The Water Lords: Speculators in Water

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Swyngedouw
Keyword(s):  
Urban Population ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Water System ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Master Plans ◽  
Common Activity ◽  
Public Water System ◽  
Water Provision ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

As already documented in Chapter 3, more than 600,000 of Guayaquil’s inhabitants depend on the ‘tanqueros’ for their daily supply of water. Private water vending is of course not a recent phenomenon. It was a common activity in the time of the Incas, and became the standard means of urban water provision in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the introduction of urban water engineering systems in the late nineteenth century water distribution became increasingly organized by the state, while new engineering practices aimed to provide the entire city with access to water. However, with the exception of a few years after the opening of the La Lolita treatment station in 1928, Guayaquil never really succeeded in achieving the objective of full coverage. Nevertheless, the aim of providing unlimited quantities of potable water for all of the urban population at a marginal (highly subsidized) price was never abandoned, and has been built into successive Master Plans until this very day. The political economic realities of Guayaquil’s urbanization process ran counter to this objective, for reasons discussed in previous chapters. Although the plans always held up the promise of unlimited and guaranteed water supply, a promise which served very important political and ideological functions as it deflected potential social unrest, cultivated clientelist political programmes, and contributed to legitimizing privatization, a growing number of people became systematically excluded from access to publicly provided water. Particularly during the period 1960–90, there was a growing gap in water coverage. Whereas 73% of the urban population was connected to the public water system in 1974, this declined to just 64% in 1990. In absolute terms, 222,269 people were deprived of connections in 1974, but by 1990 this number had risen to 596,013 (according to conservative INEC data). According to the 1980 Master Plan, 75 to 80% of the metropolitan population was connected to the supply system in 1980,while only 20% was serviced by tank lorries (224,964 people). This means that there has been an almost threefold increase in the number of people who are dependent on private water purchases in just over little more than a decade (EMAP-G 1980: Cuadro 4.4–16).

The Water Mandarins: The Contradictions of Urban Water Provision

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Swyngedouw
Keyword(s):  
Urban Population ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Tap Water ◽  
Water System ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Intermittent Flow ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Investment Planning ◽  
Water Company ◽  
Water Provision

Billions of litres of water flow through the centre of Guayaquil each day, as the Rivers Daule and Babahoyo converge to form the River Guayas. Given this fact, it is perplexing to find that 35% of the inhabitants of the city do not have access to adequate and reliable water supplies and the whole city suffers from chronic absolute water shortages. In this and the next chapter, we shall explore the contradictions of urban water provision, which result in a sizeable part of the urban population, invariably the poorer end of the social spectrum, not having access to piped potable water. This situation, in turn, makes them easy victims of water speculators, the private water sellers that distribute water in non-serviced areas by means of tankers. In Guayaquil, approximately 400 tankers service a population of half a million people, or approximately 35% of the total urban population. These water-merchants buy water at a highly subsidized price (70 sucres/m3),while they sell it for up to 6,500 sucres/m3 (November 1993), a price of up to 300 times higher than that paid by low-volume consumers who receive water from the water company. We will also explore the strategies and structure of the water company, infrastructure and investment planning, price mechanisms and control structures in the light of these exclusionary and disempowering mechanisms of the existing water system. In short, we shall explore the contradictory dynamics of the ‘Water Mandarins’. The complex networks of those that hold control over the water tap, water infrastructure, and water distribution will be excavated in order to unearth the relations of power that infuse and eventually organize the intermittent flow of water in Guayaquil. Of course, analysing the changing dynamics of water supply in Guayaquil is like trying to hit a moving target. The field research for this book was completed in 1998. Since then, the public water company has awarded a concession to International Water Services, a Dutch-based subsidiary of Bechtel and Edison Spa, to operate, administer, and expand Guayaquil’s water and sewage services and infrastructure (see below).

scholarly journals Stress-Testing Framework for Urban Water Systems: A Source to Tap Approach for Stochastic Resilience Assessment

Water ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 154
Author(s):  
Dionysios Nikolopoulos ◽  
Panagiotis Kossieris ◽  
Ioannis Tsoukalas ◽  
Christos Makropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Water Distribution ◽  
Stress Testing ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Water System ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Distribution Model ◽  
Generation Model ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Testing Framework ◽  
Urban Water System

Optimizing the design and operation of an Urban Water System (UWS) faces significant challenges over its lifespan to account for the uncertainties of important stressors that arise from population growth rates, climate change factors, or shifting demand patterns. The analysis of a UWS’s performance across interdependent subsystems benefits from a multi-model approach where different designs are tested against a variety of metrics and in different times scales for each subsystem. In this work, we present a stress-testing framework for UWSs that assesses the system’s resilience, i.e., the degree to which a UWS continues to perform under progressively increasing disturbance (deviation from normal operating conditions). The framework is underpinned by a modeling chain that covers the entire water cycle, in a source-to-tap manner, coupling a water resources management model, a hydraulic water distribution model, and a water demand generation model. An additional stochastic simulation module enables the representation and modeling of uncertainty throughout the water cycle. We demonstrate the framework by “stress-testing” a synthetic UWS case study with an ensemble of scenarios whose parameters are stochastically changing within the UWS simulation timeframe and quantify the uncertainty in the estimation of the system’s resilience.

scholarly journals Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) Framework for the Integrated Urban Water System

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.6) ◽  
pp. 290
Author(s):  
Pooja Shrivastava ◽  
M K. Verma ◽  
Meena Murmu ◽  
Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Water System ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Water Infrastructure ◽  
Dynamic Feedback ◽  
Decentralized System ◽  
Urban Water System ◽  
Spatially Distributed

Over the past century urban water system of developed and developing cities are under increasing stress as water dearth.  The estimation of possible solutions for water management in megacities requires the spatially distributed dynamic and grid-based replication of the evolution of public water infrastructure under consideration of changes (e.g. climate, global, environment, economy, and land-use). These simulations can be realized with the help of frameworks for integrated urban water system. The MCDA framework for integrated approaches of urban water system is characterized as single system (COMBINED SEWER SYSTEM) and entire system (WATER DISTRIBUTION, SEWER NETWORK etc.) investigation with consideration of decentralized system and spatial-temporal interactions and the dynamic feedback of population models to water infrastructure. Urban water system needs the frame work which will meet the sustainable needs of future. The present work identifies the best solutions for existing problems in urban water infrastructure while making interaction with stakeholders to reach sustainable framework for urban water management in this water dearth regions. This framework will provide new knowledge of sustainable integration system between the social and environmental issues.  

Rethinking Urban Water (In)formality

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malini Ranganathan
Keyword(s):  
Water System ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
State Control ◽  
Water Access ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Informal Practices ◽  
Water Provision ◽  
The Relationship

Most urban residents around the world access water through a variety of so-called informal means. While “informal” water access is often equated with private water vendors operating outside of the state, this essay argues that informal practices and logics pervade the entire water system, cutting across perceived boundaries separating the formal and informal, state and private, and utility and nonutility. This essay reconceptualizes urban water informality through a postcolonial theoretical lens, arguing that “informal” water does not lie outside of state control and oversight, nor is it strictly separate from “formal” water. Rather, informal water is a product of historically specific forms of state practice that have shaped differentiated and fractured forms of space and infrastructure over time. Central to an understanding of informal water provision is the relationship between state practice, space, and infrastructure. The essay draws from the case of Bangalore, India, to critically rethink urban water informality.

Sustainability of urban water system: examples from Fukuoka, Japan

Water Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 501-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Czemiel Berndtsson ◽  
Kenji Jinno
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Reclaimed Water ◽  
Water System ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Urban Water Management ◽  
Water Shortages ◽  
Urban Water System

Urban water management policy in Japan, with examples from Fukuoka city, is described and the potential for sustainability of Fukuoka's urban water system is discussed. A framework of the qualitative characteristics of a sustainable system (including social, environmental and economic factors) is developed and used in the analyses presented here. The Fukuoka example shows that technically advanced solutions for use of reclaimed water and rainwater in buildings can be practically and economically feasible. Regarding the organization it is shown that the wastewater sector has a somewhat lower status than the water sector. It is argued that merging the water and wastewater sectors could stimulate the development of a holistic approach to urban water management, contribute to increasing resources availability for the wastewater sector and, in this way, the overall sustainability of the urban water system. Tackling water shortages through controlling water demand, investments in increasing water distribution efficiency and utilization of reclaimed water and rainwater in Fukuoka are all in line with increasing sustainability of the urban water system.

scholarly journals Urban Struggles over Water Scarcity in Harare

Daedalus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Muchaparara Musemwa
Keyword(s):  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Population ◽  
Water Distribution ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
History Of ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
Colonial Government

Abstract This essay counters the growing tendency in current scholarship to attribute nearly all the enduring water scarcity problems to climate change. Focusing on Harare, Zimbabwe's capital city, this essay contends that recurrent water crises can only really be understood within the contentious, long, and complex history of water politics in the capital city from the colonial to the postcolonial period. Although the colonial and postcolonial states in Zimbabwe had very different ideological and racial policies, for various reasons, neither was willing nor able to provide adequate supplies of water to the urban poor even as water was abundant in the city's reservoirs. It posits that while the colonial government racialized access to water by restricting its use by urban Africans, the postcolonial government failed to change the colonial patterns of urban water distribution and did little to increase water supplies to keep pace with a swiftly growing urban population and a geographically expanding city.

scholarly journals Drops in the city: the puzzle of water privatization and consumption deficiencies in urban Ghana

Water Policy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-434
Author(s):  
Kwaku Owusu Twum ◽  
Mohammed Abubakari
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Water System ◽  
Regulatory Control ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Water Supply Systems ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Water Sector ◽  
Water Provision

Abstract The water industry in Ghana has recently experienced a massive proprietary change, from its public monotonic system to a public–private system mixed with localized private participation options. Although these changes have contributed to local and national revenue generation, the consumption bracket continually de-equalizes due to inaccessibility and unavailability patterns of water provision. This has made water a scarce commodity for some, whilst others are over-supplied and over-satisfied. In this research, the manifestation of private sector participation in Ghana's urban water sector in the midst of the public water system and its implications on water supply have been investigated using both secondary and primary data. The study reveals significant deficiencies in urban water needs and wider inequality outcomes amongst urbanites despite government's neo-liberal interventions in the water sector. The major proposals include the need for re-alignment of private sector engagements characterized by proper state's regulatory control mechanisms and encouragement of community/neighborhood joint water supply systems to complement state and private interventions in order to reverse the access and consumption deficiencies in the urban water sector.

Temporal variability of disinfection by-products concentration in urban public water system

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-398
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Samples ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Water System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Constituent ◽  
System P ◽  
Public Water System ◽  
Drinking Water Samples ◽  
By Products

The occurrence of trihalomethanes (THMs) was studied in the drinking water samples from urban water supply network of Karachi city that served more than 18 million people. Drinking water samples were collected from 58 locations in summer (May-August) and winter (November-February) seasons. The major constituent of THMs detected was chloroform in winter (92.34%) and summer (93.07%), while the other THMs determined at lower concentrations. Summer and winter concentrations of total THMs at places exceed the levels regulated by UEPA (80 μg l-1) and WHO (100 μg l-1). GIS linked temporal variability in two seasons showed significantly higher median concentration (2.5%-23.06%) of THMs compared to winter.

Reliability-Based Assessment of Lifecycle Cost of Urban Water Distribution Infrastructures

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 04016030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Karamouz ◽  
Korosh Yaseri ◽  
Sara Nazif
Keyword(s):  
Water Distribution ◽  
Urban Water

The ingenious marketing of modern paintings

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-233
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Bayer ◽  
John Page
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Process ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Auction Houses ◽  
Art Dealers ◽  
The Media ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze the evolution of the marketing of paintings and related visual products from its nascent stages in England around 1700 to the development of the modern art market by 1900, with a brief discussion connecting to the present. Design/methodology/approach – Sources consist of a mixture of primary and secondary sources as well as a series of econometric and statistical analyses of specifically constructed and unique data sets that list nearly more than 50,000 different sales of paintings during this period. One set records sales of paintings at various English auction houses during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the second set consists of all purchases and sales of paintings recorded in the stock books of the late nineteenth-century London art dealer, Arthur Tooth, during the years of 1870/1871. The authors interpret the data under a commoditization model first introduced by Igor Kopytoff in 1986 that posits that markets and their participants evolve toward maximizing the efficiency of their exchange process within the prevailing exchange technology. Findings – We found that artists were largely responsible for a series of innovations in the art market that replaced the prevailing direct relationship between artists and patron with a modern market for which painters produced works on speculation to be sold by enterprising middlemen to an anonymous public. In this process, artists displayed a remarkable creativity and a seemingly instinctive understanding of the principles of competitive marketing that should dispel the erroneous but persistent notion that artistic genius and business savvy are incompatible. Research limitations/implications – A similar marketing analysis could be done of the development of the art markets of other leading countries, such as France, Italy and Holland, as well as the current developments of the art market. Practical implications – The same process of the development of the art market in England is now occurring in Latin America and China. Also, the commoditization process continues in the present, now using the Internet and worldwide art dealers. Originality/value – This is the first article to trace the historical development of the marketing of art in all of its components: artists, dealers, artist organizations, museums, curators, art critics, the media and art historians.

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