Advanced Review

Political ecology of water conicts

Beatriz Rodrguez-Labajos and Joan Martnez-Alier

This article reviews methodologies, types, and political implications of water

conicts from a political ecology perspective. The political ecology of water studies
the conicts on water use, whether as an input or as a vehicle for waste disposal.
Both the quantity and the quality of water are relevant for conicts on water as
a commodity and also indirectly in conicts on water from oil and gas extraction,
mining, or biomass production. This study provides an overview and classication
of water conicts, showing how social movements born from such conicts are
creatively generating new modalities of water management and governance in
the process. To this end, this article rst examines methodological approaches
for the analysis of water conicts and water justice. Then, a taxonomy of water
conicts based on the stages of the commodity chain is presented and discussed.
Afterward, empirical evidence is collected showing how social mobilizations
in water conicts become effective providers of management alternatives and
governance modalities. Water justice movements and organizations have formed
networks, have proposed new principles of water management, and have not only
been active in the promotion of the human right to water but also in the recognition
of water, along with other elements of nature, as a subject of rights. 2015 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc.

How to cite this article:

WIREs Water 2015, 2:537558. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1092

INTRODUCTION agency, water accumulates polluting substances and

T here is a hydrological cycle, which would also
exist if there were no humans.1 Driven by sun
energy, this cycle has a fundamental importance in
the regulation of climate and on life in the planet.2
Yet human agency has come to shape the circulation
of water, through canals and dams, with abstractions
for irrigation and drinking water, and modifying the
chemical, biological, and morphological properties of
the watercourses for the benefit of some sectors of the
population, and to the detriment of others. This is the
hydrosocial cycle.3,4
Humans require certain amounts of water of
different quality (e.g., for drinking, agriculture, or
to cool thermoelectric power stations). Following
Naredo (Ref 5, p. 14), the gradient of the water
quality tends to decrease as it becomes available as
rain or snow until it reaches the sea. Through human
Correspondence to: labajos_bea@yahoo.com
Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous
University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Cerdanyola del Valls, Spain
Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest
for this article.
organismsmaking it unavailable for some human
usesuntil it reaches its maximum level of entropy
on reaching the sea.6 Then, solar radiation returns
water to the clouds and the cycle continues sustainably
although the global entropy production may have
grown.7
Of course, natural water pollution occurs
sometimes, as in the case of bedrock formations that
contain arsenic.8,9 Regularly, although, when a mining
company or urban populations use water to evacuate
waste, the quality goes down. Therefore, it cannot be
used in other applications such as irrigation in agricul-
ture unless its quality is enhanced again through costly
water treatments. Changes in quality maybe related to
human-induced chemical pollution,10 thermal,11,12 or
microbiological pollution.13 There is also the concept
of biopollution to refer to damaging alien species
introduced in aquatic ecosystems as an outcome of
human action.14,15
Historically, water management systems are
designed to influence the hydrosocial cycles by
reshaping the river basin waterscapes.1619 The
search for adequate quantity and quality of water has
motivated the construction of wells and cisterns to

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 Advanced Review
collect rainwater for domestic use in areas of brackish
groundwater and scarce surface water.20 It has also
motivated interbasin transfers of water19,21,22 and
investmentsin money and energyto obtain fresh
water through desalination plants.23,24
The reshaping of the hydrosocial cyclealways
embedded in historical and sociocultural
contexts25 generates both positive and negative
effects for different types of actors, who therefore
perceive such changes differently. From this, socioen-
vironmental conflicts about water management arise.
In general, ecological distribution conflicts are studied
by political ecology, a field created by geographers,
anthropologists, and environmental sociologists.26
In this article, we study the political ecology
of water, focusing on the connection between water
conflicts and water-based activism, which has not
been given much attention in scientific literature.
Therefore, the main rationale behind this article is
bringing together the literatures on political ecology,
water justice studies, and ecological distribution con-
flicts. While systematicallya examining the interplay
between the above fields, a key concern has been to
highlight novelty, without neglecting well-established
assertions in each field. The review aims at being an
entry point to the study of water conflicts for politi-
cal ecologists, and for water researchers from different
disciplines who search clarification on the use of polit-
ical ecology terms and approaches, particularly with
application to bottomup water governance. As an
additional value added, the study brings to a broader
audience contributions from a fertile Hispanophone
literature on water justice studies and activism.
In particular, our aim is to provide an overview
and classification of water conflicts, showing how
social movements are creatively trying to solve or deal
with themgenerating new modalities of water man-
agement and governance in the process. To this end,
this article first examines methodological approaches
for the analysis of water conflicts. Then, examples
are discussed introducing a taxonomy of water con-
flicts based on the stages of the commodity chain. A
section follows on social mobilizations in water con-
flicts as effective providers of management alternatives
and governance modalities. Conclusions are drawn in
the final section.
POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND WATER
JUSTICE
Political ecology studies how the distribution of
power (which is the main subject of political sci-
ence) determines the use of the natural environ-
ment between categories of humans and with regard
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to other species.27,28 The focus of political ecol-
ogy is on how the costs and benefits associated
with environmental change are unevenly distributed
among humans. For instance, women are particularly
exposed to tensions related with (safe) water access
and unequal distribution of labor, and emotional man-
agement costs.9 Another angle is to understand how
a reduction of inequalities of gender, caste, race, or
social class empowers the unprivileged, and changes
ecological distribution.27
There are two main styles of political ecology
(Ref 26, p. 256). The first combines human ecol-
ogy (mainly, the analysis of the social metabolism)
with social and political analysis, i.e., how different
social actors at different scales contest the claims of
other actors to resources in a particularly ecologi-
cal context.29 Examples of this view would be stud-
ies focusing on inequitable and unsustainable water
distribution30 ; or the critical role of politics in the
maintenance of water metabolism.31
However, apart from empirical unequal uses and
practices, there is a political ecology that also consid-
ers the construction of environmental or water knowl-
edge (and the role of science and policy herein), and
the battle of water-based subjectivities,32 narratives,33
and epistemologies.34 This second style centres more
on the different interpretations of natural or techni-
cal facts (such as the meanings of water scarcity35 or
water security36 ).
It is clear that the political ecology of water
has a hybrid character where biophysical and soci-
etal explanations are deeply intertwined.37 Because
of the inescapability from material constraints in sus-
tainability debates3840 and because of the poten-
tial of such materiality to facilitate multidisciplinary
debates,41,42 this article tends to be written in the first
style. Even though we acknowledge that in field or
factory, in ghetto or grazing ground, struggles over
resources [or over pollution] have always been strug-
gles over meanings (Ref 43, p. 13).
The simultaneous natural and social ontologies
of water25,44 are pertinent for the notion of water
justice of hydric justice. This can be considered as
an application of the wider notion of environmen-
tal justice (EJ) that arose in the early 1980s in the
United States from the inequity in the distribution
of environmental risk among different social seg-
ments of society.45 The definition expanded to encom-
pass the recognition of representation of the social
actors involved, and the guarantees for their effective
participation.46,47 In the last decades, the EJ discourse
has grown geographically, horizontally across a broad
range of issues, vertically in the global nature of injus-
tices, and conceptually in relation with the nonhuman
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 WIREs Water
world.48,49 The new movements for water justice or
hydric justice, born from local conflicts and struggles
on water, are part of the world movements for EJ.
From their standpoint, water runs in the direction of
power or (at the same time) towards money.50
METHODS AND APPROACHES FOR
THE ANALYSIS OF WATER CONFLICTS
Political power appears in political ecology on two
levels: first, the power to impose a decision by rea-
son or by force; and second, the power to impose a
procedure that legitimizes the decision, including pro-
cesses of knowledge generation. Thus, naked power
can impose a decision on building a dam because of
the rulers will, while procedural power will consist in
the ability to make a rule, e.g., that a cost-benefit anal-
ysis (CBA) supplemented by an environmental impact
assessment is needed to justify the decision.
In this section, we review different approaches
(water social metabolism and ecosystem service assess-
ment) and methods, such as multicriteria evaluation
(MCE) and conflict mapping, that political ecologists
can use in order to understand the implications of
water management for different types of groups, par-
ticularly those that usually lack recognition in stan-
dard evaluation procedures. The selected methods and
approaches were chosen on different grounds directly
related with the key enquiries in political ecology.
First, they are tested methods that go beyondbut
includemonetary costs and benefits. Second, they
are capable to recognize the values of water use and
unveil different ways to express them. Third, they can
be easily employed in bringing forward the voice of
the less powerful (such as marginal groups and nature)
when water gets (re-)distributed.
CBA Versus Plurality of Values and MCEs
In economics, CBA has been applied since the 1940s
to legitimize decisions on multipurpose development
of river basins. It has traditionally played a key role
in favoring dam projects,51 although it has also jus-
tified dam decommissioning.52 CBAs since Krutillas
contribution53 considered recreational values (ameni-
ties) of aquatic ecosystems for fishing or for sports
or for the contemplation of beautiful landscapes, as
monetary values growing in importance in time com-
pared to the revenue from the production of electricity
and water for irrigation. Whatever its outcome, CBA
by definition imposes commensuration,54 with dis-
counted monetary valuationin actual or fictitious
marketsof all cost and benefits. Commensuration
precludes some groups from deploying valuation
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Political ecology of water conicts
languages that rely on alternative rationalities, e.g., in
terms of indigenous territorial rights, livelihood val-
ues, or sacredness.
From a political ecology perspective, there are
multiple ways in which impacts (or external costs) are
created and affect particular groups, e.g., water short-
age, floods, and pollution.19 The MCE approach arose
against CBA. It enables a plural account of the eco-
logical functions of water in the ecosystems and their
associated values, which are not readily measurable in
money terms or in any other single unit. MCE meth-
ods help to structure social-choice problems involving
ecological, social, political, and economic objectives
in conflict, considering various interest groups and dif-
ferent valuation languages.55 Technical MCE are help-
ful to explore policy options and constraints in cases
where water conflicts have been exacerbated by public
policies in the past, like in the conflicts between eco-
logical conservation and agricultural development in
the Sanjiang Plain of China.56 Methods that account
for different types of knowledge and provide opportu-
nities for participation and learning, support delibera-
tions in environmental conflicts.57 Such kind of social
MCEs have been used, e.g., in cases of water conflict
in Southern Europe.5860
Water Social Metabolism
From the point of view of social metabolism, the nat-
ural water cycle is a fund which constantly provides
a flow of products and services, including water sup-
ply, an ever-renewable resource whose future avail-
ability does not depend on whether we use more
or less of it. Water evaporates using solar energy
and precipitates in similar amounts from year-to-year
although with regional variability. However, they are
also exhaustible water stocks. When groundwater
pumping exceeds the replenishment rate then the
aquifer gets depleted. This is similar to a biological
renewable resource (timber or fish) that can become
exhausted, although here the renewal rate does not
depend on the biological reproduction but on the
infiltration of water. Another effect of the destruc-
tion of water stocks is salinization and the subsidence
and consequent compaction of the aquifer with loss
of storage capacity. Surface water stocks, as those
in glaciers providing peasant communities with irri-
gation water,61 decline due to global climate change
or direct impacts of human activities.61,62 What was
renewable becomes exhaustible.
Virtual water (VW) is the amount of water used
in the process of production of goods throughout their
life cycle.63,64 The per capita consumption of VW
contained in the diet varies according to the type of
diet. While a subsistence diet may require volumes in
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 Advanced Review
the order of 1 m3 /day, a meat-based diet means a use of
VW of over 5 m3 /day.65 The volume of VW trade and
the trade connections are twice as big as two decades
ago, increasingly pressuring water scarce sources.66
In the same vein, the water footprint (WF) of
an entity (individual, community, or company) is the
total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods
or services consumed by this entity.67 The concept
can be divided into the blue water (that is extracted
from the rivers, lakes, and aquifers in production
processes, such as, e.g., irrigation), the green water
(evapotranspired during the growth of crops), and
grey water (contaminated by agricultural, industrial,
or domestic use).68 The Water Footprint Networkb
provides examples pointing to the inequities in the use
of water. Chinas WF is in the order of 700 m3 /year
per capita, of which only 7% is obtained outside its
borders. In contrast, also in Asia, the Japanese have
on average a footprint of 1150 m3 /year, 65% obtained
abroad.
The potential for using VW and WF indica-
tors for understanding tensions and power struggles
from water-related policy choices was noticed early
(e.g., interpreting the discourse for water in South-
ern Africa69 ) but not fully developed. In fact, while
the VW and WF indicators account for the water
flows associated with a given economic or social entity,
they do not properly analyze the interdependencies
between production and consumption processes and
the properties of the water cycle in which they are
constrained.70 New developments in this respect high-
light the limits of human appropriation of water, by
withdrawal or pollution, based on the stability of the
ecological (hydrological) funds.71
The Ecosystem Service Approach
Water has functions of ecosystem support prior to
any human extraction, because without them life
would not be possible.2 Ecosystems water demands
depend heavily on their plant communities. Thus, the
existence of areas with little natural vegetation can be
understood as an ecological response to low rainfall.
The introduction of irrigated vegetation in such areas
generates scarcity, as with the introduction of golf
courses covered by grass in the Mediterranean, or
the extension of the agriculture frontier in seasonally
water-scarce areas.19 In absence of this, the natural
availability of water in each territory determines the
kind of benefits that humans can expect of their
ecosystems.
The identification of the environmental services
provided by aquatic ecosystems is important for polit-
ical ecology. In the 1990s, one decade before the 2005
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Daily72 and De
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Groot7375 supported vigorously the notion of envi-
ronmental services seeking to analyze how the ecolog-
ical functions serve human purposes, such as the water
cycle (evaporation and precipitation) and the carbon
cycle (Table 1). More recently, the initiative The Eco-
nomics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)89 ded-
icated one of its reports to the nexus between the
hydrological cycle and the provision of ecosystem
services in aquatic ecosystems such as coral reefs,
coastal systems, mangroves, other wetlands, rivers,
and lakes.90
Environmental conflicts about water can be seen
as conflict over who takes advantage and who loses
access to environmental services,91 either services of
provision, regulation, cultural, or support. Table 1
provides supporting examples of water-related ecolog-
ical distribution conflicts across these categories.
The complete appropriation of biophysical pro-
cesses of river basins is often the foundation of
large projects of economic development, as in the
long-standing efforts by the different countries along
the Mekong basin to build dams.79 However, tradeoffs
between ecosystem services are common, as in the case
of irrigation and nature conservation19,56,86 or hydro-
electric power production and support services.84,88
From there, there is an emergence of social conflicts
that can be studied looking at the languages of valua-
tion deployed and the power of those involved.
Ecosystem services are fundamental in the sur-
vival and livelihoods of the rural poor and their loss
may result in increased poverty.92 Today, it is common
to preach in favor of the payment for environmental
services (PES) to deal with these conflicts. A city down-
stream can pay to communities upstream for taking
care of the water, compensating them financially for
conservation practices or for not contaminating with
agrochemicals. Here the distribution of power and
the distribution of income are relevant, beyond mar-
ket mechanisms and charming Coasian negotiations.
For example, the sugar cane producers of the Valley
of Cauca in Colombia make a token payment to the
indigenous villages upstream.93 These payments are
gradually changing property rights, so that the pow-
erful cane growers feel already as owners of the water
against the indigenous populations. The use of the
ecosystem services framework, in particularly in rela-
tion with PES, is seen as a step forward in the direc-
tion of natures commoditization.94 For this reason,
its application for the study of environmental con-
flicts is fiercely contested by some EJ organizations.
Moreover, to offset damage is not always possible.
A confluence of rivers (prayag, in the Himalayas) or
a waterfall can be a place of worship, sacred to the
local population.83 If it is destroyed to build a dam,
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 WIREs Water Political ecology of water conicts

TABLE 1 Ecological Distribution Conicts on Water and Ecosystem Service Provision

Categories Services Example of related References
Provision Food provision (biophysical base for Tensions in transition from commercial shing to an 76
shing, hunting, and grazing) amenity economy in coastal areas of North Carolina
Provision of raw materials (bers and Tree plantation conicts (Ecuador, Cameroon, and South 77 and 78
wood) Africa) with water-related claims
Domestic water supply Arsenic contamination of drinking water in Bangladesh 9
Agricultural water supply Increase demands for irrigation: after the Green 19 and 56
Revolution in Thailand; since 1950s in large-scale
farming in China
Hydropower production Large-scale hydroelectric development in the Mekong 79
river leads to inland sheries decline
Regulation Water purication In Colombia, wetland ecosystems 80
(pramos)threatened by coal and gold
miningpurify water at a rate of 28 m3 /s
Flood regulation Opposition to deliberate breaching of levees in 81
agricultural areas increased the intensity of ood
wave in the River Odra, Poland, 1997
Biological control Worlds largest macroalgal blooms during 20082012 82
associated with aquaculture in the Yellow Sea, China
Cultural Tourism, recreation, and aesthetics Water inequity in Bali associated with tourism activities 30
Customary rights Customary access to water impaired by tree plantations 57
in Cameroon
Spiritual and religious benets Sacred rivers in South Asia (e.g., Ganges-Brahmaputra), 83
degraded by pollution and dam building
Support Contribution to the primary production Decrease in nutrient loadings in the Yangtze River 84 and 85
Estuary and the East China Sea after impoundment of
the Three Gorges Dam with over 80% decline in
primary production
Wildlife habitat Wetland conservation threatened by agricultural 56 and 86
development in Qixinghe, China; and by irrigation
infrastructures in the Rio Grande/Bravo
Sediment and nutrient retention and Globally, articial impoundments possibly trap more 87 and 88
mobilization than half of basin-scale sediment ux in regulated
basins

monetary compensation cannot really offset the values
destroyed.
Water Conflict Mapping
Here we connect specific cases to the logic of a
widespread water justice movement which is itself
part of a global EJ movement. For decades, networks
involved in water conflicts caused by oil companies
(such as Oilwatchc ), dams (as International Riversd or
MABe in Brazil), or mining (such as the Latin Ameri-
can Observatory OCMALf ) have supported advocacy
and information sharing. The analysis of conflicts
beyond the observation of single case studies has
been greatly facilitated through the creation of ad hoc
databases linked to these networks of activism. This
embraces the political nature of mapping practices95
using critically the discipline of cartography as an
instrument of liberation rather than a tool of power
control.96,97
A global EJ research initiative, the project
Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and
Trade (EJOLT),g is currently compiling a database
of ecological distribution conflicts on different topics,
including water. The classification system of conflicts
in this project is based on the idea that the increase
of social metabolism in terms of use of energy and
materials (including water) leads to the growth of
environmental conflicts.
As an example of mapping, Figure 1 shows
emblematic water conflicts in Catalonia.98 The small
number of cases does not allow statistical analysis

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0 1 3

France
Andorra

Environm. flows
of the Segre
Groundwater nitrate pollution Ter
42 in Osona (pig farming)
42
gre Girona
Se Environm. flows
Salt mining
of the Ter
in Sallent

Urbanization
of the Anoia
Lleida River banks

Llo
Segarra-Garrigues

bre
An
Canal

ga
oia
The insatiable thirst

t
i

of Barcelona
Ga

Privatization of ATLL
Industrial toxic sediments Barcelona
(public water operator)
in the Flix Reservoir Environm. flows
of the Gai Paving of
the Llobregat Delta

Tarragona
Mediterranean Sea

The Ebro
transfer
Ebro

Water conflicts:
Pollution
40 Supply
To the Xuquer and Segura
40
receiving basins Urban pressure
Environmental flows
0 50 km

0 1 3

FIGURE 1 | Water conicts in Catalonia, Source: Own elaboration with cartographic data of the Ministry of Planning and Sustainability of the
Generalitat de Catalunya, the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia (ICC), and GADM online repository. Cases from Ref 98. Note:
Pollution conicts [Groundwater nitrate pollution in Osona (pig farming); Industrial toxic sediments in the Flix Reservoir; Potash mining in Sallent];
Supply conicts (Ebro water transfer; Segarra-Garrigues Canal; the insatiable thirst of Barcelona: the Ter, the Ebro, the Rhone); Conicts from urban
pressure (Urbanization of the Anoia River banks; Paving of the Llobregat Delta; Privatization of ATLL, public water operator); Conicts for
environmental ows (in the Ter, Segre, and Gai rivers).

here, but points to a classification of four kinds of
conflicts. There are cases of pollution of agricultural
origin (pig manure in the Osona region), of indus-
trial origin (persistent organic pollutants and mercury
in the Flix reservoir), and conflicts caused by mate-
rial extraction (Sallent potash mines). Supply conflicts
are represented by the emblematic Ebro water transfer,
and also by the construction of the Segarra-Garrigues
canal for irrigation, as well as the demands imposed
by the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Other conflicts
are related to geomorphological alteration (as on the
banks of the Anoia River or the Llobregat delta) or
to privatization of the public distribution company
Aiges Ter Llobregat. Finally, the debates on environ-
mental flows, crucial in the management of Mediter-
ranean rivers, are represented by the cases of the Ter
and the Segre rivers, and the extreme case of the Gai
River legally deprived of water by the petrochemical
industry until the year 2050.
ECOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION AND
WATER JUSTICE CONFLICTS
Classifying water conflicts helps to understand their
causes and to analyze issuessuch as scale99 and
power distribution100 that disclose possibilities for

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 WIREs Water
intervention promoting water justice. A starting point
to address water conflicts under a political ecology
perspective is to consider them as a particular form
of ecological distribution conflicts, which are social
disputes on the use of natural resources or the burden
of pollution.26,101 From there, it could be asked what
types of water conflicts exist and how they can be
classified. An analysis based on frequencies would be
advisable, although it is still challenging. Ongoing
efforts to systematize knowledge about ecological
distribution conflicts, such as the EJOLT Atlas, or
geopolitical conflicts that are also water conflicts, such
as the Water Conflict Chronology,102 show hundreds
of conflicts that are probably increasing in number
over time.
In order to contribute to formalize a typology,
we take then an approach based on the political
salience of the conflicts from early protests against
dams in the mid-20th century to more recent and
politically crucial conflicts on urban and rural water
management, and to conflicts caused by the use of
water in extractive industries. Based on this empirical
background, a general classification of water conflicts
is offered and discussed at the end of the section.
Conflicts over Large Infrastructures (Dams,
Water Transfers, and Waterways)
As analyzed above, water has important ecological
functions that the market forgets. Ecological func-
tions become environmental services providing mone-
tary and nonmonetary values to humans.90,103 In the
mid-20th century, large dams became fashionable, dis-
rupting river courses. It did not matter whether politi-
cal regimes were democratic or not, whether rigorous
CBAs were deployed or not. Under Nehru or under
Mao, under Franco or Nasser or in the United States,
in the former USSR, Brazil, or China, progress meant
and still means large dams.
There have been dissenting voices against dams
for a long time. In 2000, the World Commission of
Dams (WCD) published a report that brought an
innovative approach, criticizing Cost Benefit Analysis,
seeking to protect the natural environment and those
affected by dams.104 Medha Patkar, a leading voice
of the Narmada Bachao Andolan in India, was a
member of the commission. Author Patrick McCully
and the International Rivers Network had provided
full information and critical views on the construction
of large dams.105 Confronted with the fact that the
Ganges and its tributaries are now being dammed,83
the director of the Centre for Science and Environment
in Delhi, Sunita Narain, recently asked for a minimum
environmental flow of 50% in all projects in the winter
season before the monsoon.106
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Political ecology of water conicts
More than 45,000 dams over 15 m high alter
ecosystems and damage the populations that depended
on them, in all major river systems of the planet.107
Upstream, dams displace population without ade-
quate compensation or relocation. Archaeological
remains, cropland and biodiversity are lost. Down-
stream, water becomes scarce, fishing disappears. It
is reported that 472 million people have been neg-
atively affected downstream of large dams.108 There
is also the risk of dam failure. In exchange, electric-
ity is produced and there is water for irrigation or
for urban use. Who wins and who loses, now and in
the future? Regulated river systems alter the ecologi-
cal diversity and the ecosystem functions, temperature
and sediment flows. Reservoirs go hand-in-hand with
biotic homogenization by the deliberate or accidental
introduction of alien species favored by environmental
conditions in reservoirs.109
Today, the most controversial dam across Latin
America is Belo Monte, which is being built despite
indigenous and environmental protests on the Xingu
River in Par near Altamira. Its capacity of perhaps
11,000 MW will make it the worlds third largest after
the Three Gorges in China (20,300 MW) and Itaip
on the border ParaguayBrazil (14,000 MW).110 It is
often argued that hydroelectric dams produce electric-
ity without producing CO2 , as they do not burn char-
coal, coal, or gas. Sometimes they are given carbon
credits. However, Belo Monte means the destruction
of a very large area of forest storing and absorbing
CO2 . In addition, forests flooded will rot under water
and will generate methane which is another green-
house gas.111
In India, the dams in the Himalayas and the
Northeast involve 50,000 MW of power.83 Estimates
on the distributional effects of dam construction in
India suggests upstream to downstream transfer of
wealth that, in aggregate, has increased poverty.112
Despite this evidence, there are plans for new large
dams in other parts of the world, such as Grand
Inga dam in the Republic of the Congo.113 Not only
large dams but also the concentration of small dams
generates discontent among different types of social
actors.91
There are many technical and institutional inter-
dependencies between the construction of contested
water-management infrastructures and other projects
such as mines, plantations, or utilities that in turn
cause social conflict. The historical and anthropo-
logical perspectives emphasize the role of physical
infrastructures and the institutions that sustain
them as intrinsic factors of political and economic
developments.86,114 In this respect, the type of infras-
tructures mentioned here tend to lock in concentrated
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 Advanced Review
power and wealth for the benefit of actors outside the
territories where the infrastructures are located.
Dams are the main modernizing factor in the
control of rivers, but not the only one. Other con-
troversial interventions in the hydrosocial cycle are
water transfers between river basinssuch as the
transposio of the So Francisco River in Brazil,
approved in 2005, that even led to a bishops huger
strike115 and also some waterwayssuch as the
ParaguayParan hidrova among Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay within the IIRSA
frameworkh .116
Imposition of Centralized Water
Management and the Privatization
Controversy
Similar controversies surround the development of
large infrastructures for urban water supply handing
over water management to the private sector at the
expense of community-based alternatives, as in the
case of the Melamchi Water Supply megaproject in
Nepal.117 In South Africa, there are constant com-
plaints against high charges for water (and electricity)
to poor households that are disconnected if they do
not pay, while export mining companies enjoy subsi-
dized rates.118
A decade ago, the privatization trend was partic-
ularly manifest in the United States and the UK,119 but
expanded globally afterward. Decades of policies of
neoliberal inspiration inextricably associate efficiency
with the participation of the private sector in water
management, despite meager or adverse empirical evi-
dence in this respect.107109
Reviewing the Latin American scenario, Chile
appears as an exemplary case. As in other sectors of
national economic life, private economic groups con-
trol water, protected by a Water Code consistent with
the 1980 Constitution. According to this, 90% of the
rights of access to water are concentrated in large com-
panies, often linked to mining interests, in a context
of poor regulation of minimum environmental flows.
Since 2008 to date, several initiatives to restore the
status of water as a state property have not yielded
a constitutional reform. Equitable access to water
and environmental conditions have been negatively
impacted by water withdrawal toward private pro-
duction of electricity or mining, as elaborated below.
Here, the dimensions of water injustice include lack of
priority for the most needed applications, such as local
agriculture, the award of free and perpetual rights of
use to private operators, and the lack of recognition
to indigenous peoples rights.120
In the past 20 years, there have been many
other conflicts against the privatization of urban
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water services. Failed cases of privatization, like
Cochabamba121 and Buenos Aires,122 have led to a
new trend of restoring public water management,
as described below. The privatization debate is not
restricted to urban water uses, but equally important
in rural water use (related to privatizing agricultural
water rights and the transfer of irrigation systems from
government to private entities).123,124
Critics of privatization argue that private partic-
ipation in water management, and the resultant com-
mercialization of water, only help to increase profits of
a few large transnational corporations.125 The multi-
national nature of many of the companies involved
is one of the critiques but not the only one. Another
major concern is that neoliberal policies treat water as
a commodity. Therefore, its management aims at gen-
erating profits rather than providing a good service
to which both rich and poor are entitled.126 More-
over, larger profits are gained by selling cubic meters of
water than by taking care of the natural environment.
Notice, however, that the increasing use of
waterfor domestic use but also for irrigation and
industriesis not just a product of the search for prof-
its. It is due to the growth of the social metabolism that
demands more energy, more materials and generates
more waste. This growth requires interventions in the
hydrosocial cycle and changes in the water landscapes.
Increased efficiencies in water use (e.g., through mod-
ernization in irrigation infrastructures) may lead to a
Jevons effect,71 meaning that water use increases more
than proportionally to the water savings, nullifying
the efficiency improvement. This increase in water use
would surely happen as well under state capitalism or
under postneoliberal governments.
Water Conflicts Related to Material
Extraction (Biomass, Mining, and Fossil
Fuels)
Many conflicts over the use of biomass, mining, and
other extractive activities, are indirectly conflicts over
water. Such connections have been shown by social
movements in India with the slogan Jal-Jungle-Zamin
(water, forest, and land). When a geographical area
exports biomass to another area, there is also an
export of the water used to grow that biomass, as it
happens in the cases of Colombian and Argentinean
exports of coffee, flowers and soybeans.127,128 Some-
times, trade creates fatal links. For instance, nearly one
quarter of the exports of Uzbekistan and Pakistan, are
raw cotton and yarns produced using locally scarce
water.66 Water accounts, including VW exports, are
therefore relevant for claims of ecologically unequal
trade. The water used to grow commercial planta-
tions is not available for biodiversity conservation or
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 WIREs Water
the provision of valuable ecosystem services.78 Every
year, global water grabbing appropriates tens of thou-
sands of cubic hectometers of rainwater and irriga-
tion water for crop and livestock production.129 In
some cases, the per capita volumes grabbed exceed the
requirements to abate malnourishment in the grabbed
countries.129
Eucalyptus plantations generate water conflicts
worldwide.130 Since the 1970s, huge areas of euca-
lyptus plantation have been rightly tagged as green
deserts.131 The concept refers to the loss of biodiver-
sity in monocultures but also to water depletion gen-
erated by alien-tree plantations around the world.77,78
Conflicts on energy crops include controversies about
sugarcane and jatropha plantations, among others.
Governmental authorities assert in India and else-
where that Jatropha curcas for biodiesel grows with
little water and is drought-tolerant. However, if there
is not enough rainfall or irrigation, the plant might
survive but its performance is much reduced. In prac-
tice, jatropha competes for water and land with other
crops, as shown in detail in villages of Tamil Nadu.132
Mining also drags disputes over (surface- and
ground-) water depletion and pollution, both in nat-
urally scarce and in water rich areas.133 For instance,
in South Africa and in Chile the mining and energy
complex exacerbates pressures on access to water
sources.118 Thus, Chiles antimining protests are also
about dams in the South for electricity or about deple-
tion of scarce water sources and their contamination
in the North.134 Barrick Gold had to stop its operation
in Pascua Lama because it was destroying glaciers.62
In Peru, the most water-stressed country of
South America, over 50% of peasant communities
have been affected by mining activities.135 In Caja-
marca, the Newmont Mining Corporation (USA)
and the Buenaventura Company (Peru) are the main
shareholders of Minera Yanacocha which operates
one of the world largest gold mines. The environ-
mental liabilities involve destroyed hills, and illegally
appropriated water polluted in several provinces.
Activist leader Marco Arana helped save Cerro Quil-
ish, a water reserve for the city of Cajamarca. In 2012,
there was again resistance against a new gold mine
named Conga that would destroy some lakes. Its final
outcome is undecided. The demonstrators motto was
el agua vale ms que el oro [water is worth more than
gold].136
Take the case of a mining company, such as
Vedanta, Tata, and Birla, contaminating the water in
a village of India by the mining of bauxite, iron ores,
or coal. Families have no choice but to use water
from streams or wells. If the water of a stream or the
local aquifer is contaminated by mining, poor women
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Political ecology of water conicts
cannot afford to buy bottled water. Therefore, when
the rural poor see their own subsistence threatened
by a mining project, a dam or a tree plantation or a
large industrial area, they often protest not because
they are card-carrying environmentalists but because
they immediately need the services of nature for
their own survival. That is the environmentalism of
the poor and indigenous,137 present everywhere in
movements of resistance at the frontiers of extraction
and pollution.77,134
Indigenous peoples, whose holistic rationalities
collide against the utilitarian views of the mining
industry,134 often lead the protests. In Panama, the
Petaquilla Gold project in Donoso meant the illegal
removal of forest cover, the destruction of river beds
and the throwing of mining waste to rivers. The
ethnic group Rey Quibin demonstrated in defense
of water outside the headquarters of the company
in Canada.138 The Ngbe-Bugl cacica, Silvia Carrera,
led opposition to a new mining law in 2012. The
Ngbe-Bugl sing an anthem in their ceremonies
expressing reverence toward the water and rivers.139
Another mining-related item in the political ecol-
ogy of water is the bursting of tailings dams (pre-
sas de jales, diques de relaves). A case in point hap-
pened in Andalusia in 1998, where polluting waste
was released by a tailings dam failure from a mine
owned by the Swedish-Canadian company Boliden,
located in Aznalcollar. The waste flew to the Gua-
diamar River bordering the Doana National Park.
Restoration costs reached 90 million, paid for by the
regional government, the Junta de Andaluca.140
Less notorious than copper, gold, bauxite, iron
ore, or uranium mining, the extraction of gravel and
sand as building materials is an important item in the
calculations of the material flows of any economy. In
India, there are many conflicts on sand and gravel min-
ing in rivers, with complaints against sand mafias.133
In Latin America, the conspicuous conflict in the Tun-
juelo River in Bogota is between the sand and gravel
companies Holcim, Cemex, together with the Arch-
diocese of Bogot, and the local population fearing by
experience that changing the morphology of the river
leads to floods and mudslides.
Also noteworthy, conflicts due to impacts of fos-
sil fuels on water quality are particularly intense in the
extraction and transport stages. In one famous case
in Ecuador, between 1965 and 1990 Chevron-Texaco
deposited the extraction water coming out with oil in
pools of heavily polluted water harming soils and
groundwater. The company is liable for USD 9.5 bil-
lion for the extreme damage done to the waters, soils,
and the health of the people. The implications of the
historical court decision of 14 February 2011 (ratified
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TABLE 2 Classication of Socioenvironmental Conicts over Water/Aquatic Ecosystems
Stage of the Commodity Scale
Chain Local
19
Extraction Dams
Desalination24
Water for mineral extraction134,135
Sand mining in river beds133
Water used in oil142 or gas145
extraction
Transport and trade Water supply megaprojects (urban117 Transfers between basins19
and agricultural86 )
Effects of transport infrastructure in Waterways (hidrovas)116
aquifers and rivers150
Oil spills at sea147,148
Waste and pollution, Urban pollution load into rivers81
postconsumption Groundwater contamination from
diverse nitrate sources (e.g.
intensive farming and synthetic
fertilizers)10
on appeal in 2012 and 2013) have been extensively
analyzed as a case of environmental injustice.141,142
Similar cases of damage by state or private companies,
such as Shell in the Niger Delta over many decades,
have been also documented.143 More recently, the con-
troversy on the impact of tar sands144 and shale gas
fracking145,146 on aquifers has fuelled the discussion
on environmental conflicts. In the transport stage, oil
spills in the sea, such as the cases of the Exxon Valdez
in the United States or the Prestige in Spain, have con-
tributed to create awareness at national and interna-
tional scales.147,148
An Elaboration of the Concept of Water
Conflict
To make sense of the cases presented above and of
the hundreds of water conflicts that could be added
to the account, in this section we present a typology
of water conflicts, applying classification principles
of ecological distribution conflicts.149 Accordingly,
Table 2 classifies water conflicts in two axes: first, by
the stage in the commodity chain (as defined by Raikes
et al.155 ) when the conflict occurs (the extraction,
transport, or postconsumption pollution); and second,
by their geographical scale. The cases and examples
presented fit into this classification, which is also
enriched with a systematic review from the literature.
As already argued, water conflicts arise because
of growth of the social metabolism. From a metabolic
point of view, water can be the commodity in
dispute, as in the case of water privatization conflicts,
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National and Regional Global
56
Large scale irrigation developments Global water grabbing129
Water for industrial tree plantations77 or Trend toward the
for agrofuel crops132 privatization of water
Unsustainable sheries76 supply (and sanitation)122
Negative impacts of aquaculture 82
Tourisms water demands30
Trade of virtual water151
Stairways of dams79
Acid rain152 Ocean acidication154
Pollution of entire watersheds153 Glacier retreat due to
climate change61
or it can be the element impacted by a contested
project. Commodities move from extraction, through
transport to consumption and waste. Table 2 catalogs
conflicts along this chain, through which water is used
(e.g., by extracting it trough a dam, desalinating it,
transporting it through a water supply infrastructure
or dumping it to a river after being used in urban
areas). Besides such conflicts, there are cases where
water is used in order to enable other commoditization
processes (e.g., mineral and fossil fuel extraction and
transportation; agriculture, aquaculture and agrofuel
production, or recreational services). Along these
processes, the quantity and quality of water are
modified to the benefit of some actors but becomes
inaccessible for other users and this generates conflict.
From a metabolic perspective, many water uses
are unjust and ecologically harmful, affecting in par-
ticular local communities who depend on the water
sources for their livelihoods and survival, and who
often do not benefit from the (economic) profits
that new water-related commodities yield. Specific
water interventions entail redistributions across social
groupsnot just of water, but also of the costs
and benefits of accessing it and of water-derived
incomesbenefiting particular groups rather than
others and with detrimental impacts on the environ-
ment.
Water conflict is sometimes understood as polit-
ical disputes between countries or states.102 Our
classification offers an entry point to this type of
geopolitical interpretation, which is not the main
focus of analysis here. Moreover, against geopolitical
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 WIREs Water
pessimists who announce water wars more intense
than wars for oil,156 one can show a certain techno-
logical optimism, for instance regarding desalination
for urban water needs.20 This is different from push-
ing desalination for mining (as in Northern Chile), for
agricultural luxury exports (as in coastal Peru), or for
rich tourists in the Canary Islands.24
The processes under analysis happen at differ-
ent geographic scales. Table 2 shows local conflicts
(e.g., the use of lake water in mining like in the pro-
posed Conga gold mine in Peru) and global conflicts
(e.g., human-induced global change leads to glacier
retreat and possibly to ocean acidification related to
carbon dioxide emissions and therefore to climate
injustices). Leaving aside these examples related with
global change, water-related conflicts usually have a
geographically more restricted reach. For example, the
diversion of the So Francisco River is a regional sub-
ject, affecting several Brazilian states. Also interlink-
ing of the rivers projects in India, Thailand19 or more
modestly the Tajo-Segura or the Ebro water transfers
in Spain generate regional or national debates. They
exceed the local level but they are not global issues.
However, several examples mentioned in this
article are simultaneously local and global: a violent
mining conflict may be local, but it is driven by a
globalized commodity and VW export chain. Simi-
larly, large-scale irrigation conflicts are presented in
Table 2 as national/regional issues butwhile linked
to global agroindustrial processesmay be simul-
taneously local and global. This type of local or
national conflicts becomes thus glocal62 when they
occur locally in several places, responding to global
drivers, or when acquiring global importance. As men-
tioned above, that was the case of the dams in the
Narmada River in India that helped constitute the
World Commission on Dams.104 Here, the concept of
jumping scales is pertinent.157 In this vein, the study
now focuses on the potential from creative resistance
and new water governance institutions born from con-
flicts.
HERE IS THE POLITICAL: NEW
INSTITUTIONS FOR WATER
MANAGEMENT BORN FROM
CONFLICTS
Reconciling competing values in water-related debates
is not exempt of difficulties, particularly when formal
political institutions are resistant to change.76 How-
ever, as shown in this section, social movements born
from water conflicts are effective providers of alterna-
tives that reshape power configurations,158 against the
view that EJ movements are postpolitical.159
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Political ecology of water conicts
Karl Wittfogel established the correspondence
among lack of water, large irrigation works, and
oriental despotism, establishing a link between
water management and state power.160,161 However,
already in areas of ancient irrigated agriculture, there
have been community institutions of water users.
In the Andes, the offerings to the Apus (big snowy
mountains)which are the water source for terraced
valleysgo together with community-regulated work
on the channels for irrigation.4 In southern India, Sri
Lanka and Bali the local temples have regulated the
water uses. Each temple had its tank of water (a small
earth dam) for community water fulfilling also other
ecosystem services.162,163 Of course, community regu-
lation of water use certainly does not imply equitable
regulation as regards gender and caste.
In many villages in India, communities have
built new physical structures of water harvesting.
Social institutions arise which allow cooperation and
regulate water use by banning for example commercial
crops requiring too much water. As described in the
case of Hiware Bazar, a new community institutions
of water audit was introduced at village level.164
When water has been scarce, society itself has created
institutions to manage it.165 Nevertheless, in a context
of strong social hierarchies, a rule of groundwater
capture has often persisted to the benefit of the
powerful. Then, if the effort to draw water is reduced
by new technological means, excessive groundwater
withdrawals are likely.166 A new rule should have been
instituted.
Three options of water managementcom-
munity, state-run, or privatized managementare
valid to avoid problems of open access. However, the
social implications of each one are different. Com-
munity institutions can easily articulate ecological,
livelihood, and cultural values (such as sacredness).
Still, nowadays they are not given much chance to
flourish in the midst of an ideological clash between
state administration and private management of
water.
National and Transnational Networks
of Water Justice
Water conflicts can become a real boost to institutional
innovations. This is true at levels of local community
management, and also for public policies. Thus, in
Spain, the reaction against the diversion of the Ebro
foreseen in the National Hydrological Plan (NHP) of
2001167 triggered massive local protests opening also a
broad debate involving social movements and the sci-
entific community. Many social groups popularized a
so-called New Water Culture, such as the Platform for
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 Advanced Review
the Defense of the Ebro River,i whose symbol (a knot-
ted pipe) became an icon, and the New Water Culture
Foundation,j a forum of academics and professionals
active in water management policies.
The NHP of 2001 was defeated.168 This achieve-
ment was twofold. On the one hand, the New
Water Culture (relying on water demand manage-
ment, and the ecosystem approach) became a dom-
inant discourse at the political level. Such principles
are fully consistent with the Water Framework Direc-
tive (2000/60/EC)169 that guides the European Unions
water policy. Opponents to the Ebro water trans-
fer counted on support from Brussels. On the other
hand, the intensity of the movement against the NHP
contributed to strengthen representation and political
clout of other movements in the Ebro region against
thermoelectric power plants, wind energy farms, and
for the defense of the natural environment. As an
activist said: When they are born, these social move-
ments make evident the divorce between state policies
and the local territory, they are policies of remoteness
and oblivion [ ]; our mobilizations respond to a feel-
ing of defending the territory and a different model
to that they want to impose on us (Roser Vernet, in
La Vanguardia, September 7, 2005). This is a view
of territorial claims that fits into EJ and water jus-
tice, distant from the NIMBY claims alleged by the
authorities.
Water is a then a key ground in the reconfig-
uration of spaces of ecopolitical engagement, where
citizenship (and sometimes, ethnicity) plays a central
role.170 In Latin America, there are numerous civil
society organizations dealing with topics related to
water. It is common that bottomup movements or
networks against mining (like RECLAME in Colom-
bia or No a la mina in Argentina) or promoting resis-
tance to monoculture tree plantations (such as the
World Rainforest Movement) include water among
their main demands. Listed below and very briefly
described, are three important national networks
whose line of action is linked specifically to water con-
flicts.
The Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens
(MAB) is a Brazilian movement of collective action
in the fight against dams, with origins in the 1970s.
The military government supported the development
of hydropower that meant the displacement of tens of
thousands of people. While political forces such as the
Movement of Landless Workers or the Workers Party
were growing, the discontent on dams was channelled
through regional commissions of affected (atingido)
people resisting hydroelectric projects or, at least,
demanding fair compensation and acquisition of new
lands. Emblematic cases were Tucuru (Par), Itaipu
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(binational with Paraguay), Sobradinho (Bahia), Ita-
parica (Pernambuco, Bahia), and other smaller dams
in Rio Grande do Sul.
In Mexico, there are famous conflicts on La
Parota dam or El Zapotillo dam. In Las Cruces,
San Pedro River in Nayarit, the upstream indigenous
Cora people are in alliance with downstream fish-
ers and shell collectors. The Mexican Movement of
People Affected by Dams and in Defense of Rivers
(MAPDER),k founded in 2004, brings together social
organizations and communities impacted by the con-
struction of dams, dealing comprehensively with the
defense of rivers, land, and human rights.
In Colombia, CENSAT Agua Vival is a member
of Friends of the Earth international. It has different
areas of work, including mining. CENSAT is one of
the major Latin American organizations for water
justice fighting against dams, and addressing water
privatization and its inclusion in free trade agreements
and other international agreements.
The above-mentioned national networks play an
important role in linking actors and local organiza-
tions in different places. They coordinate international
efforts with other related movements concerned with
the similar issues and transversally with organizations
working on related types of environmental conflicts.
An interesting feature of national networks is their
ability to synthesize local experiences in broader dis-
cussions, through their participation or dialog with
international bodies and increasing awareness among
citizens of countries where corporations come from.
At the continental level, one entity support-
ing water justice is the Latin American Water Tri-
bunal (TLA)m bringing ethical resolutions with a
base on current legislation to controversies related to
water systems. Meanwhile, a Latin American network
against dams and for rivers and water (REDLAR),n
established in 1999, brings together many organiza-
tions from 18 countries in the region. At a larger scale,
since 1985 an international network of people affected
by dams and of grassroots organizations with repre-
sentation in five continents has drawn support from
the International Rivers Network.d
Remunicipalization of Water Management
Services
Following the neoliberal wave of the 1980s and 1990s,
there were municipal milestones of the struggle for
water justice, as the emblematic opposition to priva-
tization of the urban water supply in Cochabamba
(Bolivia).121 In 1999, a private concession of the
municipal water distribution company was granted,
linked to a water transfer called Misicuni project. At
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 WIREs Water
the same time, at the national level, regulation of the
water supply and sanitation was influenced by World
Bank recommendations and the so-called Washing-
ton Consensus. The protest movement organized a
Departmental Coordinating Platform for Water and
Life, which grew until a symbolic occupation of the
city of Cochabamba was brutally repressed. Then in
April 2000, the Coordinadora submitted the priva-
tizing measures to a popular referendum. The result
was 90% favorable to public management. Facing
such massive and permanent mobilization, the govern-
ment finally rescinded the privatization contract giving
the water management to the Coordinadora, together
with the considerable debt of the company. Since then,
water management in Cochabamba emerged as an
example of struggle against the advance of the water
multinationals. However, there remain supply prob-
lems in some areas of the city, mitigated through the
creation of local water committees.
The tendency to regain public control of water
management is forceful. Cases of remunipalization
have been documented for Paris (France), Dar es
Salaam (Tanzania), Hamilton (Canada), Malaysia (at
national level), and Buenos Aires (Argentina).171
The defense of the public management of water
let to a constitutional reform in Uruguay in 2004.172
Meanwhile, some privatization initiatives continue
to be truncated. Thus, in 2012 the privatization
of El Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, proposed by the
regional government, did not take place because of
popular opposition, in a consultation in which 99%
of 167,000 participants voted in favor of an entirely
public management of the water operator. Moreover,
the economic crisis probably meant lack of interest
from potential investors.173
Water Markets and Water Rights
As explained above, the increased use of water in
the world is not due only to domestic or indus-
trial demand but also to irrigated agriculture. Con-
flicts of access for irrigation water have always
occurred, as in farmer-herder conflicts in Tanzania174
or the Sahel,175 exacerbated by increased compe-
tition over resources. Expanding agricultural fron-
tiers and agricultural modernization in Thailand19 or
China56 relying on increased water useaggravated
water conflict among users at different scales.
Water efficiency in agriculture is therefore a
key issue in response to water conflicts.56 Scarcity
and high water costs have led to new technologies
such as drip or spray irrigation in the of the Mex-
ico/US border.86 However, as mentioned above, these
efficiency schemes appear to have caused a Jevons
paradox. Moreover, these technologies can cause new
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Political ecology of water conicts
conflicts, as in the case of reduced infiltration by lining
earthen canals, which is detrimental for the preserva-
tion of groundwater or wetlands.
In rich economies with well fed citizens, it
appears reasonable to aim at savings in agricultural
water use, to transfer it to more profitable or prior-
ity uses or simply to increase river flows. Economic
instruments such as higher prices (which should reflect
the costs of the infrastructures built by public admin-
istrations) can stimulate the efficiency in water use.
Markets for water may be introduced, whose opera-
tion depends on given allocations of property rights.
The commercial transfers of rights of use of water are
not always wrong, as part of a policy of demand man-
agement against the traditional policy of increasing
supply by building dams and water transfers.
A water market works as follows. If a Federation
of Irrigators or a private person wants to sell the
water for urban supply, this may be allowed (especially
if the buyer is not far away), taking into account
ecological factors and possible effects on third parties
beyond the economic interests of buyers and sellers.
The best-known case is the California water banks
active in the early 1990s in times of shortage because
of a drought. A public entity bought water from
farmers at a fixed price, i.e., the commitment not to use
this water, and sold it to a higher price to urban buyers
or kept it for nonmarket environmental applications.
If the instrument is the market, we must bear in
mind that the economically efficient use is always in
relation to a particular structure of initial allocations
of water rights to different regions and social groups,
and also to the purchasing power of users, which may
be very uneven.
A demand approach does not mean that priori-
ties should be established by the market. For example,
in Gujarat and Maharashtra profitable capitalist sugar
cane growing steals water from poor and low caste
families. In poor countries where the population
depends for food on the irrigated land (India, Pak-
istan, China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and in part Mexico
and Peru), the argument that water should go to more
profitable uses is not appropriate: chrematistic prior-
ities are rarely social priorities.
Rights Emerging from Conflicts? The
Human Right to Water and the Rights
of Nature
There is a relationship between income and con-
sumption of water that, for domestic purposes,
ranges between 1000 liters per person per day (pppd)
among the richest people in California and 30 liters
pppd of the urban poorest. Under 20 liters, cholera
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TABLE 3 Slogans of Water Activism

Slogan Campaign/Organization Country
We are water March for Life, with various organizations led by CONAIE, the Ecuador
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuador
For water, for life No a la Mina Argentina
Rivers for life, our lives are the rivers Taller Ecologista, Rosario Argentina
Life cannot be stopped Without Sogamoso River Dam, Rios Vivos Colombia
Water, a fundamental right Committee on Social JusticeDiocese of Chimbote/National Peru
Coordinator of Human Rights
Water is a human right European Citizens Initiative Water and sanitation are a human European Union
right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!
Water is a right, not a commodity Engineering without borders International

Source: Own elaboration based on internet search.

might appear. When reaching 1000 liters pppd, or
even before, the income elasticity of domestic water
demand drops to zero.
Domestic water use not only depends on the
income level but also on cultural factors (including
awareness of the need for water savings) and lifestyles
(such as the type of housing and urban settlement),
and of course on the fee structure. In this respect, the
2003 World Water Forum in Kyoto was a major mile-
stone for the global water justice movement. There,
the proprivatization World Water Councils claimed a
consensus on a corporate-controlled future for water
that raised strong opposition. The firm commitment
of the Council of Canadians was a key contribution
to build an alliance with its own Vision Statement
under the slogan Water is Life. Since then, an Alter-
native World Water Forum (FAME, from the French
acronym) has taken place in parallel to the official
water forum and in the same cities (Mexico 2006,
Istanbul 2009, and Marseille 2012), bringing together
water justice organizations, advocacy groups, schol-
ars, journalists, local activists, and committees. It has
been a watchdog on policies pushed forward by the
World Bank, corporations, and governments, includ-
ing the European Union.158 There is now a water
movement at a global scale. It cooperates with some
local governments and also with workers unions in
the public services in order to defend a public manage-
ment model and to profit from the workers technical
skills and knowledge. The network Reclaiming Public
Water, established through the Transnational Institute,
supports and backs efforts to bring water management
back under public control.176
Two ideas come to mind looking at the slogans
of water activism campaigns (Table 3). On the one
hand, there is an emphasis put on water as source of
life rather than as a socioeconomic asset. Besides the
ostensible material challenge, conflicts for access to
water are grounded in emotional geographies related
with everyday survival struggles.9 On the other hand,
the idea that access to water has to be approached
under the (human) rights rationale. Backing such
universalist demands, the World Health Organization
and UNICEF recognize that almost 900 million people
lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion
(35% of the world population) do not have adequate
sanitation.177
In July 2010, after 15 years of debates, the UN
General Assembly adopted a resolution that recog-
nized explicitly the human right to drinking water
and sanitation.178,179 The representative of Bolivia in
the General Assembly, Pablo Soln, emphasized that
drinking water and sanitation are not only elements
or components of other rights such as the right to
an adequate standard of living. The right to drink-
ing water and sanitation are independent rights which
should be recognized as such. [ ] It is necessary to
call on States to promote and protect the human right
to drinking water and sanitation.180
Food and Water Watch, Red Vida at the
pan-American level, Focus on the Global South,
Jubilee South, the African Water Movement are
working toward actions and tools for the concrete
application of this right. An important actor is
again the Council of Canadians Blue Planet Project.
Competing positions on the recognition and imple-
mentation of this right are largely explained by two
opposite visions on water management. To its defend-
ers, the human right to water, both as regards to
drinking water and sanitation, leads to management
as a public service. As an inalienable right, water
management can hardly be under the control of the
private sector, whose management criteria do not
necessarily respect solidarity, mutual cooperation,
collective access, equity, democratic control, and
sustainability (Ref 181, p. 7).

550 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Volume 2, September/October 2015

 WIREs Water
However, there is a vision of access to water
and sanitation linked to meeting increasing needs
and ensuring adequate living standards, which the
state would set up gradually according to the levels
of economic development in each country.182 The
growth-based development models assume that needs
grow according to income, so this view of water
management takes for granted raising water demands.
It has been argued that some transnational
water corporations may have welcomed the idea of
a rights-based access to water, assuming that they
would be the ones in charge of provisioning. Against
this vision, a (re)commonalization strategy is advised
instead.183 At the European level, the Italian referen-
dum 2 S per lAcqua Bene Comune in 2011 was a
turning point pushing forward a new concept where
water is considered as a commons, which should not
be privatized and subject to monetary valuation.158
On another level, in the practice of Andean
peoples, land, water, and air are also subject of rights,
in the perspective of deep ecology. The invocation
of the Pachamama is accompanied by the need to
respect her, which translates into an ethical rule for
the good of everything living and nonliving. Building
on this tradition, the Article 71 of the Ecuadorian
Constitution184 stipulates that nature has the right
to be respected in relation to the maintenance and
regeneration of its vital cycles, structure, functions
an evolutionary processes. [Therefore, e]very person,
community, people or nationality can claim from the
public authorities respect for the rights of nature.
In this context, when public works for expan-
sion of the road Vilcabamba-Quinara in the South
of Ecuador resulted in the disposal of large amounts
of rock and excavation material, a court case was
brought up by Richard F. Wheeler and Eleanor G.
Huddle, environmental activists, under article 71 of
the Constitution. For 3 years, until 2011, the project
promoted by the provincial government was con-
ducted without environmental impact studies, increas-
ing the risks linked to the floods of the Vilcabamba
River during the winter rains. On March 30, 2011,
the Provincial Court of Justice of the city of Loja, rec-
ognizing the facts, made effective the constitutional
guarantee in favor of the plaintiffs, settling a historical
precedent in fulfilling the rights of nature.150,185 Out-
side the scope of legal activism, moratoria have been
argued as another tool for the application of Rights of
Nature.76
CONCLUSION
This article reviews methodologies, types, and polit-
ical implications of water conflicts under a political
Volume 2, September/October 2015 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Political ecology of water conicts
ecology perspective. Political ecology studies who has
the power (by custom or law) to use the available
water from a river or to dig wells that reach the
water table excluding others. Do humans recognize
the rights of nature, and are there court decisions
determining the right of a river or a lake to have its
morphology and its biological and chemical quality
unchanged? Who has the power to make a dam that
will flood farmland or forests, for the benefit of an
electrical company and to the detriment of the ripar-
ian inhabitants upstream and downstream? Which
decision procedures (CBAs, environmental impact
assessments, participatory MCEs) are valid to decide
whether such a dam can be built? Are local referenda
allowed against mining projects or privatization of
water supply? Who has the power to determine the
process for reaching decisions on the alterations to the
hydrosocial cycle? These are all questions of the polit-
ical ecology of water.
CBA was deployed in the assessment of river
basin development since the 1940s. However it is now
being put into question and participatory multicriteria
approaches arguably can be used instead. When look-
ing at other methods capable to unveil the implications
of water management for different types of groups,
water metabolism indicators reveal links between pro-
duction and consumption that allow tracing the direc-
tion of VW flows in unjust patterns of trade, and can
be also used for raising consumer awareness. Taming
rivers to avoid the water getting wasted has been a
motto of hydraulic engineers. However, water is not
lost; it contributes to the prosperity of riverine and
coastal areas. The ecosystem services approach allows
grasping the multifunctionality of water ecosystems,
and it also allows understanding of the conflicts for
the appropriation of these services.
The emergence of water conflicts is related to
changes induced in the availability of water in the
quantity and quality desired by rich and powerful.
Everywhere in the world, communities fight not only
against dams and water transfers but also against
mines, eucalyptus plantations or against energy crops
taking water from the villagers. Extractive industries,
including biomass, have spill-over effects on water
quantity and quality. When social groups mobilize
against such kind of projects that deteriorate the
quality and quantity of local water, they are fighting
for environmental and social justice and particularly
for water justice.
These struggles are a response to the worlds
economy growing metabolism. Certainly, neoliberal
policy treats water as a commodity, as the aim of
private water operators is to generate profits rather
than to ensure universal water rights and Nature
551
 Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/water

protection. Notice, however that the increasing use of NOTES

water is not just a product of neoliberalism, it is due a
The data-mining of suitable references started by
to the growth of the metabolism of the economy. This
using the search terms political ecolog* AND water
would happen also and indeed it happens under state
OR conflict* in Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge
capitalism.
SM. 24/80 selected articles were highly relevant, from
Many mobilizations for water justice are merely
titles and abstracts. Then, additional studies were
defensive, facing specific threats of displacement or
identified in order to provide pertinent examples.
loss of access to livelihoods. However, the claims go
In this process, two types of gray literature were
beyond this. Water justice movements and organiza-
included: position documents and reports published
tions have formed networks, have proposed new prin-
by well-known organisations. The most represented
ciples of water management, and have not only been
year of publication is 2012 (N = 33) and half of the
active in the promotion of the human right to water,
references correspond to the period 20102015.
they have also been the first to endorse the recognition b
www.waterfootprint.org
of water, along with the earth and air, nature in short, c
www.oilwatch.org
as a subject of rights. d
www.internationalrivers.org
From resistance, local or international networks e
www.mabnacional.org.br
and alternatives are born. More often than not, such f
www.conflictosmineros.net
struggles are lost by the relatively powerless. How- g
ever, this article offers empirical evidence for taking www.ejolt.org
h
in earnest the voices, arguments, discourses, and pro- IIRSA, Integration of the South American Regional
posals of social and community movements around Infrastructure Initiative (www.iirsa.org).
i
water, as these can provide interesting water gover- www.ebre.net
j
nance alternatives. Although many of the institutions www.fnca.eu
k
mentioned in this study are related with community www.mapder.lunasexta.org
l
www.censat.org
management, this does not entail the conclusion that m
http://tragua.com
community management is always more just and n
ecologically sound. Still, bottomup initiatives can www.redlar.org
express ecological, livelihood and cultural values that
are alien to markets or to state power.

FURTHER READINGS
Le Lannier A, Porcher S. Efficiency in the public and private French water utilities: prospects for benchmarking. Appl Econ
2014, 46:556572.
Faria RC, Silva Souza GDS, Moreira TB. Public versus private water utilities: Empirical evidence for brazilian companies.
Econ Bull 2005, 8.
Spronk S. Water and sanitation utilities in the global south: re-centering the debate on efficiency. Rev Radic Polit Econ
2010, 42:156174.

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