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Creators: School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
Creators: Eakin, Hallie C.
Creators: Flores, Shalae Alena
Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Resource Type: Text

SOCIAL CONFLICT AND WATER ACCESS IN MEXICO CITY'S URBAN WATER NETWORK

Description

Protest has been both a practice of citizenship rights as well as a means of social pressure for change in the context of Mexico City's water system. This paper explores the role that citizen protest plays in the city's response to its water challenges. We use media reports of water protests to examine where protests happen and the causes associated with them. We analyze this information to illuminate socio-political issues associated with the city's water problems, such as political corruption, gentrification, as well as general power dynamics and lack of transparency between citizens, governments, and the private businesses which interact with them. We use text analysis of newspaper reports to analyze protest events in terms of the primary stimuli of water conflict, the areas within the city more prone to conflict, and the ways in which conflict and protest are used to initiate improved water management and to influence decision making to address water inequities. We found that water scarcity is the primary source of conflict, and that water scarcity is tied to new housing and commercial construction. These new constructions often disrupt water supplies and displace of minority or marginalized groups, which we denote as gentrification. The project demonstrates the intimate ties between inequities in housing and water in urban development. Key words: Conflict, protest, Mexico City, scarcity, new construction

ContributorsFlores, Shalae Alena (Author) / Eakin, Hallie C. (Thesis director) / Baeza-Castro, Andres (Committee member) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2017-05

Quantifying the trade-off between landscape vegetation height, surface temperature, and water consumption in single-family residential houses for a desert city.

Description

In light of climate change and urban sustainability concerns, researchers have been studying how residential landscape vegetation affect household water consumption and heat mitigation. Previous studies have analyzed the correlations among residential landscape practices, household water consumption, and urban heating at aggregate spatial scales to understand complex landscape decision tradeoffs in an urban environment. This research builds upon those studies by using parcel-level variables to explore the implications of vegetation quantity and height on water consumption and summertime surface temperatures in a set of single-family residential homes in Tempe, Arizona. QuickBird and LiDAR vegetation imagery (0.600646m/pixel), MASTER temperature data (approximately 7m/pixel), and household water billing data were analyzed. Findings provide new insights into the distinct variable, vegetation height, thereby contributing to past landscape studies at the parcel-level. We hypothesized that vegetation of different heights significantly impact water demand and summer daytime and nighttime surface temperatures among residential homes. More specifically, we investigated two hypotheses: 1) vegetation greater than 1.5 m in height will decrease daytime surface temperature more than grass coverage, and 2) grass cover will increase household water consumption more than other vegetation classes, particularly vegetation height. Bivariate and stepwise linear regressions were run to determine the predictive capacity of vegetation on surface temperature and on water consumption. Trees of 1.5m-10m height and trees of 5m-10m height lowered daytime surface temperatures. Nighttime surface temperatures were increased by trees of 5m-10m height and decreased by grass. Houses that experienced higher daytime surface temperatures consumed less water than houses with lower daytime surface temperatures, but water consumption was not directly related to vegetation cover or height. Implications of this study support the practical application of tree canopy (vegetation of 5m-10m height) to mitigate extreme surface temperatures. The trade-offs between water and vegetation classes are not yet clear because vegetation classes cannot singularly predict household water consumption.

ContributorsJia, Jessica (Co-author) / Larson, Kelli L. (Co-author, Thesis director) / Wentz, Elizabeth (Co-author, Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)

Created2015-05

COMPARATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: WATER MANAGEMENT IN MESA, ARIZONA USA AND HERMOSILLO, SONORA MEXICO

Description

Despite similar climate, ecosystem, and population size, the cities of Hermosillo, Mexico and Mesa, USA manage their water very differently. Mesa has a stable and resilient system organized around state and federal regulations. Hermosillo, after rapidly industrializing, has not been able to cope with climate change and long-term drought conditions. Water distribution statistics, stakeholders, policy structure, and government organization were combined in an organizational framework to compare the practices of the two cities. These inputs were weighed against the outcomes and the sustainability of each system. While Mesa is part of a massive metropolitan area, Hermosillo is still developing into a metropolitan center and does not have access to the same infrastructure and resources. In Hermosillo local needs are frequently discounted in favor of broad political goals.

ContributorsMoe, Rud Lamb (Author) / Chhetri, Netra (Thesis director) / White, Dave (Committee member) / Robles-Morua, Agustin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)

Created2013-05