Description
Book SynopsisTapping the Oceans provides a detailed analysis of the political and ecological debates facing water desalination in the twenty-first century.
Water supplies for cities around the world are undergoing profound geographical, technological and political transformations. Increasingly, water-stressed cities are looking to the oceans to fix unreliable, contested and over-burdened water supply systems. Yet the use of emerging desalination technologies is accompanied by intense debates on their economic cost, governance, environmental impact and poses wider questions for the sustainable and just provision of urban water. Through a series of cutting-edge case studies and multi-subject approaches, this book explores the perspectives, disputes and politics surrounding water desalination on a broad geographical scale.
As the first book of its kind, this unique work will appeal to those researching water and infrastructure issues in the fields of political ecology, geography, environmental science and sustainability. Industry and water managers who wish to understand the political debates around desalination technology more fully will also find this an informative read.
Contributors include: E. Feitelson, M. Fragkou, S. Gorostiza, A. Loftus, H. March, J. McEvoy, D. Pavón Gamero, D. Sauri, A. Scheba, S. Scheba, E. Swyngedouw, M. Usher, J. Williams
Trade Review'This very timely book provides an excellent and insightful introduction to the entanglements of water, salt, power, and capital in the emergence of an alleged environmentally friendly and cornucopian solution to increasing water scarcity. It helps decipher how desalination is fast becoming the last frontier of capital accumulation for both the water industry and financiers, and how it reconfigures existing socio-ecologies in profound and subtle ways.' --François Molle, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), France
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Mobilising the oceans to quench our thirst Joe Williams and Erik Swyngedouw 2. Wet dreams with a grain of salt: Desalination in Spain's water policy David Saurἰ, Santiago Gorostiza and David Pavón 3. Water Governance and Desalination in Baja California Sur, Mexico Jamie McEvoy 4. On the Implications of Seawater Desalination: Some Insights from the Israeli Case Eran Feitelson 5. Disclosing water inequalities at the household level under desalination water provision; the case of Antofagasta, Chile Maria Christina Fragkou 6. Desalination as emergency fix: Tracing the drought–desalination assemblage in South Africa Suraya Scheba and Andreas Scheba 7. Worlding via water: Desalination, cluster development and the ‘stickiness’ of commodities Mark Usher 8. Financialising desalination in London: The Thames Desalination Plant (TWDP) Alex Loftus and Hug March 9. Commodifying the Pacific Ocean: Desalination and the neoliberalisation of water in Southern California Joe Williams 10. Politicizing the salt of the seas Erik Swyngedouw and Joe Williams Index
