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Sustainability
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Modernization and Sustainability of Urban Water Systems
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Modernization and Sustainability of Urban Water Systems

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 4403

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Thomas Bolognesi

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Guest Editor
Political Sciences Department, the Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Interests: policy analysis; institution; regulation; environment; water
Dr. Eva Lieberherr

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental System Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Interests: policy analysis; natural resource management; governance; coordination

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The water sector entails a fixed and extensive infrastructure to deliver services. However, the current infrastructure systems are under pressure and in dire need of maintenance, investment, rethinking and reform. While liberalization and new public management have generally been pivotal in shaping ongoing reforms, we find a wide diversity of institutional arrangements—with many failed examples. This Special Issue aims at exploring the interlinkages between infrastructure and institutional systems in the water sector. Important topics include the change of respective institutional arrangements over time and the consequences in terms of accountability and legitimacy, the link between big trends in water infrastructure reforms and (conflicts in) the policy process, or the questioning of centralized infrastructure in terms of efficient service delivery and types of institutional arrangements. Empirical and theoretical contributions are welcome.

Dr. Thomas Bolognesi
Dr. Eva Lieberherr
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • water sector
  • infrastructure
  • public policy
  • reforms
  • institutional design

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 991 KiB  
Article
Public, Private, or Inter-Municipal Organizations: Actors’ Preferences in the Swiss Water Sector
by Eva Lieberherr and Karin Ingold
Sustainability 2022, 14(13), 7560; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14137560 - 21 Jun 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1578
Abstract
To improve sustainable service provision, the public sector has been repeatedly subject to administrative reforms. Yet, the question arises of which types of organizations might be preferred. To address this, we systematically analyze which water supply organizations decision-makers and stakeholders, across different levels [...] Read more.
To improve sustainable service provision, the public sector has been repeatedly subject to administrative reforms. Yet, the question arises of which types of organizations might be preferred. To address this, we systematically analyze which water supply organizations decision-makers and stakeholders, across different levels of government in Switzerland, prefer. We find that the actors prefer public organizations that involve coordination between municipalities and reject private organizations. Distinguishing between different actor levels reveals a distinct pattern, mainly related to the level of responsibility: the national (confederation) and regional (cantonal) actors only prefer coordination across municipalities, where local politicians lose a degree of control. In contrast, the local actors prefer those organizations where they can maintain democratic control the most. However, such organizations are not expected to perform sustainably, mainly because of lengthy decision-making processes, lack of access to external funds, and short-term financial planning. We, thus, conclude that, at the local level, there is potentially a trade-off between democratic values and performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modernization and Sustainability of Urban Water Systems)
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22 pages, 2751 KiB  
Article
From Power to Legitimacy—Explaining Historical and Contemporary Water Conflict at Yesa Reservoir (Spain) and Gross Reservoir (USA) Using Path Dependency
by Laura Turley
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9305; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169305 - 19 Aug 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2055
Abstract
Conflict over new dams and reservoirs is well-studied, but less is known about controversies over the reoperation of existing water infrastructure. This paper presents two cases of reoperation that have been embroiled in conflict: the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project in Colorado, United States, [...] Read more.
Conflict over new dams and reservoirs is well-studied, but less is known about controversies over the reoperation of existing water infrastructure. This paper presents two cases of reoperation that have been embroiled in conflict: the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project in Colorado, United States, and the Yesa Reservoir Regrowth project in Aragon and Navarra, Spain. A historical analysis of each of the cases relies on process tracing, reaching back to their construction in the 1950s up to present day, and a cross-case comparison distills findings on the causes of historical and contemporary conflict. The paper adds empirical evidence to the phenomenon of path dependency, and argues that a transition of the dominant mechanism of institutional reproduction occurs in the cases—from power to legitimacy—which in turn informs us about the historical and present-day conflicts. We find that through the contemporary reoperation, water service providers are experiencing a legitimacy crisis related to the quickly-evolving values of water users, and their access to competing sources of knowledge and expertise. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modernization and Sustainability of Urban Water Systems)
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