Nicolas Faysse
Cirad, UMR G-EAU, National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT), Tunis, Tunisia; G-EAU, Univ Montpellier, AgroParisTech, BRGM, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France; faysse@cirad.fr

Zhour Bouzidi
Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco; z.bouzidi@umi.ac.ma

Jean-Daniel Rinaudo
BRGM, Montpellier, France; G-EAU, Univ Montpellier, AgroParisTech, BRGM, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France; jd.rinaudo@brgm.fr

Zakia Kchikech
Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco; zakia0105@gmail.com

Yvan Caballero
BRGM, Montpellier, France; G-EAU, Univ Montpellier, AgroParisTech, BRGM, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France; y.caballero@brgm.fr

Fatima Zahrae Boubekri
Agroparistech, Paris, France; fatimazahraeboubekri@gmail.com

Abdelouahab Nejjari
Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco; a.nejjari@umi.ac.ma

ABSTRACT: Attempts to establish collaborative groundwater governance (CGG) have so far generally produced limited results in low- and middle-income countries. These shortcomings have been attributed to the high transaction costs associated with such approaches, making them impractical in informal water economies. This paper examines the obstacles to designing and implementing such an approach, through the analysis of a multistakeholder process conducted in a groundwater-depleted area in Northern Morocco. The process brought together farmers, staff members of public organisations, and other stakeholders to explore options for CGG. During the process, farmers created groundwater users associations and together the participants drafted an aquifer contract. The participatory process helped overcome several obstacles to CGG, particularly those related to farmers’ engagement. The finalisation of the aquifer contract was put on hold, however, due to the limited follow-up by state actors, the insufficient coordination among the numerous public actors involved, and weak political support. The study shows that CGG may not be inherently unfit for purpose in at least some low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, the participatory design of CGG can be an opportunity for horizontal dialogue between farmers operating in informal water economies and state administrations.

KEYWORDS: Aquifer contract, collaborative groundwater governance, groundwater depletion, Morocco

Pooja Prasad
School of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India; and Department of Land and Water Management, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands; p_pooja@iitd.ac.in

 ABSTRACT: There is an increasing emphasis in India on building climate resilience through public investments in irrigation. Maharashtra’s Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture is a first such state implementation. Although resilience is a systems concept, the project targets individual farm-level investments. Our aim is to evaluate how these investments reshape water access amongst all farmers and how they impact resilience. In our study area in Jalna district, we evaluate the proposed interventions by combining field data with a modelling approach. Two indices are developed to indicate resilience: Irrigation Risk Index and Lock-in Index. We find that though the project increases the volume of water harvested, farmers are incentivized to use most of it through agricultural intensification with no buffer to deal with shocks. Despite an apparent focus on the resilience, the implementation prioritises increasing productivity of the irrigators over addressing vulnerability of rainfed agriculture. Moreover, the promotion of multiyear orchards creates a lock-in and reduces the adaptive capacity of irrigators. At the same time, due to the common-pool-resource property of water, less is available for the supplemental irrigation needs of other farmers. We conclude that the programme not only reduces resilience but also exacerbates inequity in water access. The research contributes to debates on investments for productive versus supplemental irrigation in rainfed areas. It also highlights the need for incorporating an equity lens when designing for resilience.

KEYWORDS: Climate resilience, agriculture, equity, supplemental irrigation, Maharashtra, PoCRA, India

Frishta Qaderi
Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA, USA; fqaderi@stanford.edu

ABSTRACT: This article explores water governance in Uzbekistan’s Zarafshan River Basin through a socio-legal analysis of human-fish relations. Building on scholarship that conceptualises fish as vessels embodying the biochemical, ideological, and economic forces of riverscapes, this article follows their movements through the domestic and international regimes that govern water, revealing how law, custom, and informal exchange shape everyday life along the river. Ethnographic research illuminates a post-Soviet landscape marked by legal pluralism: While international conventions introduced after the USSR’s collapse largely reinforced Soviet-era governance systems, decades of institutional decay – compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and mounting food insecurity – have opened new spaces for local agency. Humans and fish have formed more-than-human assemblages to navigate this turbulent socio-political, environmental, and economic terrain. Uzbek citizens leverage their relationships with fish to reinterpret and contest water governance, asserting agency beyond formal law, while fish depend on human interventions for survival. This article overall introduces fish as a medium for tracing how legality and life flow through Central Asia’s fluid landscapes.

KEYWORDS: Water governance, human-fish relations, socio-legal studies, Uzbekistan, Aral Sea

Safira Salsabila
Center for Environmental Studies, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia; sfiraabila@gmail.com

Elizabeth MacAfee
Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands; e.a.mac.afee@rug.nl

Arief D. Sutadian
Innovation and Technology, Regional Research and Development Agency (BP2D) of West Java Province, Indonesia; ariefdhany@jabarprov.go.id

Anindrya Nastiti
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia; anindrya@itb.ac.id

ABSTRACT: Dwindling groundwater levels and compromised water quality have led to concerns about the potential for near- and longer-term groundwater crises in the Bandung Metropolitan Area (BMA), located in the Bandung Groundwater Basin of Indonesia. The BMA is a rapidly urbanising region where much of the population relies on groundwater to meet its household needs and and where challenges are being encountered in accessing a reliable groundwater supply. There are multiple perspectives on what aspects of the crisis are most critical and many ideas as to what can and should be done, and with what urgency. Assemblage thinking can help to understand this complex field by highlighting the sociomaterial construction of environmental problems in ways that are always contingent, heterogeneous and influenced by the agency of multiple actors. In this case study, we use media analysis, semi-structured qualitative interviews, document analysis, and participant observation to examine how problematisations of groundwater emerge and coexist. Findings reveal that media narratives, the behaviour of local institutions, and the everyday practices of groundwater users influence water-crisis–related interactions with government and even shape the crisis itself. These dynamics contribute to fragmented groundwater governance where community-led practices coexist with formal institutional arrangements. The study highlights the potential of hybrid governance models to support adaptive and context-sensitive management, particularly in the BMA and in similar urbanising regions.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater, assemblage thinking, urban water management, hybrid governance, Bandung Metropolitan Area, Indonesia

Vandy Yoga Swara
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Social Development and Welfare, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; v.y.swara@uu.nl

Kei Otsuki
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; k.otsuki@uu.nl

Michelle Kooy
Department of Water Governance, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education Delft, The Netherlands; m.kooy@un-ihe.org

Femke van Noorloos
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; h.j.vanNoorloos@uu.nl

ABSTRACT: This article analyses the historical trajectory of landscape transformation in Sepaku Subdistrict, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in order to clarify the extensive impacts of Indonesia’s capital relocation project, officially framed as a 'forest city'. To do this, we specifically focus on the relationship between the river and urbanisation. Theoretically, we draw on the political ecology of urbanisation, which generally focuses on uneven spatial development, and we focus empirically on the historical transformation of the river. Based on seven months of fieldwork (2022-2023), including semi-structured interviews, document analyses, and participant observation, we detail how two moments of state intervention have shaped the relationship between the river and urbanisation. The first moment involves the territorialisation of Sepaku as a productive forest area in the 1960s, transforming natural forests into industrial forests and resettlement zones through extensive transmigrant flows. The planned urbanisation marks the second moment, aimed at transforming Sepaku into a new, sustainable, and inclusive 'forest city'. We argue that the current condition of the river and the city has been iteratively shaped by two moments of socio-spatial and socio-natural transformation. In order to move away from these extractive legacies, further planning for the new capital city should consider this relationship and incorporate the river into its vision of sustainable and inclusive urbanisation.

KEYWORDS: Urbanisation, river, forest extraction, forest city, Indonesia’s new capital

Léo Biré
UMR G-EAU, PhD candidate, IRD, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; ACROSS IJL, IRD, Thuy Loi University, Vietnam; leo.bire@ird.fr

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

Lý Ngọc Thùy Dương
Faculty of Anthropology, University of Social Sciences of Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam; lyduowng@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the everyday practices of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in Vietnam’s Bắc Hưng Hải (BHH) irrigation system, a vast hydrosocial machine in the Red River Delta. Drawing on interviews and detailed ethnographic fieldwork, we document how SLBs (hydraulic cluster managers, station workers and water guides) navigate multiple sociomaterial interfaces, in the course of which they deal with a diversity of day-to-day sociomaterial constraints to make irrigation and drainage work. Far from being faceless agents of a rigid hydrocracy, SLBs care for the infrastructure they manage and engage in continuous sociotechnical tinkering and ethical improvisation to balance competing demands that include farmers’ needs, infrastructure decay, electricity costs, and bureaucratic oversight. We stress how SLBs engage in processes of intermediation, negotiation and bricolage, thereby shaping a particular form of everyday politics that combines formal rules with practical fixes and is epitomised in specific locales, the pumping stations where professional and social lives intertwine. As the Red River Delta faces mounting socio-environmental changes, understanding the hard work, gendered dynamics and situated ethics that characterise SLBs’ daily realities is crucial to anticipating the future of water governance in Vietnam.

KEYWORDS: Street-level bureaucrats, daily practices, irrigation, sociohydrological systems, Red River Delta, Vietnam

Catherine Sutherland
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; Sutherlandc@ukzn.ac.za

Bahle Mazeka
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; elmazeka@gmail.com

Anthony Odili
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; odilia@ukzn.ac.za

Fanele Magwaza
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; fanelem93@gmail.com

Hayley Leck
ICLEI Africa, Durban, South Africa; hayley.leck@iclei.org

Mary Lawhon
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; mary.lawhon@ed.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Water is widely considered to be a basic need, a human right, a resource and a gift from nature, yet there are costs associated with providing it. As states seek to ensure access, controversies remain over water service type, ownership and funding. This paper traces debates over equity, access and costs, and points to a gap between justice-oriented debates and more quantitative studies of non-payment. We respond to this gap by considering the ethical, political and social dimensions of payment, as well as framing it as a relational practice connected to reliable provision. Drawing on surveys, focus groups and interviews from eThekwini Municipal Area – where the legacy of colonialism and apartheid continues to shape material inequality and political positions – we develop a typology for understanding beliefs and practices about payment for water services. Our mixed methods approach enables us to highlight that payment is relational, social and political, and is constructed through conflicting narratives. We consider both the value of a heuristic set of categories and the difficulties of drawing sharp distinctions between the reasons for non-payment. We conclude by reflecting on the difficulty and importance of integrating diverse economic, political economic, and ethical arguments around payment for services.

KEYWORDS: Water, payments for services, infrastructure, water economics, water justice, urban political ecology, eThekwini Municipal Area, South Africa

Hilde Nijland
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; hilde_nijland99@hotmail.com

Sumit Vij
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; sumit.vij@wur.nl

Jeroen Warner
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; jeroen.warner@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: Urban wetlands are essential for sustaining biodiversity, mitigating floods and supporting livelihoods, yet they are among the planet’s most threatened ecosystems. In Guwahati, a rapidly urbanising capital city in Northeast India, wetlands are a critical urban commons. They are shared spaces managed and used by urban communities, and are vital to collective wellbeing. They currently face threats from urban agglomeration, and there remains a significant gap in the understanding of how different and often contesting discourses shape perceptions, uses and governance of these wetlands. This research, therefore, addresses the key question: How are the discourses surrounding Guwahati’s wetlands contested? Employing critical discourse analysis, data collection methods included semi-structured interviews with residents across Guwahati and field observations in the two wetland areas of Deepor Beel and Silsako Beel. Findings suggest that the state (municipal and other line agencies) primarily frames wetlands as a resource for driving urban development – a discourse that is reinforced by the state’s practices. This reflects a growing detachment from these ecosystems and a clear progression towards state control and commodification, where wetlands are transformed from urban commons and meaningful 'places’ into abstract, commercialised 'spaces'. These discourses are used by both the state and several residents, but are challenged by environmentally conscious residents and civil society groups advocating for wetland preservation. These contestations illustrate the complex and conflicting values attributed to urban wetlands. Currently, the state’s modernity agenda seems to take precedence, resulting in their increasing commodification.

KEYWORDS: Urban commons, contested discourses, wetlands, Guwahati, India

Magalie Bourblanc
CIRAD, UMR G-EAU, Université de Montpellier, France; and Extraordinary Lecturer, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria (South Africa); magalie.bourblanc@cirad.fr

ABSTRACT: Water issues in South Africa have been a subject of fascination for numerous scholars around the world. Its ground-breaking National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA), promulgated during the democratic political transition, was meant to introduce a complete overhaul of the water sector and ensure access to water for all. In a society haunted by a long legacy of racial discrimination and exploitation, water was deemed to bring about a process of reconciliation. The NWA quickly became one of the cardinal policy reforms of the newly elected African National Congress (ANC). Twenty-five years after its adoption, however, the results are disappointing. While access to drinking water for previously discriminated-against populations was dramatically improved (especially in urban areas), the same cannot be said of access to water for productive use. Indeed, regarding the water allocation reform in rural South Africa, 'water apartheid' is still alive and well. In their accounts of the failure of the reform, scholars often blame politicians and political elites for their supposed lack of willingness to follow up on the intentions of the progressive Act. In the tradition of public policy analysis, I concentrate on the policy side rather than on the politics to explain the failed promise of the water allocation reform. Reviewing the law implementation process, I analyse how policy objectives have been filtered through state departments’ organisational culture and professional routines and operationalised on the ground through technical policy instruments. Ultimately, I shed light on how, despite new political principles and dispensations that claim the contrary, it has been possible to reproduce racial inequality and to further entrench inequalities inherited from the past. I show that this has been done by concealing water grabs from political attention through resorting to discreet policy instruments and practices that obscure the critical question of water sharing.

KEYWORDS: South African National Water Act, implementation, policy review, policy instruments, water allocation redistribution, South Africa

Farhad Mukhtarov
Assistant Professor of Governance and Public Policy, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, Netherlands; mukhtarov@iss.nl

Des Gasper
Professor Emeritus, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, Netherlands; gasper@iss.nl

Michael Farrelly  
Independent researcher, Sheffield, United Kingdom; michaelfarrelly@discourseacademy.org

Malte Lüken
Research Software Engineer, Netherlands e-Science Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; m.luken@esciencecenter.nl

Kody Moodley
Senior Research Software Engineer, Netherlands e-Science Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; k.moodley@esciencecenter.nl

ABSTRACT: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has established itself since 2009 as an authority in water governance. This paper examines the strategies behind that emergence, applying quantitative and qualitative text analysis techniques to a corpus of 55 OECD documents produced between 2009 and 2022. We discern five legitimating strategies. First, the OECD followed a formula from its earlier engagement in other fields that had three components: 1) reframing existing knowledge and manufacturing a declared consensus in contentious areas, 2) formulating and disseminating blueprints for good governance, and 3) formulating and disseminating corresponding frameworks with which to evaluate performance. Its second strategy has been to stress topics and themes where it already had an established reputation, that is, 'good governance' and 'new public management'. The third strategy involved referencing a limited pool of external sources that were mostly from other international organisations and consultancy groups, and underutilising the academic literature on the subject. Fourth, it referenced itself extensively in both formal citations and frequent in-text references. Fifth and finally, it orchestrated temporary networks of actors to endorse its efforts and tools. Taken together, these strategies point to the self-referential nature of the OECD’s authority in this new field. We call attention to these legitimating strategies with the goal of challenging the OECD and other international organisations to adopt more adequate and inclusive knowledge bases.

KEYWORDS: OECD, water governance, authorisation, soft power, critical discourse analysis, Structural Topic Modelling

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