AAG CFP: Geographies of Urban Water: Sustainable Transitions and Security
Annual Meetings of the American Association of Geographers, April 6-10, 2020, Denver, CO
Organizers: Dr. Wendy Jepson, Texas A&M University; Dr. Amanda Fencl, Texas A&M University; Dr. Kyugnsun Lee, Texas A&M University; Dr. Gretchen Sneegas, Texas A&M University
In the face of growing populations and climate change, existing freshwater sources and water infrastructure projects are not adequate to address the challenges of urban water insecurity – particularly adequate water delivery or quality. Desalination and wastewater reuse are seen as major technological interventions to address the increased pressure on freshwater resources from growing urban demands and climate change. These technological advances are making unconventional water production a viable and cost-effective competitor for traditional sources. Critics, however, highlight several impediments to their sustainable implementation: increased water prices, cultural non-acceptance, reliance on technical expertise, pollution outflows, energy demand and costs, and environmental justice concerns.
Critics and proponents tend to consider these interventions as monolithic technologies that can be grafted onto existing hydro-social, institutional, and governance systems. We seek to problematize this view by considering desalination and wastewater reuse as socio-technological systems that intersect and are co-produced in place with local water systems, contexts, institutions, scales, and capacities in distinct ways. From our perspective, the complex nature of water-producing technologies such as desalination and wastewater reuse should not be considered a priori as a panacea to water insecurity in growing urban areas; nor should it be a priori considered an unsustainable, techno-environmental fix. Rather, we approach these technologies as socio-technological systems that reconfigure hydro-social relations in new ways. Thus, our challenge is to identify how new technological interventions can be channeled into pathways towards sustainable water security and urban water transitions.
To answer these questions, we aim to convene multiple sessions examining different facets of these debates. We seek participants who engage questions of socio-technological change, urban water transitions, water governance, and water security to present papers or participate in panel discussions listed below.
Session 1: Political Economies of Global Water: Unconventional Water, Sustainability, and the Global Sector
This session will focus on the nature and dynamics of the global desalination and water reuse (GDWR) sector. As a relatively new group of corporations, investors, and suppliers for alternative water-producing technologies, GDWR plays an important role in the ability of urban centers to adopt and finance these technologies. Moreover, actors in this sector may create technology path dependencies that have substantial impact on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of these unconventional water systems. Yet, we have very little systematic and comprehensive information about GDWR, how it operates as a sector who the major players, investors, and decision makers are, or how these innovation economies operate. Presenters in this session will engage these questions in the context of global political economies of urban water transitions, unconventional water, and finance.
Session 2: What is the Role of “New Water” for Sustainable Urban Water Security?: Policy, Practice, Challenges and Opportunities
As existing freshwater sources and water infrastructure projects are insufficient to address the challenges of urban water insecurity in a changing climate, desalination and wastewater reuse have been received broad attention to address increased pressure on freshwater resources. However, there are several impediments to implement those technological interventions like the need for financing, (re)negotiating water rights, and adapting current management to anticipate governing “new water” sources. In addition, supply-led solutions unevenly impact regional water distribution and advance new business opportunities while side-lining social and ecological value of water. In this context, this session will examine policy, practices, governance challenges, and opportunities of desalination and wastewater reuse as part of future sustainable water provision.
Session 3: Geographies, Governance, and Dynamics of Sustainable Transitions
This panel seeks to encourage and facilitate dialogue on the pathways, processes and politics that address sustainable urban water transitions. We seek participants who can engage or speak to the NSF call for a new convergence science or other transitions frameworks. Specifically, we will ask participants to reflect on previous research and trajectories that inform ongoing urban water transitions, speak to the new geographies and politics of sustainable transition, address the tensions and overlap between urban water security and water transitions research, and/or debate and engage how we study sustainable urban water transitions from both disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.
Please let us know if you are interested in participating by sending an email with a title and abstract or brief summary of ideas to Dr. Gretchen Sneegas (gsneegas@tamu.edu) by 18 September 2019. Full abstracts will be due on 15 October 2019.