Investigating the Potential for Decentralized Institutions, Technologies, and Governance to Meet the Wastewater Challenge

Auburn University, Auburn AL

Investigators

Abstract

Increasing water shortages and contamination have pushed communities and policy makers to reconsider their reliance on centralized wastewater treatment systems and to experiment with decentralized ones. A decentralized project is a small-scale treatment system operated in a city drain, a neighborhood, or an institutional setting without long distance transfers of wastewater through underground and above-ground pipes. But the planning and effective operation of these projects require wholesale changes not only in technology but also in institutional frameworks and systems of governance, which produces a nexus of effects across scales that is not yet well understood. The research funded by this award will address this information gap. Anthropologist Dr. Kelly D. Alley (Auburn University) and her team will study the interactions between institutional structures, governance mechanisms, geophysical landscapes of wastewater flows, and cultural practices in the context of decentralized responses to water contamination and shortage. Their project will also produce case studies in treatment, recycling, water monitoring, and environmental regulation that can be shared across communities and countries. The research will be undertaken in India, where a wide range of decentralized water reuse and pollution reduction experiments and pilot programs are planned or underway in the heavily polluted Ganges river basin. Cleaning up the Ganges is complicated by the fact that the river is, on the one hand, culturally significant as a Hindu Goddess while, on the other, it is being diminished by escalating extractions for agriculture, industry, power, and urbanization. It is the combination of these factors that makes a sample of Ganges-related projects ideal for investigating the intersectional effects of decentralized wastewater treatment approaches. The cross-project comparison will allow the researchers to identify the cultural, institutional and political conditions and constraints that make decentralized projects institutionally feasible, financially viable, and culturally acceptable. The researchers will focus on projects connected to a sample of the 144 drains that pour wastewater into the river system. The researchers will collect data through site visits and mapping of wastewater drains and treatment facilities. They will carry out structured interviews with industry and government representatives. They will conduct surveys in neighborhoods with large drains to assess cultural and political understanding of wastewater problems and acceptability of experiments and pilot projects. Findings from the research will inform policy makers anywhere who plan to undertake decentralized wastewater treatment systems. Findings will also contribute to improved social science theory of the role of infrastructure in social and cultural systems. Funding the research supports two graduate students and enhances international research collaboration.