Because water is basic to life, an ethical dimension persists in every decision related to water. By explicitly revealing the ethical ideas underlying water-related decisions, human society's relationship with water, and with natural systems of which water is part, can be contested and shifted or be accepted with conscious intention. Water management over the last century has privileged immediate human needs over those of future generations, other living beings, and ecosystems. In recent decades, improved understanding of water's importance for ecosystem functioning and ecological services for human survival is moving us beyond this growth-driven, supply-focused management paradigm. Environmental ethics challenge this paradigm by extending the ethical sphere to the environment. This research in water ethics considers expanding the conception of whom or what is morally considerable in water policy and management. <br /><br /> First, the research proposes a water ethic to balance among intragenerational equity, intergenerational equity, and equity for the environment. Second, the proposed ethic acts as an assessment tool with which to analyse water policy. <em>Water for Life: Alberta's Strategy for Sustainability</em> is the focal policy document for this analysis. This document is an example of new Canadian policy; it represents the Government of Alberta's current and future approach to water issues; and it implicitly embodies the ethical ideas that guided the document's production. To assess Water for Life's success in achieving the principles of the proposed water ethic, this case study used discourse analysis, key informant interviews, and comparison to a progressive international policy document, <em>Securing Our Water Future Together</em>, the 2004 White Paper of Victoria, Australia. <br /><br /> Key conclusions show that <em>Water for Life</em> is progressive by embracing full public participation, a watershed approach, knowledge-generation initiatives, a new planning model, and water rights security. However, barriers exist that can disrupt the strategy's success, including the first-in-time first-in-right water allocation system, the strategy's lack of detail, inadequate protection of aquatic ecosystems, ambiguity of jurisdiction over water in First Nations communities, and under-developed connections between substantive issues. The thesis also outlines recommendations for Alberta and implications for other jurisdictions. Additionally this research offers guidelines and an assessment tool grounded in broad ethical concepts to water policy development; and it encourages making ethical ideas explicit in assessment and formation of equitable and sustainable water policy.

Because water is basic to life, an ethical dimension persists in every decision related to water. By explicitly revealing the ethical ideas underlying water-related decisions, human society's relationship with water, and with natural systems of which water is part, can be contested and shifted or be accepted with conscious intention. Water management over the last century has privileged immediate human needs over those of future generations, other living beings, and ecosystems. In recent decades, improved understanding of water's importance for ecosystem functioning and ecological services for human survival is moving us beyond this growth-driven, supply-focused management paradigm. Environmental ethics challenge this paradigm by extending the ethical sphere to the environment. This research in water ethics considers expanding the conception of whom or what is morally considerable in water policy and management. <br /><br /> First, the research proposes a water ethic to balance among intragenerational equity, intergenerational equity, and equity for the environment. Second, the proposed ethic acts as an assessment tool with which to analyse water policy. <em>Water for Life: Alberta's Strategy for Sustainability</em> is the focal policy document for this analysis. This document is an example of new Canadian policy; it represents the Government of Alberta's current and future approach to water issues; and it implicitly embodies the ethical ideas that guided the document's production. To assess Water for Life's success in achieving the principles of the proposed water ethic, this case study used discourse analysis, key informant interviews, and comparison to a progressive international policy document, <em>Securing Our Water Future Together</em>, the 2004 White Paper of Victoria, Australia. <br /><br /> Key conclusions show that <em>Water for Life</em> is progressive by embracing full public participation, a watershed approach, knowledge-generation initiatives, a new planning model, and water rights security. However, barriers exist that can disrupt the strategy's success, including the first-in-time first-in-right water allocation system, the strategy's lack of detail, inadequate protection of aquatic ecosystems, ambiguity of jurisdiction over water in First Nations communities, and under-developed connections between substantive issues. The thesis also outlines recommendations for Alberta and implications for other jurisdictions. Additionally this research offers guidelines and an assessment tool grounded in broad ethical concepts to water policy development; and it encourages making ethical ideas explicit in assessment and formation of equitable and sustainable water policy.

According to the United Nations, two-thirds of the world's population, approximately 4 billion people, experiences water scarcity at least one month per year. To avoid the water quantity crisis experienced in many regions of the world and the United States, a path to sustainability must be forged. My research aims to identify and critique the salient features of the narrative that drives contemporary urban water decisions and practices and to provide a meta-narrative about the role of narratives as invisible lenses through which individuals see, interpret, and interact with the world often without realizing the existence of those frames. The purpose of this problem-oriented dissertation is twofold: to provide a philosophical policy analysis of contemporary water issues in the United States generally and North Central Texas in particular, and to offer a pragmatic and interdisciplinary approach to discovering a sustainable relationship to water. The intent of my research is not to produce a new metaphysical understanding of water, but to provide a pragmatic application of ideas that can be utilized in the field; ideas that can invoke a new narrative, vision, and direction for urban water issues in North Central Texas and in areas far beyond the Lone Star State. I begin my dissertation with an overview of the nature of the problems involved in managing our global and national water problems. To fully understand urban water issues requires more than just scientific knowledge, it also demands a philosophical orientation and grounding. Chapter 2 lays the philosophical foundation of my research by braiding the philosophical streams of thought inherent in Aldo Leopold's concepts of the land ethic and ecological conscience, Alfred North Whitehead and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's emphasis on relationship, Paulo Freire's pedagogy of critical consciousness, John Dewey's philosophy of experience and his perceived importance of the public and the "Great Community," and Hannah Arendt's theory of action. I argue that these tributaries of philosophical thought provide the foundation for creating a new urban water narrative. In Chapter 3, I provide an in-depth description of the water policy problem by delineating the historical context of water policy, supply, and management, exploring the rise of disciplinarity that resulted from the divergence of the humanities and science, explicating the partnership and dominator models of civilization, and investigating the impact of the cultural narrative on the decision-making process. Chapter 4 consists of my analysis of the current water policy problem through the lens of a case study of water issues in North Central Texas. I describe the key trends that have driven water practices in the region, examine the factors that have fostered those trends, and project what is likely to happen if the status quo approach to water is maintained. Chapter 5 presents my proposed alternative for resolving the current water quantity problem in North Central Texas. I philosophically evaluate the potential of my proposed alternative, a new urban water narrative, for ameliorating the problem and achieving the goal of a sustainable relationship to water. I elucidate the ways in which a new cultural narrative can surface and precipitate a new way of being in relationship with water. The last chapter recaps the previous chapters, acknowledges limitations of my research, and provides recommendations for future philosophical research endeavors into water policy, supply, and management that is relevant on a local, national, and global scale.

This thesis is an inquiry regarding the interconnections between water scarcity, geopolitics, resource management, and the strategies for developing effective ways to resolve conflict and encourage sustainable water resource use in developing countries. The ecological services of trans-boundary rivers are explored in conjunction with the potential impacts to freshwater availability due to economic modernization, water resource development, and decision making regimes that determine how water is allocated among competing users. Anthropogenic stressors that induce water scarcity and the geopolitical mechanisms of conflict are studied. A discourse on the creation and functional extent of global and localized water ethics is investigated, emphasizing the importance of perceptual dispositions of water users in understanding the value of trans-boundary river basins.