Niebla and Los Molinos, coastal towns in Valdivia (Chile), are experiencing a high degree of peri-urbanization, changes in land use/cover, and population growth, processes that impact the water supply system. This work analyzed the coverage, processes, and functioning of the drinking water supply system and presents four self-management mechanisms for access to water resources in these towns at the basin scale. Based on semi-structural interviews and field work, the results provide a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the system, make visible the self-management mechanisms by households to access water, and express the lack of normative coherence in the territorial planning instruments between rural and urban areas and the areas of operation of rural health systems and urban health services.
We aim to conduct a comparative analysis of water access in the Parque Costero del Sur Biosphere Reserve (Buenos Aires, Argentina), approached from two perspectives: local narratives and water quality parameters for human consumption. The methodological design included semi-structured interviews with social actors, physicochemical and microbiological analysis of water sources distributed across the area, and the integration of their respective results. We grouped the mentioned characteristics into eleven categories. We describe three instances of non-compliance with the right to water access in terms of quality, accessibility, and acceptability. Arsenic and microbiological parameters most frequently exceeded local potable water standards. We identified similarities and differences between narratives and quality analyses, regarding both organoleptic and non-organoleptic parameters. Integrating local and scientific perspectives is essential for the sustainable management of the resource and for maintaining this area’s protected status.
This study is based on a real case concerning the impact of illegal mining on Yanomami indigenous lands, aiming to characterize how the scientific community has discussed the multiscalar and multidimensional aspects of the universal right to access potable water for the Yanomami People (YP) in the Brazilian Amazon. This qualitative and quantitative research was conducted through an integrative review of Brazilian databases. Of the 136 articles included, 109 had an environmental focus and 12 delved into water-related issues. The different dimensions analyzed provide interpretative pathways to understand the challenges faced by the YP in accessing potable water and to identify effective strategies for transforming the situation sustainably and equitably. The Environmental Bioethics agenda embraces and supports the social, environmental, cultural, and political complexities, especially in giving voice to the main actor in this conflict, the Yanomami Ethnic Group, who have been silenced and neglected in their autonomy and....
This work is framed within a dual theoretical-normative discussion (governance for sustainable inclusive development) and theoretical-ontological (how to analyze the systemic co-constructed relationships between water and society). Specifically, it examines a dynamic process in which the loss of strategic and centralized control over water was reconfigured into fragmented forms of governance and its implications on development dynamics. The work employs a socio-technical, diachronic, and multiscalar approach applied to the case study of La Plata district (Buenos Aires, Argentina) during the period 1973 to 2023. The analysis highlights the fragmentation of institutional decision-making dynamics, the (re)production of winners and losers, and how (mis)governance benefits populations in wealthy urban areas while particularly punishing poor families in peri-urban and rural areas, even though the latter feed 18 million people.
Water, its management, and distribution gained greater importance in the history of Jaén during the Andalusi period. The Roman city of Aurgi was established around the La Magdalena spring, which led to notable agricultural and urban development due to the abundance of water resources. From the 8th century onward, with the Arab presence, the city came to be called Ŷaīyān and stood out within al-Andalus for its advanced hydraulic management, which favored agriculture and ensured the supply of baths and mosques. Prominent authors such as al-Rāzī, al-Idrīsī, and al-Ḥimyarī documented the importance of water in the region, highlighting the fertility of the land and the existence of irrigation systems that promoted agricultural development. These chronicles and geographical works confirmed that the wealth, quality, and management of water were key elements in the growth of Ŷaīyān, making it one of the most productive areas in al-Andalus and establishing Jaén as a....
