Building trust with stakeholders in water supply management

Through this special issue on building trust with stakeholders in water supply management, we created space to focus on and illustrate how establishing and maintaining trust with stakeholders (those who are affected by, can affect, or have an interest in water resources) is an invaluable investment. Building trust through engagement and dialogue with stakeholders can lead to better decision-making and garner support for investing in operation and maintenance and achieve resilient water supplies over the long term (Langsdale & Cardwell 2022).

The following six excellent contributions, which are spread globally from South Africa and Mozambique to India and to Chile, span a variety of ways that trust can effect the success of current and future water managers. Maruapula et al. (2023) illustrate the necessity of acknowledging the heterogeneity of the stakeholders and their different perspectives, priorities, and needs, as well as historical context, while Bombade (2024) and Nhaurire et al. (2023) present challenges of water management at the local level. Tanyanyiwa et al. (2023) and Van Borek & Abrams (2023) both identify and seek to rectify systemic and institutional inequalities which perpetuate unjust practices and erode trust in the South African context. In looking for ways to improve the status quo through training and negotiation tools, Van Borek & Abrams (2023) and Bovermann et al. (2024) provide some very innovative approaches for educators and practitioners.

The novel data presented by Maruapula et al. (2023) bring insights into community perspectives on water management in a river and reservoir system in South Africa. They find that the heterogeneous water users vary in their assessments of the status of the water quality and their level of satisfaction with the implementation of the established water management plan. Those with more formal education recognise poorer water quality and those employed are less satisfied with the management. They also note gender- and race-related differences in both how water is perceived and how it is used that is worthy of further investigation.

Nhaurire et al. (2023) conduct a detailed qualitative analysis of the capacities and challenges facing decentralised water management, and specifically local level water user committees, for providing domestic water supply in rural Mozambique. Their research highlights how community-based water user committees often result out of necessity, due to a lack of government resources to enable formal water supply, as well as from the dominant paradigm of community management from international NGOs that typically provide (initial) funding for water supply projects. The work shows how incredibly challenging it is for water user committees to achieve the expectations of reliable and affordable water supply that are placed upon them without sufficient technical, managerial, and financial support.

Expanding in more detail on the challenges to local-level water supply management, Bombade (2024) provides an excellent examination of the complexities of a decentralised approach in India, with a specific focus on the role of trust between stakeholders. Bombade (2024, p.133) clearly sets out the expectations of community-based management, that it, ‘…would foster a sense of ownership among the local population, responsive and responsible leadership at the local level, an atmosphere of trust, promote transparency, and result in better implementation, long-term sustainability, and proper operation and maintenance of water supply systems. Additionally, it would guarantee consistent and fair access to supply for all households, increasing willingness to pay for services.’ The research then identifies a range of challenges to local level water providers that inhibit their ability to achieve these expectations. Limited provision of water, and an insecure supply, means that many water consumers are dissatisfied with the service and often refuse to pay, further challenging the local level providers in achieving their objectives. Bombade places the decay of trust between water providers and water consumers as a central element to the water supply challenges. Yet, the author also identifies how local level providers recognise this challenge and often develop new strategies to try to minimise dissatisfaction and loss of trust from consumers, that include developing alternative water resources, such as groundwater, rather than relying on the unreliable water supply from multi-village water provision schemes.

Tanyanyiwa et al. (2023) pull apart trust and distrust in a managed aquifer recharge project in South Africa. The interdisciplinary and multiracial research team, working with local stakeholders to retrofit a retention pond to promote groundwater recharge, dissect the complex racial context underlying the work and the nature of the distrust between ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders,’ propagated through the historic apartheid regime. They highlight how ‘prolonged and sustained contact (2+years) enabled the trust to develop.’ They emphasise that skills in stakeholder engagement are rarely included in engineering syllabi, but should be, in order to better prepare practitioners for the reality of field engineering projects.

Supporting students with the skills to engage holistically in water management is exactly the aim of work by Van Borek & Abrams (2023). They focus on the need to decolonialize South Africa's traditional education system that was established to favour the elite. To this aim, they developed a highly novel graduate course on local water bodies where students engage with traditional local knowledge experts and create cellphilms, films made on phones. Van Borek & Abrams (2023) engagingly describe the creative process of cellphilm development. They illustrate how the project generates unique changes in the students, who discover new aspects of themselves and their understandings of water, as well as promoting broader communication, community engagement, and partnerships.

Moving towards innovative technological approaches to enhance trust between stakeholders, Bovermann et al. (2024) demonstrate the potential of optimisation modelling to add value to stakeholder negotiations in lake level management planning. Using the Laja Lake in Chile as a case study, they compare the long-term benefits of three operating policies: (1) the original Laja Lake Operating Policy which favoured hydroelectric and agricultural users to the extent that during a drought Laja Falls (a national tourist attraction) dried up; (2) a stakeholder-negotiated agreement which greatly improved water availability over the longer term; and (3) a multi-objective optimisation of the system. They propose further scenarios for reservoir operation that they believe would be useful to structure future stakeholder negotiations and support transparency in demonstrating trade-offs and benefits to different water users.

This collection of inspiring work from around the world shows the huge potential for the research and practitioner community to clarify the sources of trust and distrust in water resources management, and to advance methods for confronting the associated deep and complex challenges. We call for further innovation to understand and address injustice, inequality and to ultimately build trust between stakeholders to achieve sustainable, resilient, and equitable water supply management over the long-term.