Over a billion worldwide lack regular access to safe drinking water. Increasing uncertainty linked with climate change exacerbates the challenge of water security — particularly for the world’s poor. This project aims to address ongoing water governance and security challenges, with focus on the global South. The International WaTERS partnership will do so by: promoting collaborative and comparative research on urban water resilience, with specific focus on rural-urban linkages and institutional, social and equity dimensions (Insight); fostering knowledge mobilization through academic and policy dialogue in our Network and beyond (Connection); and building an extensive network of expertise available to enrich capacity and graduate training at partner institutions (Talent).
Our network will initiate pilot research in 3 sites facing challenges related to the intersection of social equity and water security (Insight). Emphasizing urban-rural linkages, our comparative research will build on the extensive experience of our partners working in Latin America, southern Africa and South Asia with initial study sites in Lima, Cape Town, and Bangalore. The research will:
a) assess equity considerations related to water quality and access,
b) connect this understanding with social-institutional and hydrologic resilience issues important for water governance, and
c) provide an evaluation of how these patterns and processes of inequity possibly impinge on future water resilience in these sites, emphasizing urban form as well as urban-rural linkages (including tradeoffs between different uses, e.g. for irrigation or domestic needs).
Our framework to evaluate the linkages between urban and rural sites, as well as linkages between equity, social-institutional and hydrologic resilience will be developed collaboratively, building on insights from the pilot sites as well as from our collective interdisciplinary expertise. Knowledge mobilization and engagement with key policy and non-governmental communities is also a key dimension of the effort (Connection). Drawing on the comparative insights gained, and the collective expertise of our partners, we will work towards building capacity and responding to key water governance needs in each focal region. Project partners, including academic and NGO collaborators, will participate in the research design and implementation, and work with the Network for appropriate dissemination of results for policy-makers and other constituencies—with the organization of least one major Knowledge Mobilization effort in each region. For training (Talent), our efforts are threefold.
First, we will offer a certificate to graduate students at all of our partner institutions (involving a newly developed MOOC on freshwater at UBC, and a six-unit training module to be developed and made available to all graduate students and practitioners in the network). Second, we will offer training opportunities in each region to build capacity in ways that extend ongoing activities of our partners. Third, we will offer our students access to the considerable expertise of the Network through fellowships as well as collaborative research and publication opportunities.
Our Partners bring an extensive and complementary set of resources to the Network: successful interdisciplinary research and graduate training; collaborative work with international partners; and expertise in policy-relevant research on water governance, equity, and resilience. SSHRC support will enable formalization and extension of the partnership, development of the comparative research agenda, and parallel and collaborative efforts for training and knowledge mobilization.
International WaTeRS key items summary:
Our focus is on Water related training, education and research in the global South, with the particular goals to: promote networking, training, and collaborative/comparative research on water security and resilience, focusing on urban/rural linkages as well as institutional, social and equity dimensions.
Our specific projects include:
Pilot research on the above themes in Bangalore, Lima, and Cape Town. We will conduct this work with the aim of designing and developing further collaborative comparative research, which could then be submitted for other funding, and ultimately scaled up to other sites.
Training :
MOOC (developed by K Baker and launched October 2014) and Six training modules (topics listed below) to be available for a certificate on Water governance challenges in the global South (final curriculum to be decided at Year 1 workshop in Minnesota).
Regional Training workshops (Latin America, Southern Africa, and S. Asia)
Regional training workshops (topics listed below)
Student Fellowships (particularly in support of pilot research efforts) $30K per year.
Knowledge Mobilization:
Regional KM efforts in Year 2. $8 K per region, to be organized by regional partners.
Budget
Governance
Current Steering Committee membership: L Harris, K. Brown, J. Goldin, N. Elema, R. Boelens, G. Damonte and one representative from S. Asia
Advisory Committee will be renamed Management Committee
PI: L. Harris Co applicants: G. Damonte (Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru); K. Bakker, M. Johnson (UBC); K Brown, L. Baker (UMN, ICGC); M. Kooy (UNESCO – IHE); R. Boelens, Wangeningen U; J. Goldin (University of Western Cape), Saciwaters
Collaborators: S. Varghese (IATP); F. Cleaver (King’s College, London); N. Elema (NEPAD, Southern Africa); F. Sultana (Syracuse); M. Hassan (UBC); N. Anand, M. Goldman (UMN, ICGC); G. Veldwisch (Wangeningen); M. Zwarteveen (UNESCO IHE)
See full proposal for other Network members and likely contributors
Partner institutions:
