Predictions of household water affordability under conditions of climate change, demographic growth, and fresh groundwater depletion in a southwest US city indicate increasing burdens on the poor

Reduced river flows and groundwater depletion as a result of climate change and population growth have increased the effort and difficulty accessing and processing water. In turn, residential water costs from municipal utilities are predicted to rise to unaffordable rates for poor residential water customers. Building on a regional conjunctive use model with future climate scenarios and 50-year future water supply plans, our study communicates the effects of climate change on poor people in El Paso, Texas, as water becomes more difficult and expensive to obtain in future years. Four scenarios for future water supply and future water costs were delineated based on expected impacts of climate change and groundwater depletion. Residential water use was calculated by census tract in El Paso, using basic needs indoor water use and evaporative cooling use as determinants of household water consumption. Based on household size and income data from the US Census, fraction of household income spent on water was determined. Results reveal that in the future, basic water supply will be a significant burden for 40% of all households in El Paso. Impacts are geographically concentrated in poor census tracts. Our study revealed that negative impacts from water resource depletion and increasing populations in El Paso will lead to costly and difficult water for El Paso water users. We provide an example of how to connect future resource scenarios, including those affected by climate change, to challenges of affordability for vulnerable consumers

Water, Climate, and Social Change in a Fragile Landscape

We present here and in the companion papers an analysis of sustainability in the Middle Rio Grande region of the U.S.-Mexico border and propose an interdisciplinary research agenda focused on the coupled human and natural dimensions of water resources sustainability in the face of climate and social change in an international border region. Key threats to water sustainability in the Middle Rio Grande River region include: (1) increasing salinization of surface and ground water, (2) increasing water demand from a growing population in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez area on top of an already high base demand from irrigated agriculture, (3) water quality impacts from agricultural, municipal, and industrial discharges to the river, (4) changing regional climate that portends increased frequency and intensity of droughts interspersed with more intensive rainfall and flooding events, and (5) disparate water planning and management systems between different states in the U.S. and between the U.S. and Mexico. In addition to these challenges, there is an increasing demand from a significant regional population who is (and has been historically) underserved in terms of access to affordable potable water. To address these challenges to water resources sustainability, we have focused on: (1) the determinants of resilience and transformability in an ecological/social setting on an international border and how they can be measured and predicted; and (2) the drivers of change ... what are they (climate, social, etc.) and how are they impacting the coupled human and natural dimensions of water sustainability on the border? To tackle these challenges, we propose a research agenda based on a complex systems approach that focuses on the linkages and feedbacks of the natural, built/managed, and social dimensions of the surface and groundwater budget of the region. The approach that we propose incorporates elements of systems analysis, complexity science, and the use of modeling tools such as scenario planning and back-casting to link the quantitative with the qualitative. This approach is unique for our region, as are our bi-national focus and our conceptualization of water capital . In particular, the concept of water capital provides the basis for a new interdisciplinary paradigm that integrates social, economic, and natural sectors within a systems framework in order to understand and characterize water resources sustainability. This proposed approach would not only provide a framework for water sustainability decision making for our bi-national region at the local, state, and federal levels, but could serve as a model for similar border regions and/or international rivers in arid and semi-arid regions in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America

The Limits Of Critical Pedagogy: Teaching About Structural Obstacles To Students Who Overcame Them

This article focuses on efforts to critically analyze the social reproductive functions of schooling with a group of pre-service teachers in the US–Mexico border region, and on students’ reactions to these efforts. The students – all female, predominantly Mexican-American – had experienced both educational discrimination and academic success, and heavily invested in the dominant view of schooling as a meritocracy where individual talent and motivation regularly overcome structural obstacles. We argue that the students’ ideologies and experiences of class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and language predisposed them to resist analysis of systemic inequalities in schools; we also examine the implications of this resistance for their future success as teachers. We conclude with recommendations for balancing structural pessimism and strategic optimism in the classroom, and for bringing students’ personal and social histories to bear on the contradictions between schooling’s promise of social mobility and its tendency to reproduce social inequality

From Spanish-Only Cheap Labor to Stratified Bilingualism: Language, Markets and Institutions on the US-Mexico Border

Recent sociolinguistic research adds new economic sectors, such as the service economy, to the list of key forces that shape unequal, dynamic and complex diglossia (e.g., Spanish in the United States). However, little detailed work has been done on the linguistic characteristics of specific labor sectors in the wider contexts of ``debordering\u27\u27 and ``rebordering\u27\u27. In this article we develop in depth the market mechanisms and institutional constraints that shape the valuation and social expansion of Spanish in El Paso, Texas. The study finds that in sectors with low skills and low linguistic intensity, linguistic management policies are effectively ``Spanish-only\u27\u27. However, as skills increase and there is a greater need for regulated communication in the occupational role, more constraints are observed on how Spanish functions in work use and professional careers

A Comprehensive Process for Stakeholder Identification and Engagement in Addressing Wicked Water Resources Problems

Various sectors of stakeholders (urban, agricultural, policymakers, etc.) are frequently engaged in participatory research projects aimed at improving water resources’ sustainability. However, a process for comprehensive and integrative identification, classification, and engagement of all types of water stakeholders for a region or river basin, especially in a transboundary context, is missing for water resources research projects. Our objective was to develop a systematic approach to identifying and classifying water stakeholders, and engage them in a discussion of water futures, as a foundation for a participatory modeling research project to address the wicked water resource problems of the Middle Rio Grande basin on the U.S./Mexico border. This part of the Rio Grande basin can be characterized as having limited and dwindling supplies of water, increasing demands for water from multiple sectors, and a segmented governance system spanning two U.S. states and two countries. These challenges are being exacerbated by climate change; a transitioning agriculture to more water demanding, high value crops; urbanization; and growing demand for environmental services. Moving forward, a core question for this region is how can water be managed so that the three competing sectors—agricultural, urban, and environmental—can realize a sustainable future in this challenged water system? We identified the major water-using sectors who represent competing demands as including agricultural, municipal, self-supplied industrial users, environmental, and a sector we labeled “social justice”, comprised of individuals who lack access to potable water, or who represent groups who advocate for access to water. We included stakeholders from both the U.S. and Mexico, which is seldom done, who share transboundary water resources in the region. We hosted a series of stakeholder dialogues and obtained results that identified and described their vision for the future of water; challenges to be overcome; and important research questions that could be addressed using participatory modeling approaches. Four broad themes common to multiple sectors emerged: (1) quantity, drought, and scarcity; (2) quality/salinization; (3) urbanization; and (4) conservation and sustainability. Each sector expressed distinctive views regarding the future of water. Agricultural stakeholders, in particular, had strong feelings of ownership of water rights as part of land ownership and a concomitant sense of threat to those water rights emanating from dwindling supplies and competing demands. The contribution of this work is a methodology for identifying, classifying, and engaging all types of stakeholders in the context of a research project, enabling us to compare and contrast views of different types of stakeholders. Heretofore, this has been accomplished in “bits and pieces”, but never comprehensively and holistically

Predictions of household water affordability under conditions of climate change, demographic growth, and fresh groundwater depletion in a southwest US city indicate increasing burdens on the poor

Reduced river flows and groundwater depletion as a result of climate change and population growth have increased the effort and difficulty accessing and processing water. In turn, residential water costs from municipal utilities are predicted to rise to unaffordable rates for poor residential water customers. Building on a regional conjunctive use model with future climate scenarios and 50-year future water supply plans, our study communicates the effects of climate change on poor people in El Paso, Texas, as water becomes more difficult and expensive to obtain in future years. Four scenarios for future water supply and future water costs were delineated based on expected impacts of climate change and groundwater depletion. Residential water use was calculated by census tract in El Paso, using basic needs indoor water use and evaporative cooling use as determinants of household water consumption. Based on household size and income data from the US Census, fraction of household income spent on water was determined. Results reveal that in the future, basic water supply will be a significant burden for 40% of all households in El Paso. Impacts are geographically concentrated in poor census tracts. Our study revealed that negative impacts from water resource depletion and increasing populations in El Paso will lead to costly and difficult water for El Paso water users. We provide an example of how to connect future resource scenarios, including those affected by climate change, to challenges of affordability for vulnerable consumers