Hydrosolidarity and beyond: can ethics and equity find a place in today's water resource management?

Abstract

The notion of hydrosolidarity has permeated international discourses on water management, but it has received little comprehensive review. This paper traces the intellectual origins of hydrosolidarity and it explores how the concept has been applied by water scholars, organizations and in global water venues, like World Water Forums. Evolving conceptions and meanings of hydrosolidarity are presented and its kinship to related, sometimes oppositional terms, untangled. In particular, it explores how hydrosolidarity has evolved to serve as a socio-ethical annex to integrated water resources management. The paper concludes by examining some critiques and addressing the potential of hydrosolidarity in water management.

Keywords:

• hydrosolidarity
• ethics
• equity
• human welfare
• fairness
• integrated water resource management

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge long-term support for their research on water-management policy from the Morris K. and Stewart L. Udall Foundation; UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme; and the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, the Water Resources Research Center, and the Institute of the Environment – at the University of Arizona. In addition, many insights were obtained in the course of research conducted under the auspices of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, the Netherlands-based Dialogue on Water and Climate, and the US–Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program. The ideas at the core of this paper are ruminations on and elaborations of those developed by a long line of scholars and thinkers in the realm of water policy studies. Finally, the authors are especially grateful to Emily McGovern of the Udall Center for her insightful review of this paper and helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. Transdisciplinarity can be seen as a way to produce new concepts, methods and knowledge without any explicit reference to the core of a single discipline, or as a way to produce new knowledge from the interaction between scientist and non-scientist (Petit et al. 2010).