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Article

When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions

by
Lucero Radonic
1,* and
Adriana Zuniga-Teran
2
1
Department of Anthropology & Environmental Science and Policy Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
2
School of Geography, Development and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1598; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021598
Submission received: 31 October 2022 / Revised: 20 December 2022 / Accepted: 23 December 2022 / Published: 13 January 2023
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Abstract

:
Municipalities, their utilities and resource managers are designing and implementing policies and programs toward climate adaptation, which means governing urban water resources differently. Urban water managers are thus expanding their roles and responsibilities through the installation and maintenance of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) systems. This system expansion is perhaps more striking for water utilities administering GSI-related programs because they acquire a role that has an impact on how residents and neighborhoods will differentially experience the effects of climate change. Through an in-depth qualitative study of a GSI program in Tucson, Arizona, USA, we contribute to the socio-environmental justice framework with specific attention to distributive, procedural, recognition, interactional, and mobility justice. We highlight that a socio-environmental justice approach requires resource managers and decision-makers to recognize and respect the ways in which people’s everyday relationship to water and water infrastructure is impacted by culturally mediated social norms and values, as well as legacies of exclusion and inclusion in urban development and resource governance. Thus, we argue that discussions around water equity in urban water governance need to be placed within a socio-environmental justice framework to address historical inequalities and ensure these are not reproduced through GSI.

1. Introduction

The water sector is at the frontline of climate change [1]. Too much or too little water is affecting communities across the urban–rural continuum. Resource managers in urban areas are having to deal with more frequent flooding that contaminates watersheds and creates problems for infrastructure [2]; with extended droughts that reduce water allocations [3]; and with heat waves and drier soils that increase water demand and competition for this valuable resource by multiple sectors [4]. In addition, in the years to come, resource managers in urban areas will have to service an increasing number of people. Cities are currently home to 55 percent of the global population, and are expected to house 68 percent by 2050 [5]. Experts anticipate that climate-displacement will exacerbate waves of internal and external migration to cities compounding with political and economic factors [6].
In this challenging context, municipalities, their utilities, and resource managers are designing and implementing policies and programs toward urban climate adaptation, and that means governing water resources differently. In the last decade, the managers of urban waters have expanded their role and responsibilities through the installation and management of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), defined as “the creative combination of natural and artificial (green + grey) structures intended to achieve specific resilience goals (e.g., flood impact mitigation, public health protection and enhancements, etc.) with broad public support” [7]. In its myriad forms, GSI has the potential to help cities mitigate and adapt to climate change by harnessing rainwater and stormwater as a resource for cities, decreasing water demand for landscape irrigation, replenishing aquifers, reducing flooding, protecting watersheds from excessive pollution, and mitigating urban heat by retaining water in the urban landscape and promoting greenery [8,9]. Through GSI, stormwater is being reframed from a hazard to a resource, which is particularly relevant in arid regions. Its appeal is made stronger when considering the expected capital investments for renewing or renovating aging infrastructure [10]. For these reasons, GSI is often framed as a visible asset for the water industry, resulting in many water utilities directly managing or partnering with others in GSI implementation. Despite the undoubted advantages, GSI systems have disadvantages that should be better addressed, including the high costs of implementation, the need for continuous maintenance, the lack of design standards and regulatory frameworks, the unequal distribution of high-quality GSI systems, and the need for inclusive processes in their design, planning and implementation [7,11,12].
Critically, through their involvement in the installation and management of GSI, managers of urban water flows are intervening by design in the delivery of diverse environmental benefits such as provisioning of extra water supplies, runoff control, or increased shade and cooling. Thus, we argue, they are exerting a growing influence on how urban residents and neighborhoods are differentially affected by climate change. For water utilities, this creates new responsibilities beyond their traditional mission to ensure that all residents have access to reliable and safe water supplies—an already challenging task. Although equity considerations have been at the center of water utilities’ mission, a broader framework is needed to incorporate climate change challenges into water resource management. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap and expand existing frameworks for water equity through emerging justice considerations derived from GSI initiatives in cities. To this end, we expand the socio-environmental justice framework [13] and explore its applicability for the water sector in the specific context of GSI implementation.
Injustices associated with GSI adoption and practices are a major challenge in many cities [13,14,15,16,17]. Socio-environmental justice is therefore a critical framework for resource managers, as they work with city administrations and urban residents to confront the challenges of climate change adaptation in a way that acknowledges and respects cultural diversity and addresses local histories of uneven resource access. Through an in-depth case study, this article builds on the rapidly expanding literature exploring the intersections of environmental justice and climate adaptation interventions. We join previous studies in highlighting that a justice framework cannot be limited to issues of distribution, but should also build recognition and procedural justice into their programs [13]. In addition, given the nature of GSI interventions, it is critical to incorporate justice issues related to interactional and mobility justice [17]. We highlight that a socio-environmental justice framework requires water resource managers and decision-makers to recognize and respect the ways in which people’s everyday relationship to water is impacted by culturally mediated social norms and values, as well as legacies of exclusion in urban development. Our thinking is influenced by lessons from political ecology on the effects of framing infrastructure as purely technical for this obfuscates their political origins, risks consolidating power in the hands of technocrats and privileged groups, and disregards alternative forms of expertise and socio-environmental relations [16,18,19,20,21,22,23].
In this article, water equity is our point of departure because, since its inception in the 1970s, it has become a guiding framework for planning and implementation in the water sector. We begin by offering an overview of the water equity framework before positioning it in conversation with the environmental justice literature focusing on urban green space. We then introduce our empirical case study: a rainwater collection incentive program implemented by the water utility in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson provides an illustrative example of a city that has embraced GSI-related policies, which prompted its designation as an “Emerald City” by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2013, the only emerald city located in the desert [24]. We present a comparative summary of results from evaluations of the program led by the lead author. The discussion section then positions these findings in the context of the programs’ history to discuss how, in the development of GSI, resource managers and their partners can incorporate a socio-environmental justice framework with specific attention to distributive, procedural, recognition, interactional, and mobility justice.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Water Equity: A Starting Point

Global governance institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) associate water equity with a programmatic reduction in disparities in accessibility to, availability, and quality of domestic water. The emphasis in their agenda is on the distribution of water resources—specifically, through interventions targeting infrastructure development and pricing regimes for improved water sources for domestic consumption [25,26]. In other words, the emphasis is on quality and quantity of domestic water. Institutions at the national level are increasingly incorporating a similar interpretation of water equity into their policies and programs. For example, in 2021 as households fell behind in their bills due to the economic fallout surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Association of Water Companies issued a policy statement on water equity emphasizing its members commitment to advancing universal access to water that is safe, reliable, and affordable [27]. Outside formal institutions, water equity has been pushed for by social movements under the banner of the human-right-to water to denounce the (mis)workings of the water sector and call attention to inequitable distribution. The world over, water equity has become a rally call in the context of inexistant potable water and sewage infrastructure, unaffordable drinking water rates, water shutoffs due to non-payment, or service suspension due to water contamination disproportionally affecting historically marginalized populations [28,29,30].
As water equity became an international institutional goal, it raised significant critiques for fostering a limited interpretation of the human right to water [31,32]. These critiques highlight that a water equity framework is largely compatible with the privatization of water [33], and tends to equalize people under the same category of anonymous individuals rather than historically and socially situated actors with specific relationships to diverse waters [32,34,35]. This methodological individualism furthermore could prevent society from addressing the roots of unequal water distribution and exploitation, and stimulate disregard for the diverse cultural norms and incommensurable values associated with water [28,29,31]. Scholars have documented the multiple values and meanings of water that exist between, and even within communities. These diversity makes human–water relations complex and multiple in a way that is often not captured by the water equity narratives [30,36].

2.2. Towards Environmental Justice

The plurality of ways in which scholars understand environmental justice has been well-documented [37,38,39,40]. Here, we focus on what can be described as the five tenets of socio-environmental justice [17]. The first tenet is distributive justice. Early scholarship on environmental justice documented how hazardous sites, like incinerators and toxic dumps, were disproportionally placed in neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by low-income minorities [41,42]. Critically, this work related uneven environmental exposure—to particulate air pollution or lead-tainted water, for example—to racial and economic inequalities through attention to historical power relations and their contemporary reproduction [43,44]. In this way, distributive justice—or the uneven distribution of environmental hazards—became the foundation for environmental justice frameworks by local and state agencies responsible for environmental management.
This framework draws attention to procedural justice by recognizing that uneven distribution of environmental hazards is informed by resident groups’ differential access to the decision-making processes that affect their local environments [45]. Vulnerable populations consistently have less access to information and decision-making spheres [46,47]. Understandings and applications of environmental justice have expanded to include cultural–political recognition, or relational justice. Originally introduced by Schlosberg (2004) [48], it involves acknowledging different cultural identities, especially those systematically excluded in project design and implementation given long-standing racism and colonial relations. Building on Fraser (1996; 2000) [49,50], recognition justice calls attention to the rights and practices of groups who are not recognized, those who are routinely disrespected or maligned, and those coerced into mainstream culture.
More recently, scholars and activists have adopted environmental justice as an approach to examine differential access to environmental services and amenities by diverse groups. Significant attention has been paid to access and distribution of urban green spaces like parks, street trees, community gardens, and riparian corridors [51,52,53,54,55,56]. Studies show that access is highly stratified based on income and ethno-racial characteristics, as well as gender and (dis)ability [52,57,58]. Lack of access to urban green spaces has synergistic consequences: groups with limited access do not benefit directly and consistently from noise attenuation, better air quality, shade and lower temperatures, and less flooding, as well as access to spaces for recreation and socialization [52,59].
The scope of this scholarship is expanding beyond the triumvirate of distribution, procedural, and recognition justice to include interactional and mobility justice [17]. Interactional justice draws attention to the quality of and for interpersonal interactions in a specific environment [13,55,60]. Scholars have paid attention to how the design and management of public spaces may influence whether these spaces are experienced as welcoming or hostile by vulnerable populations [61,62]. Finally, mobility justice refers to the differential opportunities to gain resources from greenspace development that would allow individuals and their communities to improve their socio-economic standing in society. This scholarship urges critical attention to how marginalized communities may be displaced through rent and tax hikes when urban greening is introduced following the global sustainability agenda [63,64].
Considering the rich literature, we call for a conscious expansion of the definition of equity through a socio-environmental justice framework attentive to procedural, recognition, and distributive justice, as well as interactional and mobility justice. To this end, we draw attention to how everyday relationships to GSI are always historically and socially situated. In other words, people’s relationships to water and GSI infrastructures—like river paths and rainwater basins—are impacted by culturally mediated social norms and values, as well as local histories and legacies of inclusion and exclusion in urban development. Awareness of this complexity (within their service area) by water resource managers and their collaborators in the public and private sectors is key to ensure cities do not reproduce enduring patterns of inequality as they deploy GSI as one strategy to adapt to climate change.

3. Methods

This article is based on the analysis of two qualitative evaluations of a prominent GSI program in the U.S. Southwest: the residential rainwater harvesting incentive program in Tucson, Arizona. This program was designed as a rebate and later expanded to offer grants and zero-interest loans to low-income residents. The first evaluation (2016–2018) focused on rebate participants who were reimbursed after installing a system, and the second evaluation (2019–2020) focused on loan/grant participants. For both evaluations, data were collected using a mixed-methods approach that integrated semi-structured interviews, mental models of rainwater harvesting, and landscape surveys of participating households. Table 1 provides an overview of the methods for data collection and analysis. Thirty-two people were recruited to participate in each evaluation using a non-probability sampling approach. They were identified using a random sample generator applied to a list of everyone who had participated in the city’s incentive program, were then contacted via phone, and invited to participate in the study. The sample size reflects the best practices for qualitative research and followed parameters for data saturation [65,66]. In addition, to contextualize and analyze those findings, we draw on text analysis of GSI-related public reports and policy materials and over 50 semi-structured interviews with policy-makers and practitioners exploring the history of GI implementation, drivers, and barriers.

4. Study Context

Tucson is a medium-size city, with about 1 million residents living in the metropolitan area (Figure 1). Historically, the Tucson area receives an average annual precipitation of 295 mm and exhibits fair amount of year-to year rainfall variability. Roughly half of the annual rainfall comes with the summer monsoon and the other half during the winter months [71]. The area is well into its second decade of a megadrought and has experienced record-setting high-average temperatures for the summer months. According to climate projections, by the end of the 21st century, this region will have more days of extreme heat over 38.8 degrees Celsius, and the urban heat island effect could intensify extreme heat events. Climate models show less certainty for overall rainfall, predicting less frequent but more extreme summer rains [72]. These conditions constitute a major challenge for urban governance, as decision-makers need to develop equitable platforms to adapt to the dual impact of climate change: extreme heat events and ever-more limited water supplies.
The municipal water utility, Tucson Water, serves around 720,000 people (about 75 percent of the population), including many customers living in unincorporated areas. The city has three water supply sources: Colorado River water via the Central Arizona Project (CAP), groundwater from the underlying aquifer, and recycled effluent, used mostly for landscape irrigation of golf courses and parks [73]. The utility has over 99.5 percent coverage and an increasing block rate system, where the more potable water a household uses, the more they pay for the unit of water. In 2022, the residential block rate for single family dwellings was as follows: 1–7 Ccf ($2.07), 8–15 Ccf ($3.87), 16–30 Ccf ($8.39), and over 30 Ccf ($12.93), with public officials discussing a rate increase for the upcoming fiscal year. This block rate system aimed to incentivize water conservation and it has been successful at doing that. Per capita water use has decreased 30% in Tucson since the 1980s, allowing to accommodate a growing population [73,74]. The control of water demand through conservation measures has been a priority for water managers and policy-makers given the city’s multi-decade drought. The utility has a diverse water portfolio and their water management approach includes a combination of hard-path approaches (large-scale infrastructure initiatives) and soft-path approaches (demand management initiatives), including education programs, and conservation incentives.
The residential rainwater harvesting rebate program (henceforth rebate program) is part of these conservation incentives. Launched in 2012, the program sought to reduce outdoor potable water use by presenting rainwater as an alternative water source for landscape irrigation [68]. This program, which has the highest expenditure of all conservation programs, is funded by a conservation fee (~$1) that is charged to all Tucson Water customers equally in their water bills [75]. It was designed so that qualifying costumers could apply for reimbursement of the installation costs, of about $2000. Data from Tucson Water showed that beneficiaries of this rebate program were mostly residents from middle-class neighborhoods, with only a handful of participants from low-income Hispanic neighborhoods located in the south side of the city [76] (Figure 2). To address this inequity, in 2016, through a partnership with the non-profit Sonora Environmental Research Institute, Inc. (SERI), a new affiliated program was launched—the Low-Income Rainwater Harvesting Program (henceforth loan/grant program) offering zero interest loans and grants for low-income households so they could apply to the rebate without requiring out-of-pocket money. Households who are at or below 50 percent of the area median income qualify for grants as well as loans.

5. Results

In alignment with the rebate program’s emphasis on outdoor irrigation, all participants lived in single-family homes with outdoor spaces. The populations for both programs differed intentionally by income level, and this was reflected on our two random samples. The sample in the loan/grant program had in average a lower level of formal educational attainment and a higher level of unemployment and underemployment. Significantly, the samples were also different in terms of participants’ place of origin, racial-ethnic background, and length of residency in Tucson (Table 2). City and state documents use the census categories Hispanic and White. Participants used the terms White, Hispanic, Latino or the more location-specific Mexican and Mexican-American. Only a couple of participants used the term Latinx. For an in-depth discussion of the history and relationships between these labels see G. Christina Mora’s (2014) work [23]. For a discussion on the nature of race as a socially constructed system of human classification with material implications on the lived experiences of people, we refer readers to Hartigan’s edited volume [77].

5.1. Drivers for Implementation

We found significant differences in drivers, management practices, and valued benefits associated to GSI. Members of each group sought and valued rainwater harvesting for its potential to bring about different benefits to their households and neighborhoods; accordingly, they managed their GSI differently. To determine what benefits were most significant across all participants’ mental models, we used the frequency and centrality scores from the FCM data. Frequency scores indicate what percentage of participants included any one concept in their mental model, and centrality scores provide information about a concept’s relative importance within an individual model by quantifying its connections to others as drawn by participants (Table 3).
A common driver for rainwater implementation was the desire for a “lush landscape”. Many White participants—across both samples—engaged with rainwater to create a “desert oasis” in their yards. Accordingly, they planted drought-adapted shade trees and bushes, along with an array of cacti and succulents. They described a strong causal relationship between GSI and cooling shade through the planting of these drought-adapted ornamentals. Cooling shade was valued for extending the home’s living space into the yard, and for drawing native birds and butterflies to the yard. In contrast, cooling shade had a less prominent role in how Hispanic loan/grant participants described the benefits they sought and experienced from GSI. For these participants, GSI was strongly associated with food production through the planting of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs as well as vegetable gardens. Thus, the desire for a lush landscape was of a different kind for low-income Hispanic participants who primarily saw rainwater harvesting as an irrigation source for edible plants.
Advertising materials designed by the water utility highlighted the potential of GSI for potable water conservation and, consequently, financial savings in the water bill. Thus, it was expected that financial benefits would be a significant driver for implementation. We found that financial savings were not a primary motivating factor among rebate participants, with only higher water users considering it. In contrast, financial savings were a motivating factor for rainwater harvesting among most loan/grant participants. These households cited expected reductions in the water bill, along with reductions in the energy bill through tree-induced shade, and cost of groceries derived from household gardens and fruit-bearing trees irrigated (at least in part) with rainwater.

5.2. Management of Rainwater Harvesting Systems

In line with their desire for “lush landscapes”, most participants in both studies planted new vegetation after installing their rainwater systems. However, the extent and the type of plantings differed between groups. First, households in the rebate study planted more and faster than households in the loan/grant study. Around 76 percent of rebate study participants planted new vegetation soon after installing their rainwater harvesting system: 40 percent added more than 10 new plants, and 31 percent installed their systems as part of a large-scale landscaping overhaul. Many of these projects were designed and/or managed by landscaping companies. In line with the xeriscaping principles dominant across the city, most new landscape vegetation was low-water use shrubs and bushes, especially local varieties chosen to attract pollinators.
In contrast, in the loan/grant study, the planting of new vegetation generally occurred at a small-scale and slow-pace. While 82 percent of households added some new vegetation after installing their tank, very few households planted over 10 new specimens and no one engaged in a large-scale landscape renovation project. Instead, new plants were added at an incremental pace as participants identified plants they liked or were offered new additions by friends and acquaintances. Trees were added by a higher percentage of homes in this sample than across the rebate study, and houses added significantly less shrubs, bushes, cacti, and agaves. Among the selected trees, fruit-bearing varieties were the most common. People explained that they selected specific edible and sensorially pleasing plant varieties as a way of reproducing the environment of their native land and reconnecting with its flavors.
Home gardens had a prominent role in Hispanic household’s outdoor practices with half of all loan/grant participants having a vegetable garden. The size of these gardens varied from a handful of medium-sized pots to several larger raised beds. Interest in gardening tended to precede rainwater harvesting, but participants expressed interest in expanding their gardens or restarting them once they had an ”extra” and “better-quality” source of water for irrigation. Interestingly, while 45 percent of rebate participants were growing herbs and/or vegetables in pots or small beds, the prominence of homegrown food in their landscapes and outdoor activities was much lower. With a few exceptions, rebate participants did not express an interest in expanding their garden or starting a new one. In fact, the opposite was the case, as people decided to stop gardening or limit it when realizing how much (rain)water it consumed.
The extent and type of past rainwater harvesting experiences was diverse across participants, yet two main groups can be identified. Many participants—a majority of whom were White middle- and upper-class—had experience with rainwater harvesting facilitated through their membership in environmental advocacy groups or programs. Some had rainwater systems prior to receiving the rebate, while others did not have one, but had volunteered to install them for other members of their community. The second group was composed of households with previous rainwater harvesting experience, primarily of a rudimentary nature in rural or peri-urban areas of Mexico or the US Southwest. Among these households, some had used tanks to collect rainwater in a context of household water insecurity. In those cases, rainwater was used primarily for sanitation (laundry and house cleaning) and edible plants irrigation. Past experiences with rainwater collection, and the specific learning pathway, seem to influence expectations of and interactions with rainwater harvesting gardens. People with prior experience understood that rainwater harvesting irrigation requires time and patience, and did not expect to connect their rainwater harvesting system to an automated irrigation system.

6. Discussion

In this section, we use the evaluation of the rebate and loan/grant programs as a starting point to reflect on how to engage GSI policies with the tenets of socio-environmental justice. Here, we offer insights around distributional, recognition, procedural, interactional, and mobility justice separately, while examining aspects related to their interdependence. Our analysis draws primarily on environmental justice literature, but resonates with literature in political ecology in that it draws attention to complex power dynamics in the production of uneven urban environments [20,22,59].

6.1. Distributional Justice

Distributional justice requires attention to patterns in the allocation of benefits from GSI to ensure that historically marginalized populations are not neglected nor denied access. For our case study, it is important to highlight that around 44 percent of the population in Tucson self-identifies as Hispanic, and 28 percent of residents are native Spanish speakers [78]. Moreover, Tucson has a 250-year Hispanic history, and ancestral Indigenous O’odham and Yoeme roots [79]. While poverty is experienced to some degree across the entire city, in numerous areas there is a high-correlation between predominantly Hispanic populations and high poverty rates [80].
The creation of the loan/grant program demonstrates attention by water managers and community organizations towards patterns of distributional injustice. A few years into the rebate program, the water utility mapped the location of all participating households and found low participation in low-income and minority neighborhoods, specifically in the predominantly Hispanic southside of town. In other words, they found middle and high-income White households were disproportionally benefiting from a program funded by all utility customers. This was later supported by the evaluation of the program, as shown above.
Thus, the loan/grant program was created to increase equity in access to public funds by connecting low-income households to the financial, administrative, and educational resources required to adopt rainwater harvesting systems. Attention to distributional justice included identifying and addressing barriers to accessibility. The most significant and visible barrier was affordability. While the rebate program covered most of the costs associated with installation, it still required households to have a large sum of disposable income ($1000–5000) to cover the upfront cost of materials and labor by certified providers. Two additional interrelated barriers were language and administrative literacy. Applicants needed to be aware of the program, understand how it functioned, and be able to navigate the application process.
Our findings show that the loan/grant program succeeded in serving low-income Hispanic households by directly addressing these barriers. The financial assistance it offered was the deciding factor for adoption for a majority (65.6 percent) of households, and for all others the program was critical in facilitating installation at an earlier date and of a larger size. The program also oriented households around the administrative process required to access this type of incentive and introduced formal rainwater harvesting to some households who were unfamiliar with it or had not realized they could adopt it themselves. This way, by providing bilingual (in English and Spanish) materials and outreach personnel, the water utility changed the procedural aspect of the program to address distributional injustice.

6.2. Recognition Justice

Recognition justice calls attention to local histories of oppression and exclusion, specifically how historically disenfranchised groups have been systematically excluded from state project design and implementation given long-standing racism and colonial relations [49,50]. In Tucson, the legacy of recognition injustice can be linked to current disparities in exposure to the urban heat island effect. Due to long-term underfunding, disinvestment, and under-representation in city government, low-income Hispanic neighborhoods are more vulnerable to urban heat and the associated health effects of heat waves. Dialesandro et al. (2021) [81] found that the south side of Tucson is warmer than the northern side of the city, which has more trees and is higher in elevation. In addition, this area of the city has a legacy of water quality-related injustices [82], and our findings show that rainwater was sought by participants of the loan/grant program as a water source with a potential better quality, suggesting these legacies are still prevalent in this community. The south side area is also historically a Hispanic area and the area with low participation numbers during the earlier phase of the rainwater rebate program. Thus, the decision to design the loan/grant program around bilingual English–Spanish outreach, stands as a recognition of the intersectionality of class and ethnicity in the historical production of discrimination or disadvantage in Tucson. We argue, this is a starting point towards recognition justice in GSI, even if it happened retroactively.
In the specific case of GSI development, recognition justice should center on acknowledging and respecting how minoritized groups relate to water and water infrastructure, and the power relations in which the two are embedded. This includes systematic attention to water-related practices and knowledge, as well as the various forms of valuing, dealing with, organizing around, and talking about water. In this sense, we borrow insights from Zwarteveen and Boelens’ (2014) [83] considerations for recognition justice in water management. In Tucson, we found that collectively low-income Hispanic participants had situated expertise about rainwater collection often born from past rainwater harvesting due to precarious piped water provisioning. This expertise was greatly overlooked by institutional experts and residents themselves [83,84]. As rudimentary forms of rainwater collection across Mexico are often associated to informality and, hence, a family’s low socio-economic status [85], rainwater collection is at times stigmatized rather than celebrated as a sustainability tool. This historic informality in rainwater harvesting points to subtle but meaningful sociocultural differences in what rainwater harvesting means and how it is approached.
In our case study, beyond its focus on distributional justice through increased access by low-income populations, water managers sought to understand how peoples’ backgrounds and current living conditions influenced drivers for GSI implementation and management. They were not assuming nor expecting all users to relate to (rain)water similarly, but were seeking to understand how decisions are made at the household level. By understanding current practices and values, policies and program resources can be designed to recognize and respect different ways of interacting with water and water infrastructure, while still working within institutional priorities. For example, recognizing that many Hispanic households harvested the rain to foster fruit-bearing vegetation, the utility was considering creating a list of recommended fruit-bearing plants appropriate for this region’s arid climate. Another step towards recognition justice would be to reference the long tradition and existing diversity of rain collection practices among the Hispanic and Indigenous communities in existing outreach and educational materials. Doing this would offer a space to recognize forms of local expertise among marginalized populations and create room to articulate the connection between different approaches to rainwater harvesting leading to improvements of existing practices across the board.
Finally, at a basic level, we find that recognition is still needed to address justice issues around land tenure and citizenship. By design, rebate programs tend to target homeowners, leaving renters out. The same effect is true for undocumented immigrants, who mostly settle in the south side of the city and seldom apply for the rebate, or loan/grant programs due to wariness of official paperwork. Although renters and undocumented immigrants do contribute to the conservation fee through their water bill, they do not benefit from this GSI program. There is really no incentive for landlords to adopt this type of infrastructure because it will not elevate their rent income. Recognizing these groups in this policy would mean that the program provides some type of incentive to landlords who rent their properties, possibly through a property tax break. This way, landlords can save some money while renters and undocumented immigrants also benefit from a greener and shaded neighborhood.

6.3. Procedural Justice

Procedural justice calls attention to fair representation and participation in environmental governance; that is, in the decision-making processes that will inform access and distribution of environmental services. For GSI, this means working to ensure that stakeholders who choose to are able to participate in decision-making regarding planning, design, siting, and implementation of GSI so that inequities are not reproduced through exclusion of historically marginalized populations.
The individual nature and private placement of residential rainwater collection raises the question of what inclusive participation in the design of such incentive programs would look like. Broadly, inclusivity considerations are the same as those associated to the siting of GSI in public property, and these include provision of adequate information to the public, guarantee of the ability to participate and to be heard, and unbiased decision-making processes regarding implementation [86,87]. Moreover, this means that instead of “targeting” recipients to increase participation in a program, attention should be directed towards designing the program informed by potential participants’ needs and concerns. This implies a prerequisite for outreach to groups underrepresented in traditional public engagement processes. As it has been discussed for GSI implementation in public property, such as street medians and pocket parks, engagement with neighborhood associations, partnerships with local non-profits or activist groups, and clear definition of rights and responsibilities around the design of individual projects also contribute to procedural justice.
Our analysis suggests that the distributional injustice issues described earlier were in part a result of a lack of inclusivity in the decision-making process that led to the design of the program in the first place. This is supported by the work of Gerlak et al. (2021) [76], who documented that the group of stakeholders and policy entrepreneurs who worked tightly and tirelessly to develop this program emerged from the collective experiences and priorities of predominantly White, middle-class neighborhoods, and excluded by default stakeholders in low-income Hispanic neighborhoods. A first remedial step towards procedural justice can be seen in the increasing inclusion of Hispanic personnel in the administration of the loan/grant program, outreach to this sector of the population via collaborations with local groups and non-profit organizations, and the development of Spanish-language materials to expand access to information.

6.4. Interactional Justice

At a basic level, interactional justice requires recognition of the differences in the ways participants experience, use, and practice GSI, as well as their preferences, and needs associated to the environment [60]. Our case study shows the importance of asking how different groups interact with publicly funded GSI and the environments they foster, even if they sit in private property. To ask these questions oftentimes requires water managers and policy-makers to recognize and make room for different cultural groups, and their different ways of engaging with the world. Addressing interactional justice issues thus relates to recognition and procedural justice because the way different stakeholder groups interact with the new infrastructure must be considered in the design and implementation of the programs.
Our findings show that participants of both the rebate and loan/grant programs tended to engage with rainwater infrastructure differently: more saliently, they had different needs and preferences that informed their water-related practices. While the establishment of a lush landscape was the most significant driver for rainwater collection, the constitution and management of those landscapes differed significantly. Distinctively, the landscapes created and envisioned by many low-income Hispanic households were characterized by edible plants, while middle and high-income White households sought to create a desert oasis centered around drought-adaptive ornamentals, in alignment with the program’s earlier depictions of ideal desert landscaping [74]. Furthermore, we find opposing ways of interacting with the new system, depending on the program. On the one hand, while everyone irrigated by hand, this was a source of frustration and dissatisfaction mainly for some people in the rebate program, who had expected to connect their rainwater collection cistern to their automatic irrigation system but were deterred by the extra cost and complexity. Consequently, many of them used the system only intermittently. On the other hand, most loan/grant participants did not expect to automate their rainwater system and expressed pleasure in performing hand-irrigation. They consistently relied on rainwater for landscape irrigation, prioritizing rainwater use for edible plants.
Thus, an interactional justice lens requires consideration of how different groups may interact differently with GSI, and how that can be considered to make a program more inclusive. In this case, efforts centered at interactional justice manifest in the attention to different interactions and the ongoing production of an edible plant-list to engage and orient participants who saw GSI as connected to food production. In addition, we found that for many households, the size of a rainwater collection cistern matters. While it is commonly assumed that a larger system is preferred because it provides more water, we found that this was not necessarily the case for people living in smaller properties. As many low-income residents were likely to have smaller yards, the large-size cisterns required by the city to qualify for the rebate took up significant yard space, leaving little space available for plants or sitting areas. Finally, examining GSI through an interactional lens also unveils the exclusion of people living in multi-family apartment complexes, who only have a balcony as a private exterior space. These residents are contributing to the funding of the water conservation programs (by paying their water bill), but are not beneficiaries of any program, even if they own their dwelling unit. Therefore, incentives targeting property managers of multi-family complexes are needed to address this injustice.

6.5. Mobility Justice

Mobility justice has been explored primarily in the Global South with attention to the displacement of low-income people from the urban peripheries to make room for greenspace that satisfies international sustainability agendas. In response to this justice issue, scholars highlight that access to greenspace could be designed to provide resources (e.g., wood, fruits) that offer opportunities for upward mobility, or at least for stability through diversification of livelihoods [63,88,89]. Our case study demonstrates the relevance of this type of justice in the Global North too through its application to GSI.
In our case study, we find that it is highly unlikely—given the overall precipitation and cost of water—that GSI would offer opportunities for upward mobility through diversification of livelihoods via food production for local markets. However, GSI could contribute to households’ socio-economic stability through small-scale subsistence food production. While food production in rain gardens is in no way enough to sustain a household, it can contribute in different ways. As many low-income Hispanic participants explained, by producing fresh produce, they were reducing their grocery expenditures and maintaining a diet based on ingredients associated to their homeland. Furthermore, household production of fresh produce is materially and symbolically meaningful for historically disinvested neighborhoods, that are often qualified as food deserts due to lack of access to healthy food. While the connection remains to be studied, it can be hypothesized that household production of fresh food through rain gardens can contribute to better overall health and less burden from health issues and health-related expenses in the long term. In addition, shade from GSI could help the household economy by lowering energy consumption for indoor cooling. Additionally, shaded outdoor areas can expand living space, which is particularly useful in small dwellings with overcrowding conditions. Overcrowding has detrimental effects on mental health [90].
Outside participating households, our case study shows a more direct connection between GSI and mobility justice through workforce development for GSI implementation and maintenance. Upon recognizing that the boom in rainwater harvesting was excluding small minority-owned and operated landscaping businesses, the water utility and partner agencies set up to develop several initiatives to offer resources and training to this sector [77]. A first step was to identify the institutional and systemic barriers to exclusion. Two salient barriers were lack of training and understanding of new GSI-specific landscaping practices, and outsider status in the network of GSI practitioners and policy-makers, which is dominated by middle-class English-speaking professionals. An additional barrier was the lack of funds to obtain the required state certification and insurance, and limited technical understanding of the betting system; these excluded many small-businesses from accessing municipal jobs—such as maintenance of GSI in parks and medians—and private jobs such as the installation of residential rainwater harvesting systems that could qualify for the rebate.
A final issue concerning mobility justice is the potential for green gentrification related to GSI construction. Green gentrification refers to the process through which investment in green spaces—including those facilitated by GSI—leads to an increase in rents and taxes through higher desirability for those “improved” areas, consequently displacing renters and low-income residents [18,56,60]. Gentrification processes can complicate actions intended to make up for historic inequalities in public investment. This is an issue of concern to neighborhood activists and one that cannot be sidelined by those involved in GSI development, even if the processes are complex and fall under the jurisdiction of other agencies. In engaging with GSI, we argue, water managers and their collaborators could collectively identify areas that may experience gentrification from emerging GSI projects and design policies to avoid it. For example, the city could mandate that infill development projects in this area offer several affordable housing units.

6.6. Engaging with Socio-Environmental Framework in GSI

In closing, we offer a set of guiding considerations for water resource managers and their collaborators engaged in GSI to continue (or begin) systematically engaging with socio-environmental justice in GSI policy design and implementation (Table 4). This is intended as a list that practitioners and academics can adapt and expand through different stages of a program or policy. As we see in Tucson, their integration likely happens in an iterative process that includes evaluation, assessment, and learning to adjust and modify the program in a new iteration. This is a way to place justice—always embedded in history and place—at the heart of adaptive management in water policies and programs related to urban climate change adaptation.

7. Conclusions

On-the-ground efforts around GSI implementation indicate a promising turn towards environmental justice frameworks, even when a long road remains ahead. Although at a slow pace, water managers and their collaborators in the public and private sectors are increasingly recognizing that the material asymmetries in their service areas are the result of histories of political and economic disregard and marginalization. Therefore, there is growing awareness that a water equity framework cannot be limited to issues of distribution, but should build recognition and procedural equity into their programs. To paraphrase Ingram’s (2008) [30], insights on water policy, when engaging in GSI “clearly, an equitable policy must embrace a broad conception of individual and collective welfare”. This requires a departure from neoliberal notions of equity that are centered primarily, or exclusively, on individual experience. We have drawn on long-term research, and synthesized and built on a rich body of work to argue that engagement with the five tenets of socio-environmental justice moves us into that direction.
We acknowledge that our study has several limitations. The first limitation is that it is based on the experience of one program in one city, and thus our insights may be context specific. The second limitation is that our analytical framework is based primarily on the environmental justice literature, particularly studies on urban green spaces. Finally, while the five tenets of socio-environmental justice invite resource managers to acknowledge and address unequal distribution of resources in the context of urban environmental change, their analysis of the multiple entanglements between capital, ecology, and social justice across scales and governance institutions is limited. With this in mind, we offer the five tenets of socio-environmental justice as a living framework to be grounded and modified in specific contexts by other researchers; as we have done here by building on the works of others.
Considering the growing scope of climate adaptation interventions, we end by identifying some directions for future research and praxis. First, future studies could expand on this framework by drawing more on urban political ecology to interrogate how power relations across scales impact water equity in climate adaptation interventions. Case studies could trace how local interventions, like neighborhood-level GSI, are part of broader networks of resource exploitation, collaborations, and/or reimagining, and how those networks influence socio-environmental justice. Second, there is a need for robust qualitative studies that attend to the socio-technical aspects of everyday life as these are always impacted by and impactful of municipal adaptation interventions. Future studies could continue to engage with in-depth ethnographic analysis to foreground cultural norms and values, and to document ecological imaginaries. Finally, we see that there is significant room for methodological reflection and innovation regarding the role and barriers to community engagement and co-design, with attention to power relations and intersectionality. This is particularly important as emphasis on public engagement as a pathway for just urban adaptation increases and as climate adaptation interventions increasingly blur distinctions between private and public realms.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, L.R.; methodology, L.R.; formal analysis, L.R.; investigation, L.R., A.Z.-T.; resources, L.R., A.Z.-T.; writing—original draft preparation, L.R.; writing—review and editing, L.R., A.Z.-T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Michigan State University’s Harp Program. In addition, the two evaluations contributing to this study were funded by Tucson Water.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Research protocols were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at Michigan State University. IRB ID# x17-1167e (approved 5 September 2017) and IRB ID# i051369 (approved 16 May 2016).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the vision and support of Candice Rupprecht (Tucson Water) and Karen L. Hanshaw (Smartscape Program). We would also like to thank Valeria Galindo (Smartscape Program) and David Sanabria (SERI) who contributed to data collection, and Flor Sandoval and the SERI personnel for their generous support throughout the project. This research project would not have been possible without the engagement of our research participants. We thank them all for their generosity of time, experience, and excitement.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The ideas expressed here belong to the authors. The funders had no role in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the conceptualization or writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

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Figure 1. Map of research site. The City of Tucson, in Pima County, state of Arizona, United States.
Figure 1. Map of research site. The City of Tucson, in Pima County, state of Arizona, United States.
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Figure 2. Map of households that applied to the rainwater harvesting incentive program by 2017. Source: Tucson Water 2017. Legend: 1 = passive rainwater harvesting systems, 2 = active rainwater harvesting systems, L-I 1 = low-income program passive systems, L-I 2 = low-income program active systems. Source: Tucson Water.
Figure 2. Map of households that applied to the rainwater harvesting incentive program by 2017. Source: Tucson Water 2017. Legend: 1 = passive rainwater harvesting systems, 2 = active rainwater harvesting systems, L-I 1 = low-income program passive systems, L-I 2 = low-income program active systems. Source: Tucson Water.
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Table
Table 1. Research methods.
Table 1. Research methods.
Data Collection MethodData CollectedData Analysis Method
Semi-structured interviews [65]Demographic background and connection to the Tucson area; past and present experiences with rainwater harvesting, motivations for adoption, cistern use and maintenance practices.Text analysis [65]. Interviews are transcribed and analyzed using an iterative coding approach where common themes are identified, defined, and then counted across transcripts.
Mental models [67,68]Individual understandings of the working dynamics of rainwater harvesting, with specific attention to the social, ecological, and economic (direct and indirect) benefits. Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) [68,69] offers individual mental models of people’s understandings of the environment that can be scaled-up to determine similarities and differences within and across groups.
Outdoor surveys & walk-along interviews [70]Type and extent of existing vegetation, the placement of cistern(s), and any other water-use features like swimming pools or hot tubs. Additionally, information about irrigation practices, landscaping practices, the story of different plants, and factors driving the selection of vegetation.Quantification of plants and water features; and text analysis of walk-along interviews (see data analysis of semi-structured interviews above).
Research protocols were reviewed by the Institutional Review Board at Michigan State University: IRB ID# x17-1167e (approved 5 September 2017) and IRB ID# i051369 (approved 16 May 2016).
Table
Table 2. Study participants.
Table 2. Study participants.
ParticipantsDescriptionLand TenureGroup DemographicsTime Living in Tucson
Rebate programParticipants who applied to the Rainwater Harvesting Rebate ProgramHomeownersWhite (90%)
Middle aged (average 56)
Medium-to-high level of formal education (above high school degree)
Middle to high income		60% are long term residents (over 11 years)
40% over 21 years
Loan/grant programParticipants who applied to the rebate program through financial assistance from the Low-Income Rainwater Harvesting ProgramHomeownersHispanic (65%)
Middle aged (average 58)
High diversity in formal education levels (40% high school degree or below)
Low income		91% are long term residents (over 11 years)
71.9% over 21 years
Table
Table 3. Benefits of rainwater harvesting values by participants as elicited in mental models.
Table 3. Benefits of rainwater harvesting values by participants as elicited in mental models.
BenefitDefinitionRebate Participants SampleLoan/Grant Participants Sample
FrequencyCentralityFrequencyCentrality
Lush landscapeAn increase in vegetation density in private property and/or an increase in the growth and robustness of existing plants.73%0.7693.5%1.22
Water conservationIncludes: a decrease in use of tap/treated water; reduce extraction of groundwater and CAP water; reduce waste of rainwater.67%1.2483.5%0.83
Financial savingsReduction in water bill, electricity bill, and produce cost.50%0.6487%0.76
Food productionHousehold production of fruits and vegetables increases and are often considered of better taste and quality.30%0.4654.8%0.97
Cooling and shadeCreating a cooler environment around the house and in the city through the use of vegetation.43%0.7829%0.45
Table
Table 4. Considerations when engaging with a socio-environmental justice framework in practice.
Table 4. Considerations when engaging with a socio-environmental justice framework in practice.
DistributionIdentify where are existing GSI installations located and who are they favoring. Ask: why is that the case?
Consider who needs GSI the most based on available data and/or indexes (i.e., heat index, tree canopy index, etc.)
Identify who are the workers and/or businesses benefiting from publicly funded GSI, and if and why are they favored?
ProceduralAnalyze the demographic profile of the institution: is it representative of the population it is serving? Is appropriate representation present across the hierarchical institutional structure?
Include culturally relevant forms of public participation in program development as appropriate.
Compensate participation in engagement activities, especially to low-income people.
Design engagement processes so that participation does not burden underserved participants.
RecognitionConsider who are your stakeholders.
Are there groups who are traditionally not at the table but whom should be included?
Enquire why certain groups may be underrepresented? (e.g., language barriers, historical displacement, structural racism)
Identify traditional knowledge of your local populations and consider and value the culture they bring to the table.
InteractiveIdentify how diverse peoples (with attention to race, ethnicity, gender, age, ability, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, etc.) may engage differently with the same infrastructure. This can be addressed via focus groups asking questions around the design, the type of amenities, uses, quality, maintenance, among others.
MobilityIdentify whether the policy/program can be linked to livelihoods and intentionally include underserved groups.
Pay especial attention to potential gentrification processes and recognize how the consequences of GSI development may align with other processes in the urban environment.
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Radonic, L.; Zuniga-Teran, A. When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1598. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021598

AMA Style

Radonic L, Zuniga-Teran A. When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions. Sustainability. 2023; 15(2):1598. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021598

Chicago/Turabian Style

Radonic, Lucero, and Adriana Zuniga-Teran. 2023. "When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions" Sustainability 15, no. 2: 1598. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021598

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