Search results

This paper uses three case studies of urban water conflict in the United States in order to identify and compare solutions. Coupling qualitative data with a unique index of municipal water conservation policy, I examine the different approaches that these three cities adopted in the face of water stress and conflict, as well as the relative strength each approach brought to water conservation. Based on 31 qualitative interviews with water stakeholders in three selected cities (Phoenix, San Antonio, Tampa) and qualitative comparative case histories drawn from newspaper accounts and secondary sources, I find that entrenched conflict over local water resources usually requires action from a higher governing authority, in accordance with theories of multilevel governance. However, multilevel governance is not sufficient to produce strong urban water conservation policies. It is also critical that policy be targeted to meet specific minimum environmental indicators to prevent continued resource depletion. Moreover, a breach of that environmental indicator must trigger some penalty for noncompliance to sustain the resource into the future.

Governance is becoming an increasingly important concept in European theoretical debates and in political practice as a new way to manage public policies, since the public sector reforms in the 1980s. However, the debate in Latin America has different characteristics than in Europe, so it is necessary to provide a critical review of the proposed agenda for the transformation of the state in the region, and of the transfer of the concept of governance by multilateral agencies. To understand these changes, this chapter examines three key areas of reforms in Latin America and the privatization of public services, new social policy proposals, and the decentralization process. This will help us understand the tension between normative models and specific patterns of governance that prevail in Latin America.

The research objectives of this chapter are threefold. First, we explore what is the current status of corporate water accounting tools and methodologies. Second, we develop a framework for analyzing corporate water accounting and reporting. Third, we investigate what French CAC 40 companies account for and report in relations to the water challenge.

We collected annual and sustainability reports from all CAC 40 companies as well as their water Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) responses when available. We also collected all publically available corporate water accounting methodologies to assess the international water accounting field. We coded the data according to our designed framework via qualitative data analysis software.

Although water is seen as equally important to climate change (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 2009), French multinationals have a very immature reporting on this topic. Most still do not report to the water disclosure questionnaire of CDP in 2014 and rely on basic figures such as global water consumption. We analyzed the multiple water accounting, reporting, and risk assessment frameworks that have mushroomed since 2000, and question the impact of this fragmented field on the maturity of the water performance reporting by French companies.

The developed framework for analysis of water reporting can be used for sustainability teaching at university level.

We developed the first comprehensive analytical framework for water corporate reporting assessment. Moreover, this research is the first comprehensive study of water reporting in Europe. We therefore contribute to extend our comprehension of corporate maturity in water stewardship and water performance reporting.

Water insecurity is a big threat and a defining global challenge that causes social dilemma in the society. Analyzing all the previous chapters in this volume, this final chapter will discuss water use and its consequence of social dilemma, the key lessons and observations that trigger water insecurity, major challenges and success factors toward water insecurity, and how water insecurity can be minimized through the involvement of community people, and improvement of social stability in the form of common understanding. This chapter also emphasizes the linkage between local and national levels by the development of Integrated Water Resource Management both in quantity and quality aspects.

If Schumacher's notions of intermediate technology and intermediate size were to underpin the task of visioning a future for our natural resources, it is rather likely that the processes and outcomes to apply would be rather different from those that have driven recent global visioning processes. By way of example, the recent efforts of the World Water Council to engineer a single global vision for the world's water resources provide a setting through which we can consider the relative possibilities for the kind of community-engaged, learning-based visioning process that Schumacher would likely advocate and the ‘old school’ hierarchically and expert-driven alternative that was undertaken by the World Water Council. Visioning is an instrument of community building, so the perspective and tools we use to develop visions are of critical importance to the character and resilience of those communities.