Doctoral Dissertation Research: Informal Water Use in Tijuana

城市供水对城市地区的环境规划和治理是一项艰巨的挑战。由于持续的干旱、快速的城市化和更广泛的市政分配政治，沙漠城市，特别是美墨边境沿线，面临严重的供水短缺。然而，将废水转化为供应的新努力引发了体制变革、政治经济以及非正规用水在基础设施电网之外的社区中的作用等关键问题。这一博士论文研究项目将研究非正式的水再利用，如收集雨水和回收灰水，如何改变墨西哥蒂华纳回收废水的正式努力。博士生将寻求确定非正式的水机构和基础设施如何运作，它们如何引导资源流动，以及它们如何改变国家与社会关系。使用人种学和地理空间建模技术，学生将：(1)通过参与性研究分析在集水过程中形成的基础设施系统、机构和经济战略；(2)在地理信息系统(GIS)中模拟集水对雨水流动和正式回收的潜在水文影响；以及(3)利用带有Q方法部分的调查来衡量集水对社区自治和城市发展的政治影响。研究结果预计将证明，非正式的集水和再利用构成了一种替代经济，重新定义了与国家相关的社区自治，并改善了当地的城市径流和水质条件。随着提华纳的废水从环境“坏”转变为经济“好”，这项研究项目将有助于解释在一个快速发展的城市中废水再利用面临的制度和公平挑战。这项研究将通过提供关于提华纳非正式用水系统、机构、经济和流量的基本数据来促进科学知识，阐明供水和再利用方面的水文和管理挑战。研究结果将改善城市水文模型的社会经济层面，并评估正式回收的机构替代方案，如家庭用水收集。这些数据将有助于目前在提华纳-圣地亚哥大都市减轻雨水污染和改善水质管理的举措。此外，随着非正式住区在世界各地城市的不断扩大，这项研究为公平水资源开发、城市规划和社区发展的政策提供了潜在的见解。这种方法可以通过将水资源建模的方法论技术与政治生态和不同经济领域的文献中的关键见解相结合，开辟新的理论领域。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Provision of municipal water supply is a formidable challenge for environmental planning and governance in urban areas. Desert cities, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border, face critical shortages in water supply due to persistent droughts, rapid urbanization, and the broader politics of municipal distribution. New efforts to transform wastewater into supply, however, raise key questions of institutional change, political economy, and the role of informal water use in communities located off the infrastructure grid. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how informal water reuse, such as harvesting rainwater and recycling greywater, transforms formal efforts to reclaim wastewater in Tijuana, Mexico. The doctoral candidate will seek to determine how informal water institutions and infrastructure operate, how they direct resource flows, and how they transform state-society relations. Using ethnographic and geospatial modeling techniques, the student will: (1) analyze the infrastructure systems, institutions, and economic strategies formed in water harvesting through participatory research; (2) model the potential hydrologic effects of water harvesting on stormwater flows and formal reclamation in a geographic information system (GIS); and (3) measure the political effects that water harvesting has on community autonomy and urban development using a survey with a Q-method component. The findings are expected to demonstrate that informal water harvesting and reuse constitute an alternative economy, redefine community autonomy in relation to the state, and improve local conditions of urban runoff and water quality. As Tijuana's wastewater transitions from an environmental "bad" into an economic "good," this research project will help explain the institutional and equity challenges for wastewater reuse in a rapidly growing city. The study will advance scientific knowledge by providing primary data on informal water use systems, institutions, economies, and flow quantities in Tijuana, elucidating hydrologic and management challenges for water provision and reuse. The research results should improve the socioeconomic dimensions of urban hydrologic modeling and evaluate institutional alternatives to formal reclamation, such as household water harvesting. These data will benefit current initiatives to mitigate stormwater pollution and improve water quality management in metropolitan Tijuana-San Diego. Furthermore, as informal settlements continue expanding in cities around the world, this study offers potential insights for policies on equitable water development, urban planning, and community development. This approach can open new theoretical terrain by uniting methodological techniques in water resources modeling with critical insights from literature on political ecology and diverse economies. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.