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The water privatization project in Buenos Aires, Argentina between 1993 and 2006 serves as the main case study in this investigation. The study begins by introducing background information on neo-liberalism and free market capitalism and their role in promoting private sector participation in the water supply and sanitation (WSS) services industry. A comparative case study analysis of the Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Dolphin Coast, and United Kingdom case studies has revealed that there are some key similarities between the case studies. In the conclusion, the key similarities are analyzed to make broader implications about the nature of private sector participation in the WSS services industry.

This thesis presents the results of exploratory sociological research designed to better understand how farmers select agricultural practices with the potential to effect water quality. The primary research methodology is a Rapid Rural Appraisal of thirty farms in five rural municipalities in Saskatchewan, Canada during the year 2000 growing season. The data establishes that a variety of economic, institutional, organizational, and social factors interact in dynamic ways to influence farmer resource management decisions and that the resulting agricultural practices have the potential for subtle and dramatic effects on water quality in Saskatchewan. Risk-mitigating farming methods known as Best Management Practices (BMPs) are interpreted by farmers in the field research as being both appropriate and problematic. Alternative initiatives and communication strategies are identified in the field data that offer support to production and productivity in the agriculture sector while also promoting water quality. The research suggests that measures such as providing accessible public water quality data, promoting water treatment for individual households, and educating rural women and youth about water quality issues may merit further investigation.

This thesis presents the results of exploratory sociological research designed to better understand how farmers select agricultural practices with the potential to effect water quality. The primary research methodology is a Rapid Rural Appraisal of thirty farms in five rural municipalities in Saskatchewan, Canada during the year 2000 growing season. The data establishes that a variety of economic, institutional, organizational, and social factors interact in dynamic ways to influence farmer resource management decisions and that the resulting agricultural practices have the potential for subtle and dramatic effects on water quality in Saskatchewan. Risk-mitigating farming methods known as Best Management Practices (BMPs) are interpreted by farmers in the field research as being both appropriate and problematic. Alternative initiatives and communication strategies are identified in the field data that offer support to production and productivity in the agriculture sector while also promoting water quality. The research suggests that measures such as providing accessible public water quality data, promoting water treatment for individual households, and educating rural women and youth about water quality issues may merit further investigation.

Water is the most important resource on the planet for sustaining life, and many consider access to water as a fundamental human right. However, in light of its necessity, the distribution and allocation of water has become a highly politicized issue. Economic and political conditions have been shown to be influential in shaping a country’s water policy, more so then recognition of water as a basic human right. The reason for this is that many agree that there needs to be a value assigned to water to encourage its conservation and efficient use, and different methods of addressing that issue have led to varying degrees of privatization of water. Whether through the private or public sector, there is an expectation that water be delivered to the people by the government, and it is often the influence of public and private actors within the government that direct the policy for water distribution. Using three cases in Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay it will be demonstrated how water policy has correlated with the political and economic changes within each country.

Following the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) integrated catchment management plans must be prepared for all river basins, in order to achieve 'good ecological status' (GES) in all EU waters. This concept is a broader measure of water quality than the chemical and biological measures, which were previously dominant in EU water policy. The Directive also calls for a consideration of the economic costs and benefits of improvements to ecological status in catchment management plans, along with the introduction of full social cost pricing for water use. In this thesis, the primary focus is on the use of the Choice Experiment (CE) method. The CE method is reviewed and then used to estimate the value of improvements in a number of components of ecological status on two Irish waterways (the Boyne and the Suir). Apart from CE method another stated preference approach to environmental valuation is also considered; the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). This thesis determines what value the targeted population of the two catchments place on the nonmarket economic benefits of moves towards GES by employing both approaches and various model specifications, while the applicability of Benefit Transfer (BT) method is also assessed under different tests. In addition, the design of the questionnaire used in the survey stage of the research, offered the possibility of investigating issues related to the effect of cognitive ability and psychometric factors on choice. Respondents with discontinuous preferences are identified and analysis is conducted to investigate the implications of not accounting for these preferences. Finally, due to experiencing protesting behaviour by a proportion of the sampling population an attempt is made to investigate the parameters that contributed to this inclination.

It is difficult for policymakers to predict the behavior of people in response to a water rationing policy. The public may not necessarily behave as expected or in accordance with market rules or policy mandates. In this research, I will ask whether people were responsive to a summer 2011 City of Saskatoon legal restrictions to reduce their outdoor water consumption due to reduced capacity at the water treatment plant resulting from excessive solids in the river water. I will try to explore the policy response - which can be expressed as a reduction of outdoor water consumption in 2011 in response to the water mandate - while holding constant other factors, including environmental variables (temperature and rainfall), socio-economic factors (income and education level), lot size, and an annual downward trend in water consumption that appeared in many North American cities during the past two decades. Monthly water consumption data for the period from 2004 to 2012 for the City of Saskatoon were analyzed to detect if there is a policy response from the water mandate during June and July 2011. Regression analysis with water consumption as the dependent variable and lot size, temperature, rainfall, education index, income, consumption trend, and policy as independent variables was conducted to test whether there is a policy response in the Saskatoon water records, holding other factors relevant to water consumption constant. Results showed there was a statistically significant reduction in Saskatoon water consumption during June and July 2011 as a result of the water rationing mandate, with considerable variations through different neighborhoods. In addition, there is a positive relationship between water consumption and lot size and a reduction in water consumption over the research period from 2004 to 2012. The policy response varied widely across neighborhoods, and there was relationship between policy and annual income per capita, and household size; households with more income per capita are less responsive to the policy while bigger household sizes showed more policy responsiveness. Key words: City of Saskatoon, water rationing, water policy, water mandate, outdoor water use.

The aim of this study is to focus on how the Vulindlela Community benefited from water supplied to them through DWAF and Umgeni Water funding with emphasis on the sustainability of the project. The study also aims to find out from Vulindlela Community whether the scheme met its objectives. The sample consists of 2 888 respondents from Vulindlela area. The measuring instruments used are the interviews and questionnaire constructed by the researcher. The results of this study indicate that all the objectives of the scheme were met and that the community especially women, unemployed men and local contractors all benefited from the project. The issue of sustainability of the scheme is the real problem. The community (Branch Officers, local plumbers, meter readers and committees) has been trained in handling water related issues but the community has not accepted the ownership of the scheme. If the ownership of the scheme is lacking, there will be problems throughout. The non-payment of water used by the community will continue to be a problem if the community itself does not take the ownership of running and maintaining it. The community needs to be empowered and be trained on the operation and maintenance (OM cost recoveries and the tariff structure. The results also indicate that the community understands the free water policy and that most of them are using less than 6 kilolitres per month. The willingness to pay from the community is low, to such an extent that most of the households are due for disconnections or restriction. This is supported by the fact that most of them are earning less than RI 000 - 00 per month and in some households the bread winner is an elderly person who is dependent on government grants. The 6 kilolitre free water is not sustainable under the conditions, which this community find themselves in. There are challenges facing the scheme and these are discussed under Chapter 5. Since some limitations of this study were found, the results must be interpreted with caution and one should be cautious in applying them. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

La citoyenneté opère un retour en force dans le domaine environnemental, visible tant dans les dispositifs de participation destinés à inclure l’ensemble des citoyens dans les prises de décision, que dans des mouvement de contestation voire des résistances à des projets d’aménagement ou certains usages de l’espace. Ces deux types d’expériences participatives constituent pour ceux qui y prennent part - citoyens, acteurs associatifs, élus, professionnels des politiques publiques - de véritables lieux d’apprentissages politiques. Par l’exploration d’une procédure institutionnalisée de participation (une conférence de citoyens sur la gestion de l’eau) et d’une mobilisation contestataire (contre le gaz de schiste), ce travail identifie d’une part ce que les acteurs apprennent, et d’autre part les modalités par lesquelles ils apprennent. L’enquête ethnographique et le recours aux sciences de l’éducation font l’originalité de cette recherche qui propose de décrire et d’analyser finement des expériences d’apprentissages politiques, d’éducation au conflit comme à la participation. / Citizenship has been making a strong resurgence in the environmental field, visible both in institutionalised procedures intended to include all citizens in decision-making, and in protest movements or resistance to some planning projects or land uses. For those who take part - citizens, members of associations, policy makers and public policy professionals -, these two kinds of participatory experiences represent significant spaces for political learning. Through the exploration of an institutionalised procedure for public participation (a citizens’ conference on water management) and a protest movement (against shale gas), this work identifies what actors learn on the one hand, and the learning methods on the other. The ethnographic survey and the use of educational sciences constitute the originality of this research which describes and analyses experiments in political learning, education to conflict as well as participation.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T17:10:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NelsonMR_DISSERT.pdf: 3505844 bytes, checksum: 0343681885fbc3af403199cf6a0f387d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-24 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / The development has been a phenomenon in constant discussion today, whose fundamental importance should be to promote the welfare of humanity. Thus, the development becomes an element that adds political, economic, social and environmental values . In Mozambique the development model adopted by the State prioritizes the economic dimension, in this case favoring the growth of capitalist structure production. Thus , the basic conditions for human survival still leaves much to be desired and the Mozambican population in general and the district of Chibuto , in particular , continue to face several difficulties to have access to such conditions, and the lack of potable water is a that most of the problems afflicting this population . The water was always a factor related to the socio-economic development of the population, where great civilizations and major economic marks were always influenced by water availability, and today this feature is present in all sectors of production. In Mozambique, much effort has been made by the government, national and international organizations to enhance and guarantee the supply of potable and drinking water, and despite all this effort, most of the population does not have access to this precious resource. In this sense, this work presents an analysis of the effects of the National Water Policy in the study area, analyzes the shortage of potable water in the district of Chibuto, discusses the design and development contained in the official discourse of the state and, opposes the idea of human development. For such issues that help to understand the phenomenon under study, such as territory, public policy and criticism of hegemonic conception of development are addressed. To make the desired approach, we performed a characterization of the District of Chibuto, addressing the issue of poverty, with a brief discussion of this concept, from different approaches, and analyze the impact of the PARPA (Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty) in fighting poverty in Mozambique, and became a description of the scenario of poverty and vulnerability in Chibuto district with the construction of Territorial Human Development Index. Research also brings up a discussion about territory and technicization which describes the senary of the water supply system in the District and territorial dynamics of Chibuto, from the analysis and description of existing structures and other technical objects that structure the territory under study. Thus, it was found that the development should be summarized in the satisfaction of human needs, and should be the cornerstone of the new type of development that is intended for the purpose of triggering urgently actions to overcome or combat bleak misery suffered by the majority of inhabitants of the District of Chibuto / O desenvolvimento tem sido um fen?meno em constante discuss?o na atualidade, cuja import?ncia fundamental deveria ser a promo??o do bem estar da humanidade. Assim, o desenvolvimento passa a ser um elemento que agrega valores pol?ticos, econ?micos, social e ambiental. Em Mo?ambique o modelo de desenvolvimento adotado pelo Estado prioriza a dimens?o econ?mica, privilegiando neste caso o crescimento da estrutura produtiva capitalista. Assim sendo, as condi??es b?sicas para a sobreviv?ncia humana deixa ainda muito a desejar e a popula??o mo?ambicana, em geral, e do distrito de Chibuto, em particular, continuam a enfrentar v?rias dificuldades para ter acesso a tais condi??es, sendo a escassez de ?gua pot?vel um dos problemas que mais aflige essa popula??o. A ?gua foi sempre um fator vinculado ao desenvolvimento socioecon?mico dos povos, onde as grandes civiliza??es e os grandes marcos econ?micos foram sempre influenciados pela disponibilidade de ?gua, e hoje em dia esse recurso est? presente em todos os setores de produ??o. Em Mo?ambique muito esfor?o tem sido feito pelo governo, pelas organiza??es nacionais e internacionais visando ampliar e garantir o abastecimento de ?gua pot?vel, e apesar de todo esse esfor?o, a maior parte da popula??o ainda n?o tem acesso a esse precioso recurso. Neste sentido, o trabalho traz uma an?lise dos reflexos da Pol?tica Nacional de ?gua na ?rea de estudo, analisa a escassez de ?gua pot?vel no Distrito de Chibuto e discute a concep??o de desenvolvimento contido no discurso oficial do Estado, contrapondo com a ideia de desenvolvimento humano. Para tal s?o abordados temas que ajudam a compreender o fen?meno em estudo, tais como territ?rio, pol?ticas p?blicas e cr?tica a concep??o hegem?nica de desenvolvimento. Para viabilizar a abordagem pretendida, realizou-se uma caracteriza??o do Distrito de Chibuto, abordando a quest?o da pobreza, fazendo uma breve discuss?o sobre este conceito, a partir das diferentes abordagens, al?m de analisar o impacto do PARPA (Plano de A??o para Redu??o da Pobreza Absoluta) no combate da pobreza em Mo?ambique e, fez-se uma descri??o do cen?rio da pobreza e vulnerabilidade no distrito de Chibuto com a constru??o do ?ndice Territorial de Desenvolvimento Humano. Tamb?m a pesquisa traz uma discuss?o sobre territ?rio e tecnifica??o, descreve o sen?rio do sistema de abastecimento de ?gua no Distrito e olha para a din?mica territorial de Chibuto, a partir na an?lise e descri??o das estruturas existentes e outros objetos t?cnicos que estruturam o territ?rio em estudo. Assim, constatou-se que o desenvolvimento deve-se resumir na satisfa??o das necessidades humanas, devendo ser o pilar principal do novo tipo de desenvolvimento que se pretende, com a finalidade de desencadear, com urg?ncia, a??es com vista a superar ou combater a desoladora mis?ria que sofre a maior parte dos habitantes do Distrito de Chibuto