Water, floods and scarcity

Vanessa Clavijo Barboza (V): Hi Luisa, would you say that we’re living in a global flood era? 

Luisa Cortesi (L): I would, Vanessa – it is a time with more frequent and less predictable inundations than a couple of decades ago. Floods occur in places that were known for being dry, and during seasons when people were afraid of drought. Many more places and people than before are being devastated by water that they didn't expect and do not know how to navigate. Something has changed. 

V: What has changed? Do you think it’s related to climate change? 

L: Climate change certainly plays a key role in what we experience. But it’s not only climate change. We have probably reached the tipping point in terms of land use and water (mis)management. Think about the ways in which we have made our cities impermeable to water, the abuses of industrial agriculture, how we manage our rivers and canals. So yes, climate change has a role in these floods, as it magnifies other contextual misuses.

V: I’m thinking about how floods populate media nowadays. Do you think that floods are the worst disaster? Why are they the disaster that makes it to the media? 

L: Floods are certainly among the most impactful disasters for humans if you look at the damage they have caused over the last decade or so. But that is as an aggregate, and you do have a point here. Different disasters take place every day – why do we see more floods than other troubles?

I have a composite answer here. First, floods make it to the media because they are fast-onset disasters – generally speaking, most slow-onset disasters are harder to represent. Second, floods are easier to depict than, let’s say, chemical contamination, or air pollution. And there’s a third point – floods are beautiful to represent. Water offers reflection, therefore extra light. It can be used to balance a photograph and explore symmetry. Floods are almost beautiful in their drama – exactly what enhances communication. And a fourth point, they are easy to depoliticize, to simplify their causes by attributing them to climate change. And then of course, the most obvious reason, fifth point, floods are often terrible experiences for those who are in the dirty water, so they deserve the front page.

V: Can you tell me more about depoliticization – what do you mean? And is there a connection between the media’s coverage of floods and the public’s perception?

L: Climate change often becomes a depoliticization strategy in which an inundation, being attributed to climate change, becomes no one's fault. It's easy to depoliticize a flood by representing it merely as an extreme rain event due to a cloudburst. So, we are adding a layer to the answer I gave you before on mediatic disasters. Foods are also ‘great’ disasters from the media perspective because nobody is considered responsible. This is a misrepresentation, of course: most floods are due to a variety of factors, that, even when aggravated by climate change, are largely still preventable. Not as much at the individual level, but primarily at the policy and administrative level. The most obvious example is preventive land use. 

V: In your opinion, then, in what ways can the media contribute to fostering a better understanding of flood prevention and strategies? 

L: If we accept that media are where most people get information once schooling is over, then they are responsible for educating people about the consequences of their actions, their policies, and climate change in general. To depoliticize floods is bad public service. The media can do a lot more to help people understand what is actually happening, what could be done to avert the next flood, including challenges those who need to respond politically in order for society and the state apparatus to do a better job.

V: That’s interesting, and I'm curious about how this connects to the role of the academic sector. How can academic research contribute to reducing the impact of flood events such as the one that happened in Valencia? 

L: Do you mean that we as academics shouldn’t just point the finger at the media but also take some of the blame? I know it sounds like a disclaimer, but I do think we as academics have a feeble voice. The image of secluded academics not speaking up is not current anymore. My experience is that we are rarely consulted when not simply silenced. We are neither listened to nor believed. It has happened to me. I have written to newspapers and government officials, forecasting troubles and even suggesting a path out of it, mostly to no avail. Even when we are consulted, that does not mean anyone is actually acting on it. It feels like being the prophet Cassandra – it is a damnation to forecast things that no one believes. Academia is also less and less able to escape political pressures. Our main hope is to educate students on how to be more cognizant citizens and future leaders.

V: Indeed. Thinking about the course I took with you, can you also see how issues of power and inequality manifest in water-related disasters?

L: Of course. A disaster looks like a very democratic event, right? It sounds like it affects everyone in the same way, doesn’t it? Yet, we do not all live in the same place: think about how communities living in low lying areas are much more exposed to floods and to the stagnant mud and water that remain after a flood. Further, the impact of a flood isn’t just due to the water, but in the way in which people can prepare, in the alternatives they have, and in how they can bounce back from a disaster. And those are clearly aspects that are related to class and to economic and financial resources. Furthermore, it is about how the state is able to reach out to people. In fact, the role of the state is very important during disasters because a disaster is one of those circumstances in which no other institution can intervene. And so the state could also take on the role of rebalancing the way in which political injustice is making people more vulnerable to floods in different ways. 

'Disasters may seem like equalizers, but they are not.'

V: Are there any real world examples you would like to share to draw attention to this? 

L: There are historical examples that have been well studied and that have been reported in ways that are very effective. These examples are often cases in the Global North. The case of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is an extremely good example to teach with because a lot of good work has been written about it. But also because it undermines the misconception we have about the Global North and the Global South; it highlights racism and environmental injustice even in places that are often considered safe from those. Similar cases exist elsewhere. In our course on Water at ISS, we studied the inequalities that floods magnify both in my main area of work in South Asia and through case studies that the students brought up from Indonesia and Ghana. In any of these places it’s worth investigating local intricacies and complexities, as well as what they have in common with other water disasters. 

V: How do you see the role of community knowledge and experiences in shaping responses to water-related disasters? 

L: I distinguish between disasters that are predictable and have been already experienced, and what I call the ‘new floods’ that have not been experienced before.

In recurrently flooded places like North Bihar, India, you can see that local knowledge about such events can be even more sophisticated than that of the flood specialists – yes, like myself. In contexts of ‘new floods’ there may be very little previous knowledge that is still in use, but it is a matter for a social scientist to investigate. But in all cases, knowledge is getting created at all times, a fact that is as crucial as it is disregarded.

V: I would like to look at the issue of drinking water. After the course I took with you, I remain curious about the fact that many people associate clear and transparent water with cleanliness and safety. Why do you think there is such a strong obsession with clear water, and do you think it truly reflects the water's quality?

L: It's a very good question, and not a quick one to answer. Let’s start from the fact that people need to have access to water that is not harmful for their bodies. And that it is not possible for humans to taste water and know for sure whether it is safe to drink. However, that doesn’t take away the fact that our bodily senses are to be listened to. In the case of Flint, in Michigan, USA, the terrible water contamination that has destroyed a generation could have been minimized if people had been listened to early on. Locals had noticed that there was something very wrong in the water that they were drinking, but their voice was undermined and silenced. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that it is certainly not the case that clear, odourless, colourless and flavourless water is clean. Think about emerging contaminants, such as PFAS, which don't have any smell, flavour or colour and yet they are the plague of the future in terms of water contamination and toxicity.

'The attributes and aesthetics we assign to water are usually an expression of a concept of clean and dirt that is historical and cultural in nature.'

But I recognize that your question is connected with the previous discussion about community knowledge. The attributes and aesthetics we assign to water are usually an expression of a concept of clean and dirt that is historical and cultural in nature. There is therefore an important role for community knowledge to understand water quality, also in the case of repeated floods. In general, the idea that clean water is colourless and tasteless is a myth that spans across many cultures, but this doesn't mean that everybody thinks that way. For example, my interlocutors in North Bihar, India, define water cleanliness without reference to tastelessness or colourlessness. In the Netherlands, this assumption is hindering people’s competence and access to clean safe water.

V: Can you share a little bit more about how this connects to the common misconception that people may have about water treatment? 

L: This is related to what I've called hydrotopias – water utopias such as water being colourless, tasteless, and odourless, but that may also pertain to water treatment. A specific technology, for example a specific type of filtration, has been considered optimal in contexts where this is probably not the case, either because of the contaminants that it is not able to remove, or because of an unreasonable use of the output water. On the one hand, technologies are cultural devices so they carry histories and biases. On the other hand, we have to admit the limitations of our knowledge. In terms of emerging contaminants, as a society, we have been unable to ban PFAS, despite knowing how harmful they are.

V: What are some of the biggest challenges that communities with limited resources face when trying to treat water or to obtain clean drinking water?

L: These communities often face a heavy industrial discourse that is trying to sell specific methods of purification, often without verifying exactly what kind of purification that they are trying to achieve; that is, without knowing which contaminants they're trying to purify and without understanding the specific conditions of the area.

'In areas with recurrent floods, local knowledge is often more advanced than that of external specialists'

This ignorance, which elsewhere I have called an ecology of absences, also includes inappropriate energy consumption, ways to clean the purification system itself, as well as the inability to recognise alternatives to the large global industrial priority of selling more water filters. 

V: Do you think that this is somehow aligned with this general discourse on leaving no-one behind in the context of water issues? 

L: Unfortunately, the idea of leaving no-one behind has been either ignored in terms of pursuing fundamental human rights or exploited to justify private profits and the overexploitation of natural resources with the right to water. In the first case, some of the ideas of how to fix water problems were based on assumptions regarding the value that is attributed to water and the willingness to pay for cleaner and safer water. In the second case, getting clean water has become the rationale for accessing less sustainable resources, such as deeper aquifers, which in turn open the way for more resource exploitation and for more contamination to spread.

One notable exception is perhaps the Netherlands, where it has been recently ruled that the water supply of a family with minors cannot be cut off because of their inability to pay. This is one example in which the right to water had been defined not in principle, but in practical, realistic terms that people can use. 

V: What do you have to say about how we look at water in general in light of the big challenges that environmental justice creates? 

L: The problem of dealing with water issues is the problem of combining different disciplinary approaches. It is ludicrous not to apply an interdisciplinary lens when discussing the environment. Water is a very good example because it requires specialistic environmental and social knowledge– that’s why I prefer to talk about water justice rather than environmental justice. Water is related to our philosophies, cultures, values, sensorial experiences. Just as we won’t be able to tackle its problems only from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences, we would not do any good ignoring these other factors. Unfortunately, the way in which we have organized academia has been in silos – practically, it's extremely difficult for a scholar to be truly interdisciplinary; I think that academia is doing a disservice to the world by hindering interdisciplinary careers across the humanities, the natural and the social sciences.

V: What are your main recommendations for governments or organizations striving to promote environmental justice in water related issues?

L: The ideal would be to actually dig into the complexity of water issues. To think about water justice in ways that consider the long-term implications of climate change and yet without making a business out of scarcity and difficulty.

As I was mentioning, it is as necessary as it is difficult to provide truly interdisciplinary solutions that value science as much as they value culture, society and equality. Furthermore, it is important to also take the long view into account. This means considering how the next generations can live in a safe environment and achieve a satisfactory lifestyle and not simply a small number imposing their priorities.

V: I would like to finish by asking a personal question: What sparked you interested in water studies? 

L: Certainly, childhood experiences of growing up in a water-scarce area. In the area where my mother came from, we had to get up very early in the morning and fill a bucket with the water that we would use for the rest of the day. This means that I learned very quickly not only how to use as little as possible and value water, but also how to go about my day thinking about water. It was an early practical education that turned out to be a precious one.

Later, I had the opportunity to work as an applied anthropologist in an area of India facing severe water disasters, including both major destructive floods and toxic drinking water contamination. I found myself in charge of operations during a terrible inundation with 25 million people under water and very little government assistance. Those experiences were life-changing and turned water into a life-determining passion. 

V: And now you’re giving the opportunity to students like myself in the water disaster course to learn from that experience. Thank you so much for this interview, Luisa. 

L: Oh, that’s is the best part. I love teaching, and I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and your smart questions, Vanessa, thank you!