Hydrosocial Hinterlands: An Urban Political Ecology of Southern California’s Hydrosocial Territory

Urban political ecology (UPE) has conceptualized the city as a process of urbanization rather than a bounded site. Yet, in practice, the majority of UPE literature has focused on sites within city limits. This tension in UPE evokes broader conversations in urban geography around city-as- place versus urbanization-as-process. In this paper, I bring a UPE analysis to examine co- constitutive urbanization and ruralization processes, focusing on sites beyond city boundaries in three empirical case studies located within the broader hydrosocial territory of urban Southern California. By focusing on the rural components of hydrosocial territories, I show that each of the three case studies has been shaped in very different ways based on its enrollment within urban Southern California’s hydrosocial territory; in turn, the rural has also shaped the cities through flows of politics and resources. The paper demonstrates how UPE can be usefully applied to understand rural places, illustrating how processes of urbanization can be involved in the production of distinctly rural – and distinctly different—landscapes. The cases demonstrate the utility of urban political ecology as an analytical framework that can examine co-constitutive urbanization/ruralization processes and impacts while maintaining enough groundedness to highlight place-based differences

Examining the complex relationship between innovation and regulation through a survey of wastewater utility managers

Despite pressures to increase performance and decrease costs, innovation has been slow to emerge in the municipal wastewater sector. The relationship between regulation and innovation in this sector is a particularly interesting aspect of this conundrum, given the degree to which public utility decision-making is influenced by regulation. Using a national survey, this paper examines US wastewater utility managers’ perceptions of how regulation influences the adoption of new technologies. Recognizing that the relationship between innovation and regulation is complex, we develop the concept of regulation as multifaceted and examine three interrelated aspects of regulation: (1) regulatory requirements, (2) regulators and relationships, and (3) the broader regulatory environment. Specifically, we seek to understand whether and in what ways wastewater utility managers perceive these aspects of regulation as hindering or encouraging the adoption of new technologies. We find that, although stringent effluent limitations are perceived to be a moderate barrier to innovation, most survey respondents did not identify weakening them as a way to encourage innovation. Instead, respondents generally identified factors related to regulatory relationships and factors related to the broader regulatory environment as barriers to innovation, and indicated that addressing these aspects of regulation would encourage innovation. We conclude that loosening or tightening regulatory requirements is not the most effective way to promote innovation in the municipal wastewater sector. Rather, those parties with an interest in innovation can focus on helping utilities and regulators build relationships and better navigate the processes that influence decisions about new technologies

The Complexities of Irrigation Efficiency: Groundwater Data, Agro-Hydrology, and Water Decision-Making in Central Oregon

Irrigation efficiency projects aim to conserve water for in-stream flow and agricultural use by reducing water losses throughout the system. Piping irrigation canals is a common irrigation efficiency method that results in trade-offs: while it increases efficiency of irrigation water conveyance, it reduces incidental groundwater recharge. This paper focuses on the data and decision-making of canal piping, focusing primarily on understanding the potential impacts of reduced canal leakage on shallow wells. By conducting a spatial analysis of shallow wells in the basin at risk of being impacted by canal piping, and combining this with interviews with water managers in central Oregon’s Upper Deschutes Basin, we demonstrate the complex socio-natural dynamics and politics of water conservation decision-making. The research finds that irrigation canal piping is fully supported by water managers in the study area as a means of physically shifting flows of water towards particular valued uses, yet at the same time there is not enough data to understand the potential impacts of canal piping on water users reliant on canal seepage. Given the lack of localized shallow groundwater monitoring data, water managers are reliant upon basin-scale model predictions when defining the trade-offs in canal piping. Broadly, the research demonstrates that well-intended water management decisions can have trade-offs and impacts that are not well understood, pointing to the need for more groundwater monitoring and critical attention to the multiple scales of irrigation efficiency to inform the co-management of surface water and groundwater for the many water users within a basin

Just Water Transitions at the End of Sugar in Maui, Hawai\u27i

In December 2016, Hawai‘i saw its last sugar harvest on a 36,000-acre plantation in Maui. In the preceding decades, Native Hawaiians had struggled to regain their water rights from a failing sugar industry that had dewatered the island\u27s streams for centuries. Now, with the end of sugar, Native Hawaiian and environmental groups are working to restore traditional practices and diversified agriculture—goals which hinge upon changing water management practices and rewatering Maui\u27s streams. In this paper we combine frameworks from the water justice literature with a just transitions framework typically applied to energy landscapes in order to examine ‘just water transitions’ in Maui. By synthesizing these frameworks, we show how water-based economic transitions can address the tradeoffs and reconfigurations of infrastructure and power required for a more just future. We examine three distinct visions of water management promoted by coalitions of actors in support of different types of agricultural production systems for the island. We argue that a just water transition – that is, a move toward a more culturally, politically, and ecologically just management of water – must engage with water-specific, place-specific, and historically grounded factors including the legacies of infrastructure, water laws, and powerful agricultural interests

Plantation Pasts, Plantation Futures: Resisting Zombie Water Infrastructures in Maui, Hawai\u27i

Sugar plantations have fundamentally shaped water use in Maui, Hawai’i for over 100 years, with tremendous resulting impacts on ecosystems and Native Hawaiian communities. In this paper, we build on literature on the plantationocene and the political lives of infrastructure to examine plantation irrigation infrastructure. We center Maui’s vast water conveyance ditch system as a means of understanding how infrastructure continues plantation logics into the present, considering both the physical ditches themselves as well as the laws and politics which support continued water extraction. We also consider infrastructural futures, highlighting ongoing efforts of communities seeking water justice via infrastructural control

Virtual Water and Agricultural Exports During Recent Drought in California

In recent years, the western United States has been experiencing severe droughts. In this paper we focus on the state of California, which has a complex and vast water conveyance and irrigation system to support intensive agricultural production. We examine agricultural production and exports, in particular ‘virtual water’ exports, to better understand whether and how agricultural producers responded to recent drought conditions. We specifically focus on agricultural exports from 2010 to 2019 in order to better understand virtual water export during the recent drought. We show that despite occurrence of severe drought, California growers have largely continued their agricultural production and exports. The value of agricultural exports between 2010 and 2019 increased by 1.5 times. Water-intensive agricultural products, including dairy products and tree nuts, represent a high proportion of agricultural exports. This persistence of agricultural production and export is made possible due to a reliance on water management strategies that are unsustainable in the long term—primarily, in the case of California’s Central Valley, overdraft of groundwater. We argue that despite recent policy advances such as attempts to control groundwater overuse, California’s continued agricultural production and export system exacerbates an unsustainable situation, given persistence of drought conditions and the need to support many other human and ecological water uses

Understanding Perspectives on Climate Hazards, Water Management, and Adaptive Transformation in an Exurban Community

Climate change and exurban development pose challenges for water resources. This paper examines the perceptions and adaptive responses to those stressors among stakeholders engaging in exurban water management. Drawing on 42 interviews with planners, water managers, and local experts, we analyze perspectives on water-related hazards in the Hood River watershed, Oregon, and identify contrasting approaches to adaptation. Interview subjects identified climate-related hazards as most significant, with relatively less – although not insignificant – concern about development. Interviewees understood the role of the Watershed Group in four different ways: resistance to change, sustaining the present system, adapting to improve resilience, or transformational adaptation. Despite tensions between these approaches, the Watershed Group empowers local actors, offering grounds for social development. This study indicates that exurban areas may be poised to experiment and develop methods of collaborative resource management that reconcile different interests toward transformational adaptations to the dual challenges of climate change and urbanization

Working (around/within/against) Prior Appropriation: Diverse Hydrosocial Practices to Secure Water for Rivers

Water scarcity in the Western US, through the lens of political ecology, can be understood as inextricably shaped by power dynamics, governance structures, and legal practices of resource allocation. Water allocation in the region is determined largely by the legal doctrine of Prior Appropriation, the \u27first in time, first in right\u27 principle. However, prior appropriation is fundamentally based in anthropocentric and settler colonial assumptions, and in light of drought, climate change, and shifting social and environmental values, the system has been critiqued as inadequate to meet contemporary water challenges. Despite challenging historical legacies, water managers in the Western US are developing a range of strategies to work around or within prior appropriation to secure environmental flows for rivers and aquatic species. In this article we use political ecology and diverse economies approaches to consider the challenges of, and challenges to, prior appropriation. We examine a diverse set of practices, work-arounds, and creative strategies being used to secure instream flows, and discuss how these strategies affirm or challenge prior appropriation, how they reinforce or challenge inequities, and how they reform or re-envision water allocation in ways that may open up potential for social and environmental justice

NewWater Regimes: An Editorial

This editorial is an introduction to the special issue of Resources on New Water Regimes. The special issue explores legal geographies of water resource management with the dual goals of providing critiques of existing water management practices as well as exploring potential alternatives. The papers in the special issue draw from numerous theoretical perspectives, including decolonial and post-anthropocentric approaches to water governance; social and environmental justice in water management; and understanding legal ecologies. A variety of themes of water governance are addressed, including water allocation, groundwater management, collaborative governance, drought planning, and water quality. The papers describe and analyze water issues and new ideas in multiple countries, including Australia, Ecuador, New Zealand, India, and the United States