Water insecurity in the Global North: A review of experiences in U.S. colonias communities along the Mexico border

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, the term "colonias" (in English) has described low-income, peri-urban, and rural subdivisions north of the U.S.-Mexico border. These communities are in arid and semi-arid regions-now in a megadrought-and tend to have limited basic infrastructure, including community water service and sanitation. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how colonias residents experience unjust and inequitable dynamics that produce water insecurity in the Global North. In this review, we explain why U.S. colonias are an important example for theorizing water insecurity in the United States and beyond in the Global North. Tracing the history of water infrastructure development in U.S. colonias, we show how colonias are legally and socially defined by water insecurity. We draw on the published literature to discuss key factors that produce water insecurity in U.S. colonias: political exclusion, municipal underbounding, and failures in water quality monitoring. We show that water insecurity had led to negative outcomes-including poor water access, risks to physical health, and mental ill-health-in U.S. colonias. We present four possible approaches to improving water security in U.S. colonias: (1) soft paths & social infrastructure for water delivery, (2) decentralized water treatment approaches, such as pointof-use, point-of-entry, and fit-for-purpose systems; (3) informality, including infrastructural, economic, and socio-cultural innovations; and (4) political, policy, and law innovations and reforms. At the same time, we reflect seriously on how water security can be ethically achieved in partnership and aligning with the visions of U.S. colonias residents themselves.

Variations in household water affordability and water insecurity: An intersectional perspective from 18 low- and middle-income countries

“…Colonial, racial, gendered, ableist, class, and caste systems of power and their place-based outcomes (re)produce household water insecurities, and associated adverse social, economic, physical, and mental wellbeing outcomes (Crow and Sultana, 2002;Daigle, 2018;Deitz and Meehan, 2019;Dewachter et al, 2018;Duignan et al, 2022;Gerlak et al, 2022;Jepson et al, 2017;Jones et al, 2005;Leder et al, 2017;Loftus, 2014;Lu et al, 2014;Mawani, 2022;Meehan et al, 2020;Méndez-Barrientos et al, 2022;O'Leary, 2019;Radonic and Jacob, 2021;Ranganathan, 2016;Shah et al, 2021;Sultana, 2009Sultana, , 2020Truelove, 2019;Wilson et al, 2021;Wolbring, 2011;Wutich et al, 2022). This section reviews water affordability and insecurity experiences at the intersections of gender and class oppression.…”

Cap. 28. Suroeste. En: La Quinta Evaluación Nacional del Clima

“…Las mediciones del manto de nieve, el caudal de las corrientes de agua y las aguas subterráneas durante el siglo pasado respaldan la observación, con confianza muy alta, de que el cambio climático ha reducido la disponibilidad de agua superficial y subterránea para las personas y la naturaleza en el Suroeste 4,14,56 . Además, la evidencia procedente de la literatura revisada por expertos apoya la afirmación de confianza alta de que ciertas comunidades indígenas y de primera línea, incluidos los agricultores, experimentarán impactos desproporcionados por la reducción de la disponibilidad de agua y que los marcos institucionales históricos impulsan estas desigualdades 187,382,383,384 .…”

Homelessness and water insecurity in the Global North: Trapped in the dwelling paradox

“…Improving access to safe and secure water and sanitation is a global development priority, enshrined in the UN Human Rights and Sustainable Development goals. Yet, recent studies indicate that high‐income nations may be in fact reversing some gains made to the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation over the past decade, with stagnant or increasing levels of households without secure water, particularly in cities with unaffordable housing (Meehan, et al, 2020; Meehan, et al, 2020; Wutich et al, 2022). We posit that the dwelling paradox may help to explain one facet of this trend.…”