Franck Poupeau

Brian F. O'Neill

Joan Cortinas Muñoz

Murielle Coeurdray

Eliza Benites-Gambirazio

Bringing together the analysis of a diverse team of social scientists, this book proposes a new approach to environmental problems. Cutting through the fragmented perspectives on water crises, it seeks to shift the analytic perspectives on water policy by looking at the social logics behind environmental issues. Most importantly, it analyzes the dynamic influences on water management, as well as the social and institutional forces that orient water and conservation policies. The first work of its kind, The Field of Water Policy: Power and Scarcity in the American Southwest brings the tools of Pierre Bourdieu’s field sociology to bear on a moment of environmental crisis, with a study of the logics of water policy in the American Southwest, a region that allows us to see the contest over the management of scarce resources in a context of lasting drought. As such, it will appeal to scholars in the social and political sciences with interests in the environment and the management of natural resources.

Power and Scarcity in the American Southwest

The Field of Water Policy

Hoshin Gupta

Susan Harris

Aleix Serrat-Capdevila

Maria A. Sans-Fuentes

László G. Hayde

As the American Southwest faces its deepest drought in history, this book explores the provocative notion of “water bankruptcy” with a view towards emphasizing the diversity and complexity of water issues in this region. It bridges between the narratives of growth and the strategies or policies adopted to pursue competing agendas and circumvent the inevitable. A window of opportunity provided by this current long-term drought may be used to induce change by dealing with threats that derive from imbalances between growth patterns and available resources, the primary cause of scarcity. A first of its kind, this book was developed through close collaboration of a broad range of natural scientists, social scientists, and resource managers from Europe and United States. It constitutes a collective elaboration of a transdisciplinary approach to unveiling the inner workings of how water was fought for, allocated and used in the American Southwest, with a focus on Arizona. Specifically, it offers an innovative scientific perspective that produces a critical diagnostic evaluation of water management, with a particular view to identifying risks for the Tucson region that is facing continuous urban sprawl and economic growth. The book offers a diversity of complementary perspectives, including a statement of natural resources, biodiversity and their management, an analysis of water policy and its history, and a statement of ecosystem services in the context of both local biodiversity and also the economic activities that sustain economic growth. Finally, it presents a concerted effort to explore the interplay between a variety of related scientific disciplines and frameworks including climatology, hydrology, water management, ecosystem services, societal metabolism, political economy and social science.

Water Bankruptcy in the Land of Plenty

Franck Poupeau

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