The Financialization of Water

Bayliss, Kate

doi:10.1177/0486613413506076

Cited by 110 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…However, water remains a fundamentally uncooperative commodity (Bakker, 2003) and the process of financialisation within the water sector remains uneven and complicated (for the most up-to-date review of recent work on the financialisation of water, see Ahlers and Merme, 2016). Indeed, as Bayliss (2014Bayliss ( , 2015 demonstrates, water itself is far less likely to be financialised than water services or the infrastructure through which water services are provided. A range of financial products has, therefore, developed around both water and its attendant infrastructures, including water-targeted investment funds; structured water products within major investment banks; water indexes; or exchange traded funds.…”

Section: Financialising Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating what and for whom? Financialisation and the Thames Tideway Tunnel

Loftus

March

2017

Urban Studies

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The Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT), often referred to as the Thames super sewer, is currently one of the largest infrastructure projects underway in any European city. Costing an estimated £4.2 billion, the sewer connects London's Victorian sewerage network with the Thames Wastewater Treatment Works at Beckton. The latter facility has been described as the UK's Water-Energy-Food nexus poster child, for its combination of desalination facilities, green energy generation and wastewater treatment. While physically connected to the Beckton plant, the TTT is, paradoxically, designed with an apparent disregard for the water-energy nexus. If the Beckton plant represents a nexus-based vision of integration -what Macrorie and Marvin (2016) refer to as Mode 2 Urban Integration -the TTT harks back to a view of urban integration carried from the Victorian era through to the present moment. What unites the two projects, and what undergirds the transformation of the hydrosocial cycle, is a financial model more focused on the extraction of rents from Thames Water's consumers. Thames Water's dismissal of genuinely integrated alternatives appears guided more by the financialisation of the urban integrated ideal than by what is needed to respond to London's broader environmental needs. Contesting the project, therefore, will involve slicing through the various claims to integration, going beyond the many proposals for evidence-based alternatives, and capturing the transformations being wrought by finance's entry into infrastructure provision.

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Section: Financialising Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating what and for whom? Financialisation and the Thames Tideway Tunnel

Loftus

March

2017

Urban Studies

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“…This is especially true of renters in Nigeria, who typically purchase their water from landlords, and those who live in areas without any piped connections. In part, this situation can be attributed to the nature of demands for water, which is simultaneously a resource, an ‘uncooperative commodity’, a public good, a private good, an economic good, a productive input and a potent symbol (Bakker, ; Bayliss, ).…”

Section: Hybrid Water Provision and Urban Citizenship In African Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silence and Voice in Nigeria's Hybrid Urban Water Markets: Implications for Local Governance of Public Goods

Acey¹

2018

Int J Urban Regional Res

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This article highlights how the governance of the water sector affects the strategies and tactics urban residents use to gain improved access to water for household consumption in cities with limited networked infrastructure. A framework of exit, voice and loyalty (EVL) is used to characterize the actions household decision makers take in neighborhoods across metropolitan areas. In Nigeria, Lagos and Benin City are rapidly growing metropolitan regions with urban water markets competing with a state‐run utility. Scholars have documented informality and hybridity between state and non‐state actors, but there is less understanding of variables associated with citizen behavior in urban water markets across different types of households and communities. This article places Nigeria in the context of African mobilization around water provision, using interviews, observation and findings from fieldwork, household interviews and surveys undertaken between 2008 and 2015 to show how access to water is shaped by the interplay between state and non‐state sources of water. This access is filtered through differently regulated service providers and the perceived authority of each actor involved in water delivery, which can lead to what I call structural silence. Findings show the need for a grounded understanding of factors influencing voice and participation in local governance.

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“…Food has been financialized; farmland is being financialized; and water is being financialized (Bayliss, 2014). Is finance a benign force that simply intermediates the savings of individuals to the efficient allocation of productive investment?…”

Section: Financementioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Economy of Food and Finance

Schmidt¹

2015

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The Financialization of Water

Cited by 110 publications

References 17 publications

Integrating what and for whom? Financialisation and the Thames Tideway Tunnel

Integrating what and for whom? Financialisation and the Thames Tideway Tunnel

Silence and Voice in Nigeria's Hybrid Urban Water Markets: Implications for Local Governance of Public Goods

The Political Economy of Food and Finance

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