Water is a top-of-mind issue for many Arizonans, between debates over the future of the Colorado River and groundwater and conversations about the possibility of augmenting our water supply.
But, Amber Wutich, an anthropologist and ASU professor, says these discussions are not just physical science ones, but social science ones, as well.
Wutich is the author of a paper called Water Insecurity is human: why social science must be at the core of water security research and practice, and joined The Show to summarize.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Can you please summarize the argument you're making here?
AMBER WUTICH: The argument that I'm trying to make in the paper is that nowadays, almost no one's experience of water insecurity is dependent on the physical availability of water in their local environment.
What determines how much water we have is the kinds of infrastructure we build, the economies that we built to manage the water, the values we put on the water, and so if we want to address problems of water insecurity, we have to start with the human parts of the system and work in concert with the hydrology and the biophysical parts of the system.
BRODIE: So do you draw a distinction then between water insecurity and water scarcity?
WUTICH: Yes, with water scarcity, we often are talking about the physical availability of water and with water insecurity, we mean that human part.
BRODIE: So, how does the water scarcity fit with human systems to produce water abundance or water difficulties? So what role then do you think social science plays in this?
Because, for example, in a place like Arizona, there's clearly not as much water to go around as there has been in the past. There have obviously been cutbacks in different places, you know, negotiations on the Colorado River in terms of potentially cutting back more.
So what role do you see social science playing in those talks and maybe in policy making going forward as opposed to maybe some of the physical sciences?
WUTICH: Sure, so I think there are two important roles. The most important one is that as we move to a future where water is perhaps scarcer or more contaminated or more difficult and expensive to make available, we have an opportunity as a society to, I think, the way that we structure the systems we live in.
And although it can be challenging, it's also exciting to think that we might be able to rebuild these systems in a way that is more consistent with our values and the lives we want to live, and I argue that social scientists are really core participants in this process as our communities, as our governments, as is industry. But social scientists are so good at working with people to help them articulate what their values are and how they want to live their lives. So this is one main role.
The other role is that social science has yielded a lot of very robust findings about the way the world works, and heeding those lessons can help us also build these better systems.
BRODIE: On a practical level then, are you thinking about things like trying to figure out maybe where pipes should go and what kinds of pipes they should be, or whether there should be irrigation in particular neighborhoods, or if there are going to be cutbacks, thinking about who's living in the areas where there's going to be cutbacks, and what their needs are and what do they have already relative to what the future might look like? Like, is that the kind of thing you're talking about?
WUTICH: Certainly social scientists can assist with all those things, but I'll give an example of what I mean. For example, there are very robust findings in social science that the people most likely to experience water insecurity even in a very water-rich environment are people who experience poverty, people who live on low incomes.
So, about five years ago, the city of Phoenix asked to have presentations from social scientists to learn from these findings, and they created several very innovative, cutting edge ways of dealing with this well-established tendency. So they have a citizen review board, they created rates that were affordable, they stopped a thing called shut off, so when people were not able to afford their bills, they didn't shut off, they do not shut off their water anymore.
Instead, they slowed down the water that people have enough to drink and cook and do basic hygiene tasks. And so this would be an example of a city putting in place new ways of managing water that build on the needs of certain communities and the social science.
BRODIE: Do you find that social scientists think enough about this topic? Like among all the things social scientists think about and study, where do water insecurity and scarcity fall on that list?
WUTICH: I would argue that we have a very robust and sophisticated understanding of water insecurity, and one exciting development has been for many years people believe that water insecurity was kind of located in low and middle income countries and we didn't find it in high income countries. And thanks to the work of activists, but also social scientists, we now understand that there are pockets of quite severe water insecurity in the United States and other high income economies, and there are lots of things that we can do to address this.
BRODIE: What would you like to see social science’s role be? And I guess what should this field's involvement be as we continue to negotiate, for example, the Colorado River and talk about dwindling groundwater supplies and things like that? Like, what role should social science play?
WUTICH: Sure, I think social scientists can play many roles. I'll give an example, in the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, which is housed at Arizona State University but funded by the governor's office, there are many roles for social scientists. We have policy analysts and lawyers who are helping with these negotiations, but we also have social scientists who are working with water and secure communities to help them build the future that they want. And so I would say there are a range of areas of expertise in social science and all of them have a role to play.
BRODIE: And do you find that within the public that all of this is sort of given equal consideration? And I ask because, you know, when we talk about water scarcity, water insecurity, so often the conversation has to do with how much water there is to go around as opposed to how does it go around. How is it distributed? So I wonder if you find that you sort of have to explain to people, no, no, this is an important part of this, in addition to the rest of it.
WUTICH: Well, you said that so beautifully and it's so true. I find particularly as a citizen of Arizona, and I get to circulate with just regular people and they ask me about this. There is typically a great amount of fear about climate change and what it means for us living in the desert, and so that's what people come to me with our questions about water scarcity.
And what does it mean for my future, and what does it mean for my children's future? And so I very much am from coming from a perspective that we have an extraordinary opportunity to teach the rest of the world how to conserve and manage our water in ways that are just and consonant with our values here in Arizona. And yeah, I. I think you're right about that.
BRODIE: I'm curious how you think about water use and like you mentioned, a lot of folks who suffer from water insecurity are on the lower end of the economic spectrum. We talked, for example, about trying to plant trees to provide shade in these areas, which typically don't have a lot of shade, which is, of course, difficult in the summer here. Those trees, though, of course, need water.
So, like, how do you think about how water might be needed and used for different uses in some of these communities?
WUTICH: Yes, this is a perfect example of where we have an opportunity here in Arizona to create sort of worldwide impact with our work because this trade-off between how do we create enough green space and how do we wisely use water is one that we're still trying to figure out. We know that we need a lot of shade so that our heat islands don't get worse. We know that using native species is probably going to be a better way to do that.
We also can begin to experiment with ways of allocating water so that it's specifically earmarked just in the way that the city of Phoenix did for low income households, we can also earmark water for shade providing trees that lower the temperature. And so this is, I think, a great example where we can have collaborations between ecologists and heat scholars and water scholars to create an optimal outcome.
