Political ecological perspectives on an indicator-based urban water framework

Abstract

Water security is a key challenge in the 21st century. Consequently, several indicator-based frameworks exist to evaluate this issue along with water management. We use a political ecological perspective to identify if the City Blueprint Approach (CBA) integrates aspects of hydrosociality to assess urban water security. Aiming to critically examine the CBA through the lens of political ecology and different concepts of hydrosociality, we identify three problems–hybridity, spatial scale and power structures–hindering the representation of hydrosocial relations within the CBA. Finally, the benefits of integrating hydrosocial and political ecological conceptualizations into quantitative urban water frameworks are discussed.