Sustainable water tariffs and inequality in post-drought Cape Town
Exploring perceptions of fairness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12949878 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Johan Enqvist (0000-0003-0901-7987, Stockholm Resilience Centre, corresponding author), Wessel van Oyen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 891-905 |
| Publication date | 2022-09-19 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sustainability Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1862-4057 • E-ISSN: 1862-4065 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11625-022-01217-9 |
| OpenAlex | W4296351512 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 55 |
Fair allocation of diminishing natural resources is increasingly central to sustainability. This includes the allocation of costs related to providing access, such as dams, pipes and pumps delivering clean water. Water tariffs are often designed to both recover these costs, meet social needs of water services to the poor, and incentivise conservation in dry times. However, strained public finances, prolonged droughts and economic inequality can undermine these goals and force prioritisations that many see as unfair. This happened in Cape Town, South Africa, during its 2015–2018 water crisis. This study investigates what residents in three different socioeconomic contexts view as fair water tariffs 1 year after the crisis. Using Q method, we describe five distinct perspectives on fairness: ‘the Insurer’, ‘the Individualist’, ’the Bureaucrat’, ‘the Humanitarian’, and ‘the Prepper’. These, we argue, can help distinguish between different ideas of what fairness implies, and what is required to promote it. We exemplify this by examining how viewpoints might have been shaped by specific communities’ experiences during and after the apartheid state’s discriminatory segregation policies. Using distributive, procedural and interactional interpretations of fairness, we discuss how the complex layers of poverty, inequality, mistrust, privilege and discrimination might produce different experiences and ideas of who should pay for and benefit from water services. Using these insights, we also reflect on the merits of tariffs that emphasise cost recovery and resource conservation over social needs, and the risks this poses for growing informal settlements in climate-stressed cities of the global South. Graphical abstract Using Q method, we identified five distinct perspectives with different views on what constitutes a fair water tariff
Business · Economic growth · Economics · Inequality · Poverty · Public economics · Viewpoints · Flood Risk Assessment and Management · Q Methodology Applications · Water resources management and optimization
Doing Q Methodological Research
Supporting transformative climate adaptation
Disrespect and the Experience of Injustice
‘Subjective resilience’
Intergenerational inequities in exposure to climate extremes
Planetary boundaries
Drought response impacts on household water use practices in Cape Town, South Africa
Shape of a water crisis
Water, Rights and Poverty
Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa
Anthropogenic influence on the drivers of the Western Cape drought 2015–2017
Water competition between cities and agriculture driven by climate change and urban growth
Subjectivity and social-ecological systems
Doing Q ethodology
Exploring environmental perspectives in lowland agriculture
Rules, Norms, and Injustice
Can Informal Water Vendors Deliver on the Promise of A Human Right to Water? Results From Cochabamba, Bolivia
Hybrid regulatory landscapes
Common sense principles governing potable water recycling in the southwestern US
The murky waters of the second wave of neoliberalism
The challenge of a perception of 'un-entitlement' to citizenship in post-Apartheid South Africa
Rethinking Methods in Psychology
The understanding of their illness amongst people with irritable bowel syndrome
Day Zero and The Infrastructures of Climate Change
Voicing resilience through subjective well-being
Ongoing contestations
| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |