Abstract
Safe and secure water is a cornerstone of modern life in the global North. This article critically examines a set of prevalent myths about household water in high-income countries, with a focus on Canada and the United States. Taking a relational approach, we argue that household water insecurity is a product of institutionalized structures and power, manifests unevenly through space and time, and is reproduced in places we tend to assume are the most water-secure in the world. We first briefly introduce “modern water” and the modern infrastructural ideal, a highly influential set of ideas that have shaped household water provision and infrastructure development over the past two centuries. Against this backdrop, we consolidate evidence to disrupt a set of narratives about water in high-income countries: the notion that water access is universal, clean, affordable, trustworthy, and uniformly or equitably governed. We identify five thematic areas of future research to delineate an agenda for advancing scholarship and action—including challenges of legal and regulatory regimes, the housing-water nexus, water affordability, and water quality and contamination. Data gaps underpin the experiences of household water insecurity. Taken together, our review of water security for households in high-income countries provides a conceptual map to direct critical research in this area for the coming years. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | e1486 |
Journal | Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 1 2020 |
Funding
This manuscript was developed based on the workshop “Household Water Insecurity in the Global North” held at the University of British Columbia, 17–19 November 2019. We would like to acknowledge support of the U.S. National Science Foundation Household Water Insecurity Experiences Research Coordination Network (BCS‐17759972), the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study at the University of British Columbia, Texas A&M University, and the PLuS Alliance (Arizona State University, King's College London, UNSW Sydney). We thank Amy Uyen Truong for her work in organizing the workshop, and Lauren Nyquist for her editorial assistance. Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study, University of British Columbia; PLUS Alliance; Texas A&M University; U.S. National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: BCS‐17759972 Funding information
Keywords
- colonialism
- household water insecurity
- race
- social inequality
- water infrastructure
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oceanography
- Ecology
- Aquatic Science
- Water Science and Technology
- Ocean Engineering
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law