Natalia Dias Tadeu, Micaela Trimble, Marila Lázaro, Paula Venturini, Mauricio Venegas
{"title":"Divergent perspectives about water security: hydrosocial transformations in the metropolitan region of Montevideo (Uruguay)","authors":"Natalia Dias Tadeu, Micaela Trimble, Marila Lázaro, Paula Venturini, Mauricio Venegas","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1207652","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The Montevideo Metropolis, where more than half of Uruguay's population resides, is supplied with water from the Santa Lucía River (SLR), which faces increasing problems of water quality and quantity. In 2020, in the context of national government political changes, a hydraulic project (called Neptuno) involving the construction of a purification plant using water from the Río de la Plata estuary (close to the SLR basin), was proposed by a consortium of private companies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the arguments to support and oppose the Neptuno Project, as well as the hydrosocial transformations promoted by it in the SLR basin, including the scalar strategies adopted. Primary and secondary data (interviews, participant observation, and document analysis) were triangulated. Coalitions pro and against the greater involvement of the private sector with water supply services were identified. Our research shows that diverse perspectives of water security, related to different hydrosocial projects, reflect opposed interests and divergent objectives in a context of disputes within asymmetrical power relationships. This has been reactivating the coalition of the historic conflict against the privatization processes that preceded the constitutional reform in Uruguay in 2004. This coalition, against the Neptuno project, carried out a “jump scale,” taking the issue from the local to the national scale.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1207652","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Montevideo Metropolis, where more than half of Uruguay's population resides, is supplied with water from the Santa Lucía River (SLR), which faces increasing problems of water quality and quantity. In 2020, in the context of national government political changes, a hydraulic project (called Neptuno) involving the construction of a purification plant using water from the Río de la Plata estuary (close to the SLR basin), was proposed by a consortium of private companies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the arguments to support and oppose the Neptuno Project, as well as the hydrosocial transformations promoted by it in the SLR basin, including the scalar strategies adopted. Primary and secondary data (interviews, participant observation, and document analysis) were triangulated. Coalitions pro and against the greater involvement of the private sector with water supply services were identified. Our research shows that diverse perspectives of water security, related to different hydrosocial projects, reflect opposed interests and divergent objectives in a context of disputes within asymmetrical power relationships. This has been reactivating the coalition of the historic conflict against the privatization processes that preceded the constitutional reform in Uruguay in 2004. This coalition, against the Neptuno project, carried out a “jump scale,” taking the issue from the local to the national scale.
乌拉圭一半以上的人口居住在蒙得维的亚大都会,该市的水源来自Santa Lucía河(SLR),这条河面临着越来越多的水质和水量问题。2020年,在国家政府政治变化的背景下,一个由私营公司组成的财团提出了一个水力项目(称为Neptuno),该项目涉及使用Río de la Plata河口(靠近SLR盆地)的水建造一座净化厂。本文的目的是分析支持和反对海王星项目的论据,以及该项目在SLR盆地推动的水文社会转型,包括所采取的标量策略。主要和次要数据(访谈、参与者观察和文献分析)进行三角测量。确定了支持和反对私营部门更多地参与供水服务的联盟。我们的研究表明,在不对称权力关系的争议背景下,与不同水文社会项目相关的水安全的不同视角反映了对立的利益和不同的目标。这一直在重新激活反对私有化进程的历史性冲突联盟,这种冲突发生在2004年乌拉圭宪法改革之前。这个反对海王星项目的联盟进行了“跳跃式规模”,将问题从地方扩大到国家层面。