Knowledge infrastructures for just urban futures : a case of water governance in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Chapter 1: Discontent in Lima's water distributionEvery day, engineers work for Lima's drinking water and sewage service (Servicio de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado de Lima, SEDAPAL) to capture, treat, and distribute water to the city's residents and industry. On average, 24m 3 of water flows from Lima's water treatment plants to its consumers every second (SEDAPAL, 2022). Through an intricate system of larger and smaller pipes, valves, and pumps, Lima and Callao's 50 districts and 473 hydraulic sectors are serviced. At parts, this network still follows the trajectory of the water distribution system as constructed by the Spanish colonisers in the 16th century (Bell, 2015). The exact numbers of how much water enters each hydraulic sector, which valve is open or closed, how high the water pressure is, and if domestic or commercial consumers have paid their bills are all monitored in the digital dashboard installed in La Atarjea, Lima's main water treatment plant and the head office of SEDAPAL. The work SEDAPAL's engineers do in operating this complex system is absolutely crucial in supplying the metropolitan area of Lima-Callao with water.Yet, despite this impressively engineered system and continuous labour, up to 2019, it took SEDAPAL, on average, 10.4 years to install water and sewerage services in unplanned neighbourhoods and almost one million people residing in Lima and Callao are not connected to SEDAPAL's water distribution system (SEDAPAL, 2022). An even higher number of people only receive water for limited hours per day, only a couple of days per week.In public opinion, SEDAPAL is seen as unwilling or incapable of improving.In 2012, 2016, and 2019 residents took to the streets to protest plans to privatise the water service provision and express their dissatisfaction with the current water policy (El Comercio, 2016Jiménez, 2012). More recently, in October 2021, a group of residents of San Juan de Lurigancho, a central location. As a result of these developments in digital infrastructure and datafication, SEDAPAL has significantly reduced the percentage of 'non-revenue water' -the primary indicator of the economic efficiency of the water distribution system -from 44% in 2000 to 28% of the water produced in 2021 (SEDAPAL, 2022). This is no small feat.Within the context of discontent between SEDAPAL and urban water consumers, there are at least three promises of modernity (Harvey & Knox, 2012) that the digital infrastructure (i.e., the SCADA system) seems to instantiate: the promises of seeing, control, and economic efficiency. These promises, at first glance, engage with problems that Lima's residents face.The promise of seeing makes it more transparent where water flows within the city and whom it reaches. The promise of control engages with the issue of continuity and reliability in service provision. Finally, the promise of economic efficiency speaks to the continuous critique that the water authority, as a public institution, is excessively bureaucratic. However, as I will analyse in the following chap...