Water as a resource for humans is fundamentally inequitable: naturally distributed water supplies do not occur where people want them, nor at the times and in quantities and/or qualities that people prefer. Water politics has largely been motivated by goals of securing plentiful, clean, and cheap water supplies and pushing off risks to others. That has resulted in exacerbating natural inequities by routing clean, plentiful, and inexpensive water to the rich and powerful and leaving behind the poor and powerless. In this time of water crisis, priorities and perspectives are changing.
In a recent paper (Gerlak et al., 2022), we analyse the many emerging faces of water equity in the US. Our analysis captures the dominant and emerging framings of the water crisis in the USA and finds that fairness and equity have emerged as prominent values. We understand equity to mean fairness in the water-related decision-making process, that is, full access to information and the ability to participate; equity also means having access to the substance of water-related decisions and outcomes, which is to say being able to modify decisions and outcomes to redress imbalances in power, access, and distributive fairness.
While important work has already been done to dis-entangle the multiple dimensions of water inequity, water injustice is about more than distribution; it is also about the knowledge, meanings and discourse that shape water control and management (Zwarteveen and Boelens, 2014). As Wilder and Ingram (2018) articulate, knowing equity means engaging in a process of "critical inquiry that delves into the value bias of existing institutions and processes, the openness and accessibility of political arenas, an appraisal of what and who is being served by water related decisions, and what and who may be left out." Other researchers argue that "understanding what tips the scales against fairness in water governance is the first necessary step in designing more equitable, just and appropriate institutions and processes (Groenfeldt and Schmidt, 2013). Unfortunately, despite calls for more focus on water equity, widely used structures for analysing water policy fail to prioritise equity (Gerlak and Ingram, 2018).
We argue for an intersectional approach in future research, activism, and practice. The multiple dimensions of water inequity cannot be understood or addressed if they are not analysed with respect to deeper histories of systemic racism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. Pellow (2016) argues that, traditionally, environmental justice scholars tended to focus on one or two dimensions of inequality, neglecting the deeper interlinking systems that shape environmental injustice along multiple lines of social difference. Research and practice focused on water inequity could benefit from an intersectional approach.
The value of, and necessity for, an intersectional approach is well illustrated by the literature on 1) Native American communities in the southwestern USA, 2) colonias, or unincorporated residential areas along the US-Mexico border, and (3) water shut-offs in Detroit, Michigan. These cases show how affordability may be an entry point for understanding water inequity. Affordability, however, is often linked to limited access and issues of quality, which force people to buy water from more expensive sources. This phenomenon is also frequently layered on top of high rates of poverty, which further limits people's capacity to absorb increased water costs. These three examples of water inequity in the USA reveal how race, poverty, and social difference are crucial elements of understanding water inequity – a point that is widely applicable.
There are, however, hurdles and both incentives and disincentives for doing the kinds of intersectional analysis we call. For instance, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a standard for water service affordability, defining it as the expenditure of 2.5% or less of median income on water. However, little data has been collected on the issue and there is no legal framework for enforcement. As there are no national – and few state-level – requirements for water utilities to report on disconnections, the extent of the problem is not clearly understood (Holmes et al., 2020; Walton, 2020). Is 2.5% a reasonable target? Could future state and federal funding be tied to progress towards such a target?
In addition, information on water agency structure, funding, aging infrastructure, limited customer and tax basis are impediments to the kinds of intersectional analysis we call for. Declines in federal funding to agencies are seen as a key driver of rising household water bills. Food and Water Watch (2017) reports that federal funding for infrastructure has dropped by 74% in real dollars since 1977. How might anti-poverty policies at state and federal levels spur innovations in water-rate settings?
Finally, we recognise that unequal access to water is a global problem. This is the reason behind Sustainable Development Goal number six on universal access to clean water and sanitation. The experience of the USA suggests that achieving this goal will require far more than simply increased funding to construct infrastructure: it will require political leadership and mobilisation to give poor communities a stronger voice, and more in-depth inter-sectional research to untangle the complexities.
Andrea K. Gerlak, Elena Louder and Helen Ingram
Andrea K. Gerlak is the Director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona and a Professor in the School of Geography, Development & Environment.
Helen Ingram is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine.
Elena Louder is a graduate student in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona.
Photo credit: A man hauls boxes of bottled water into his home on the outskirts of Tulare, California.AP Photo/Gregory Bull
References
Food and Water Watch. 2018. America's secret water crisis. Washington, DC: Food and Water Watch.
Gerlak, A.K. and Ingram, H. 2018. De-politicized policy analysis: How the prevailing frameworks of analysis slight equity in water governance. In Boelens, R.; Perreault, T. and Vos, J. (Eds), Water justice, pp. 71-88. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Groenfeldt, D. and Schmidt, J. 2013. Ethics and water governance. Ecology and Society 18(1): 14, http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-04629-180114
Holmes, L.; Shimabuku, M.; Feinstein, L.; Pierce, G.; Gleick, P. and Diringer, S. 2020. Issue Brief: Water and the COVID- 19 Pandemic: Equity dimensions of utility disconnections in the US. Oakland, CA: The Pacific Institute.
Mack, E.A. and Wrase, S. 2017. A burgeoning crisis? A nationwide assessment of the geography of water affordability in the United States. PLoS ONE 12(1): 1-19.
Pellow, D.N. 2016. Toward a critical environmental justice studies: Black Lives Matter as an environmental justice challenge. Du Bois Review 13(2): 221-236.
Walton, B. 2020. Lack of utility data obscures customer water debt problems. Circle of Blue. https://www.circleofblue.org/2020/world/lack-of-utility-data-obscures-customer-water-debt- problems/?mc_cid=c74ca0cb7b&mc_eid=e4e8fd57ea (accessed: 06/21/21)
Wilder, M. and Ingram, H. 2018. Knowing equity when we see it: Water equity in contemporary global contexts. In Conca, K. and Weithal, E. (Eds), The Oxford handbook of water politics and policy, pp. 1-28. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zwarteveen, M. and Boelens, R. 2014. Defining, researching and struggling for water justice: Some conceptual building blocks for research and action. Water International 39(2): 233-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2014.891168