Political and Professional Agency Entrapment: An Agenda for Urban Water Research

Rebekah Brown, Richard Ashley and Megan Farrelly ()

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2011, vol. 25, issue 15, 4037-4050

Abstract: The many societal benefits provided by traditional, centralised urban water servicing models are being re-examined following recent extreme weather events, climate uncertainty and other variable socio-technical trends. Total water cycle management offers a more flexible and resilient approach to urban water management, however, transformative change in the sector is difficult. A growing number of scholars have identified that the urban water sector is locked-in to the current large-scale, centralised infrastructure model and suggest the sector is unable to accommodate new technologies and management approaches beyond niche projects. Based on extensive socio-institutional research and example cases from Australian and United Kingdom experiences managing urban water under pressures such as modern environmentalism, prolonged water scarcity and sewerage overflows, this paper provides a commentary on common factors exhibited in both countries related to technological path dependency. Three key factors promoting this pathway: political risk, professional agency fear and a lack of a hybrid governance approach are discussed and a future scholarly research agenda is presented. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Keywords: Adaptive capacity; Path dependency; Socio-technical; Urban water regime; Technological lock-in (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11269-011-9886-y

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