Doctoral Dissertation Research: Informal Water Use in Tijuana

提供城市供水是城市地区环境规划和治理的一项艰巨挑战。 沙漠城市，特别是美国沿着-由于持续的干旱、快速的城市化和更广泛的市政分配政治，墨西哥边境面临严重的供水短缺。 然而，将废水转化为供水的新努力提出了体制变革、政治经济以及非正规用水在远离基础设施电网的社区中的作用等关键问题。 这个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，如何改变正式的努力，回收墨西哥蒂华纳的废水。 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的关系。 使用人种学和地理空间建模技术，学生将：（1）分析基础设施系统，机构，并通过参与式研究在集水形成的经济战略;（2）模拟雨水收集对雨水流量和正式开垦的地理信息系统（GIS）的潜在水文影响;（3）采用Q法调查，测量集水对社区自治和城市发展的政治影响。 预计调查结果将表明，非正式的水收集和再利用构成了一种替代经济，重新定义了社区相对于国家的自主权，并改善了当地的城市径流和水质条件。 随着天津的废水从环境“坏”转变为经济“好”，这个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的制度和公平挑战。 该研究将通过提供有关非正规用水系统、机构、经济和蒂华纳流量的原始数据，阐明供水和再利用的水文和管理挑战，促进科学知识。 研究结果应改善城市水文建模的社会经济层面，并评估正式复垦的制度替代方案，如家庭集水。 这些数据将有利于目前的举措，以减轻雨水污染和改善大都市蒂华纳-圣地亚哥的水质管理。 此外，随着非正规住区在世界各地的城市中不断扩大，这项研究为公平水资源开发、城市规划和社区发展政策提供了潜在的见解。 这种方法可以通过将水资源建模中的方法技术与政治生态学和多样化经济文献中的关键见解结合起来，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的研究生涯。

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.