent Social Research, Evaluation and Facilitation, Christchurch, New Zealand; margaret.kilvington@gmail.com

Paratene Tane
Takarangi Research, Dunedin, New Zealand; hirini@takarangi.co.nz

Christina Robb
Happen Consulting, Christchurch, New Zealand; christina.robb@happen.co.nz

David Diprose
Pourakino Catchment Group, Farmer, Riverton, New Zealand

Phillip Fluerty
Te Runaka O Ōraka Aparima, Kai Tahu. Colac Bay, New Zealand

Rio Greening
Parawhenua marae, Northland Ohaeawai, New Zealand

Lee Mason
Ngāti Kuia, Te Hoiere, New Zealand

Brent Paterson
Mangaone Catchment Group, Patoka, New Zealand

Marty Robinson
Waitangi River Catchment Group, Northland Regional Councillor, Keri Keri, New Zealand

Michael Shearer
Hebron Farming Ltd., Reefton, New Zealand

ABSTRACT: Water quality decline has proven to be an intractable policy problem worldwide due to the complexity of multiple interests in land and water use. In Aotearoa New Zealand, a proliferation of local catchment groups, including collectives of farmers and other land users and stakeholders, raises important questions about the scope for government to direct collective management towards water policy implementation, and the opportunities and pitfalls of doing so. This paper draws on evidence from a collaborative research project in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how an emerging catchment-group–led approach might address water policy goals. We examine the emergent policy narrative around catchment groups as a water management solution, and the investment in this approach by government agencies, industry bodies and non-governmental organisations. We then explore a diversity of experiences across four case study catchments. Our focus is on group membership, purpose, relationships, structure and resourcing, with the aim of illustrating how these characteristics of catchment groups influence their ability to carry out policy-relevant actions. We argue that efforts to enlist catchment groups in policy implementation have uneven consequences and that agencies and catchment groups alike should pay attention to the alignment between policy goals and group purpose, to the value of diversity and difference among groups, and to the fine line between supporting and instrumentalising groups towards implementing freshwater policy.

KEYWORDS: Watershed groups, collective management, action research, Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, policy implementation, Aotearoa

Jeremy Trombley
Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; jtrombl@uwo.ca

ABSTRACT: Large-scale watershed management increasingly depends on the use of computational models to inform decision-making and track management goals; however, the roles that models play in environmental management institutions far exceed their informational content. Science studies scholars have approached modelling as also a performative practice that shapes the relational context of watershed management. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, this article examines a single computer model as it is developed and deployed in an environmental management organisation. The study shows that a single model can serve multiple roles within a watershed management institution depending on specific conditions and contexts; further, by serving these multiple roles rather than a single informational one, models are uniquely useful for organising environmental science and management practices and institutions across a heterogeneous set of agents. Examining these multiple roles can help us to understand not only the process of computational modelling, but also the process of management and how different organisations can coordinate with one another through the use of modelling.

KEYWORDS: Computational models, watershed management, performative research, participatory modelling, Chesapeake Bay

Neha Sarwate
The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, India; neha.v.sarwate@gmail.com

Shishir R. Raval
Formerly with the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, India; inmsuarchsrr@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: As rivers in the urban areas of developing economies are subjected to various policies that result in environmental pressures, it is prudent to examine the administrative attitudes and decision-making processes to learn how concerned community members and experts can shape and guide such policies and plans. This paper provides a description and summative evaluation of the intercession process by the Concerned Citizens of Vadodara (CCV) in the case of the Vishwamitri Riverfront Development Project (VRDP) and post-VRDP phase. This inductive approach records the entire interplay of stakeholders’ decisions and actions through interviews with key decision-makers and analysis of events and communications amongst the stakeholders. Emerging patterns are correlated through content and frequency analyses and are discussed in terms of values, structure, and processes. The case of the VRDP is significant, as the multipronged, persistent intercession by the CCV not only resulted in the withdrawal of the project but set a precedent in the judicial realm towards the scientific understanding of rivers in India. It provides lessons for making course corrections in similar cases and demonstrates that diligent involvement of local citizens and experts along with application of legal tools is crucial for shaping socio-ecological interventions concerning rivers in urban areas.

KEYWORDS: Citizen Action, Riverfront Development, Urban Governance, Socio-ecological Interventions, Environmental Litigation, India

Yu-Kai Liao
International Degree Program in Climate Change and Sustainable Development, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; liaoyk@ntu.edu.tw

ABSTRACT: Shrimp economies in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta are a form of economic, political, and infrastructural project undertaken to address saline water intrusion and increase access to international markets. This paper examines shrimp farming in this region using the concept of hydrosocial life to analyse how water is entangled with life forms and forms of life in bioeconomies from two angles: (1) the ecological conditions of production and (2) agrarian, technical, and environmental changes in the delta. It does so using delta methods, comparing four kinds of shrimp farming: integrated mangrove-shrimp farming, alternating rice-shrimp farming, intensive shrimp farming, and super-intensive shrimp farming. All are conducted by various stakeholders in the rainy and dry seasons and in different parts of the Mekong Delta. This paper argues that shrimp farming organises hydrosocial lives by constructing ecological conditions of production, which are both supported and constrained by the delta as a turbulent environment and an infrastructuralised object. Each kind of shrimp farming requires a distinctive hydrosocial life, imposing uneven impacts on the everyday lives of farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs and producing agrarian transformations, technical development, and environmental changes. Shrimp breeders shift between these four types of shrimp farming in response to household income needs, biosecurity concerns, and policy measures. This paper extends water research and delta studies by exploring relationships between water, life, and economies in a deltaic environment.

KEYWORDS: Shrimp, disease, hydrosocial life, ecological conditions of production, Vietnamese Mekong Delta

John T. Van Stan II
Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA; j.vanstan@csuohio.edu

Jack Simmons
Philosophy and Religious Studies, Georgia Southern University, Savannah, GA, USA; jacksimmons@georgiasouthern.edu

ABSTRACT: In constructing global 'water worlds', modellers stitch together data and theories from disparate locales, weaving them into seemingly universal hydrological frameworks. This approach offers immense scientific efficiencies, enabling planetary-scale predictions of water availability and related ecological, biogeochemical and atmospheric responses. As this paper shows, however, it risks creating 'geographical chimera' of mismatched empirical parts where, for example, British leaves define rainwater storage, fresh-cut Idaho conifers define snow interception, and blotting‐paper bark substitutes for stem evaporation. Each localised study, once transplanted into a global model, can become disconnected from its site‐bound context, potentially distorting science, management actions, and policy. Focusing on forest canopy precipitation interception – the first step in the precipitation‐to‐discharge pathway – this paper reveals how (excellent) decades-old, narrowly framed experiments now anchor universal equations in cutting-edge land surface models. These inherited formulas and parameters risk obscuring local phenomena, devaluing in situ data, and fostering equifinality whereby different configurations yield similar outputs while masking real biophysical processes. In this paper, scientific review is complemented by philosophical critiques, reminding us that abstractions detached from place may become preserved in models through methodological inertia, forming self‐justifying 'mathematical mummies'. We need not abandon universality, but this work aims to reinforce the standing call to embed water models in diverse, site-grounded observations, re-examine entrenched analogies, and embrace pluralistic parameter development. A place-sensitive methodology can prevent 'chimeric' routines from eclipsing the hydrological realities they aim to illuminate, enabling models to better reflect the richly varied planet they represent.

KEYWORDS: Hydrological modelling, precipitation partitioning, canopy interception, ecohydrology, empiricism, place, science philosophy

Laure de Tymowski
Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland; laure.detymowski.2021@mumail.ie

Elliot Hurst
Independent researcher, Canberra, Australia; ehurst@posteo.net

ABSTRACT: Water models are world-making devices that stabilise or remake social structures and power relations. This has spurred calls for deeper explorations of how models are situated within historical and political contexts. The paper examines the flood model used for flood management planning in the River Poddle catchment in Dublin, Ireland. Starting from the death of Celia de Jesus during a 2011 flood in this catchment, we argue that Dublin’s neoliberal property regime is an essential context for situating this model. Using a method grounded in discourse analysis and interdisciplinary dialogue, our situating approach follows the modelling process across two levels: the policy context and the model outputs and outcomes. Irish flood management policy sets strong boundaries for modelling, while embedding property assumptions in the model’s aims, scenarios and maps. Model outputs are shown to effectively serve the interests of real estate actors while negatively impacting those marginalised in property relations. Our critical situating has important implications for those hoping to use or critique models in order to challenge injustice.

KEYWORDS: Flood modelling, situated knowledge, property regime, land justice, Dublin, Ireland

Akash Jash
Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru, India; akash@isec.ac.in

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the Hesaraghatta Waterworks project as a case study of urban water governance in colonial Bangalore, now called Bengaluru. The study investigates how the project’s administrative and institutional dimensions sought to reshape the relationship between water and urban populations. The findings demonstrate that the introduction of piped water through the new waterworks coincided with the emergence of a modern water governance framework. This framework was marked by new rules and legal instruments that attempted to alter the dynamics of water-people interactions in the urban context; in the process, however, it also led to unequal access and distribution of water. Based on these findings, the paper argues that the Hesaraghatta project represented a broad transformation in the social construction of urban water, whereby water shifted from being a shared ecological resource to a centrally governed urban utility, which was characterised by an association with institutional governance, legal control, and commodification. The paper further contends that these administrative and infrastructural changes operated as strategies through which the colonial administration sought to exercise its governmental rationality, rendering water not only a material necessity but also a potential tool for population management and social ordering.

KEYWORDS: Urban water, Hesaraghatta Waterworks, Urban Political Ecology, colonial governance, governmental rationality, Bengaluru, India