Abstract
In the abundant literature on the topic of water, Globalized Water offers an original contribution to the discourse: a collective and contemporary analysis of water resources and supply from a perspective clearly grounded in the social sciences.
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- 1.
A frequently evoked false argument focuses on the abundance or scarcity of stocks or reservoirs of water that may one day run out, like oil. But since the volume of available water on the planet is practically constant, scientists prefer to think in terms of the perpetual cycle of freshwater (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, flow) (De Marsily 2009).
- 2.
“Rés-EAU-ville” Groupement de Recherche du CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)/CNRS Urban Water Research Network.
- 3.
Freshwater accounts for approximately 2.5 % of the Earth’s water (rivers, groundwater, oceans, and ice caps). But water useful to humanity is to be found in water flows, which are a source of re-circulated freshwater (an annual 43,000 km3) (Margat and Andréassian 2008). Globally, the freshwater used by mankind for agriculture, energy, industry, towns, and cities accounts for less than one-tenth of annually available, renewed water, or, in other words, 3,800 km3 per year. Of the volume taken from natural sources, 10 % is used for human consumption (drinking water/domestic water) and a further 10 % is definitively consumed (not returned to the natural environment after use).
- 4.
Water is conditioned by its environment (climate, geomorphology), which dictates the amount of time required to obtain it. Certain properties of water have a decisive influence in terms of social and spatial organization. Its fluidity makes it an ideal transporter; its direction of flow establishes what is upstream from what is downstream, etc. (See also CNRS 2009).
- 5.
The paradox of agricultural irrigation in Nepal—“an abundant resource, carefully distributed”—can primarily be explained in reference to social and familial relations (Aubriot 2004).
- 6.
For the impact of the development of water distribution systems on the emergence of the centralized state, see the debates over the work of Witfogel (1942) and Palem and Wolf (1972).
- 7.
See Chap. 3.
- 8.
- 9.
Definitions of these different forms of water (resource, supply, network) can be found throughout the book.
- 10.
Chapter 17 represents an effort to advance the combination of hydrological and social sciences approaches.
- 11.
The management of a population hit by natural catastrophes (floods, etc.) or water-borne epidemics, for example.
- 12.
The challenge for social sciences is to be recognized as a science with its own scientific objectives and methodologies. In terms of water sciences, social sciences refer to the human dimension associated with governance, policy, and management.
- 13.
Of the 10 multinational water companies, nine are European (the two largest, Suez and Veolia, are French). The French “majors” are the Compagnie Générale des Eaux, now Veolia Environnement, and the Société Lyonnaise des Eaux, now Suez Environnement, a subsidiary of GDF Suez. SAUR is another major group but is less active in the water sector. The world’s two largest bottled water companies are also European. In addition, Europe boasts the world’s largest private investment funds specializing in the water sector as well as the most dynamic water infrastructure construction firms (dams, processing and desalination plants, artificial islands, etc.).
- 14.
World Bank, IMF, OECD, WTO, United Nations/UNESCO International Hydrological Program, World Health Organization, various lobby groups and networks, Global Water Partnership (GWP), Académie de l’Eau, Aquafed, European Water Partnership, RIOB (Réseau International d’Organismes de Bassin), etc. The European actors in the water sector (France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany) define the agenda in a number of different ways and play a central role in driving the process forward.
- 15.
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972.
- 16.
Notably thanks to the organization of the Water Decades: International Hydrological Decade (1965–1974); International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981–1990); International Year of Freshwater (2003); International Decade for Action “Water for Life” (2005–2015); United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014); and a designated World Water Day on March 22.
- 17.
Two major events occurred in 1992 that effectively laid the foundations of the international doxa: the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, where it was declared that “a global management of freshwater is … absolutely indispensable to any action in the decades to come …”, and the Dublin Water Conference, which established that “water in all its competing uses … should be recognized as an economic good.”
- 18.
Affordability is a new concept in the business world reflecting the link between a good or service and the income of the household that wants to buy it.
- 19.
Europe plays a key role in the evolution of the international doxa through the water industry and the network of public European companies providing new management approaches.
- 20.
Originating at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, the “Nueva Cultura del Agua” (New Water Culture) movement proposes a new management paradigm: water as an eco-social asset, management on demand, and the unity of the river basin, with no transfers between basins and no dams. See Chap. 13.
- 21.
The expression was decided collectively during the preparation of the book in Paris (January 2008).
- 22.
See Pierre Bourdieu, “Préface” (Dezalay and Garth 1996).
- 23.
Water model describes a system of relations between techniques, economics, and management.
- 24.
This expression is used to describe the technico-institutional system and the water management culture by which it is characterized in France: decentralized management based on river basins, delegated management, etc.
- 25.
In the book, “water service” or “urban service” also refers to local public water distribution and sanitation services.
- 26.
See Footnote 13.
- 27.
Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia, correctly highlights that “the private sector has a reputation for being more efficient than the public sector [and] offers access to a wide range of sources of funding …” p. 92 op.cit.
- 28.
The ICSID, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, is the World Bank’s arbitration body in Washington, DC.
- 29.
To move forward on the question of governance, it is useful to review the discourse on the global water crisis, which establishes an implicit link with, as well as some confusion about, the growing scarcity of resources. The discourse also raises two critical issues: the imbalance between water resources and needs and the lack of access to drinking water (or clean water). Water resources are unequally distributed around the world. An analysis of water consumption reveals that agriculture—especially irrigation—uses more water than any other sector, including energy and industry. About one billion people living in developing countries, approximately a sixth of the world’s population, have no access to clean drinking water and sanitation (purifying domestic wastewater before disposing of it in the natural environment). There is little correlation between this situation and the issue of scarcity. Indeed, water is particularly abundant in central Africa, south Asia, and Latin America.
- 30.
The offer model refers to the economic, technological, and management system developed worldwide since the end of World War II against a background of rebuilding, economic development, and colonial expansion. It implies that large-scale infrastructure projects sprung up all over the world: dams, irrigation systems, canals, hydroelectric plants, pumping systems, the rerouting of rivers, the transfer of water between river basins, and efforts to dry out marshland. Famous engineering schools are at the basis of the development of this model: École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (France), Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canals y Puertos (Spain), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, etc. The model has since been called into question by the advocates of sustainable development.
- 31.
Schneier-Madanes, G. “L’eau objet social complexe” in Saragosse 2007, Catalogue de l’Exposition Internationale.
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Schneier-Madanes, G. (2014). Introduction. In: Schneier-Madanes, G. (eds) Globalized Water. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7323-3_1
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