In 2018, the city of Cape Town faced the prospect of reaching 'day
zero', that is a combination of natural and human-made factors
leading to the complete collapse of its municipal water supply.
While the rains eventually fell and a major disaster was averted,
the fear of running out of water looms large in the psyche of
residents in many cities around the world. Water is a
non-substitutable, essential, finite and fugitive resource. It is
the lifeblood of human endeavour. Cities, through global processes
such as Agenda 2030 and forums such as ICLEI exchange best
practices for achieving water security. These forums also are
collective social spaces occupied by civil society organizations
who share strategies and tactics, and the private sector, who
compete for markets and contracts, promoting patent-protected
technologies. It is these groups - states, civil societies, private
sectors - coming together who determine who gets what water, when,
and where. It is the job of academics to understand the how and
why, and of (academic-)activists to fight for equity of access and
sustainability of use. Evidence drawn from around the world and
over time consistently shows that water flows toward money and
power. Outcomes are too-often socially inequitable, environmentally
unsustainable and economically inefficient. How to shift existing
processes toward improved practices is not clear, but positive
outcomes do exist. In this collection, we compare and contrast the
challenges and opportunities for achieving urban water security
with a focus on 11 major world cities: Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo,
Cape Town, Chennai, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Melbourne, Sao Paulo
and Tokyo. Through the theoretical, conceptual and practical
insights provided in these case studies, our collection
constructively contributes to a global conversation regarding the
ways and means of 'avoiding day zero'.
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