New Wagner Class Explores the Future of Water Scarcity

By Robert Polner

Natasha Iskander was conducting research in the south of Morocco on labor emigration when she visited two adjacent villages, one of them a “ghost town” and the other a vibrant community. The abandoned village, she recalls, was parched, while the flourishing one was flush with water, its almond orchards dappled with puddles.
    “In the water-flush village, people had resuscitated traditional forms of water catchment and management quite successfully,” says Iskander, an assistant professor of public policy at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. “So successfully, in fact, that the national agency that deals with water borrowed some of the models that were elaborated in villages like the one I visited, and took them national for the provision of rural, potable water.”
    Iskander has become more and more interested in water scarcity and its relationship to why people migrate. She has been involved in the latter issue for 15 years as a student, community organizer, and now scholar. This year, in addition to completing a manuscript for an upcoming book, Creative State, on how the governments of Mexico and Morocco have sought to build a link between labor emigration and local economic development, Iskander launched a course at Wagner on what she has learned about water scarcity, spurred, in part, by the sense of urgency she feels about dwindling water supplies in the United States and abroad.
    Entitled “Water Sourcing in an Era of Climate Change,” the course is one of a kind, encompassing a public speaker series by water experts, a photo exhibit about “accidental” Mexican wetlands born of industrial effluent, and international field work by students.
    The class is also notable for bridging two separate streams of inquiry and action—the work on climate change effects conducted by hydrologists, engineers, and scientists, and the work on economic development, water system management, and politics by governments and institutions. Like all students at Wagner, the 25 in this class are taught to work within and across sectors, disciplines, and other traditional boundaries toward a broad and lasting social impact.
    As climate-change effects go, water scarcity is a daunting one. During the public service careers of students now coming to professional maturity, it will be central. The growing problem is entwined with economic development and health, as the world’s population is expected to double over the next half-century and the climate is anticipated to continue warming. At present, one of every six people, or 1.2 billion, lack access to safe water, while more than two in six, 2.6 billion, lack adequate sanitation, notes Iskander. “Water,” reads her syllabus, “will be the axis around which all public policy resolves.”
    Climate change in particular augurs major changes in how drinkable water will be distributed and, thus, how populations will migrate. Water-scarce regions, from the developing world to the Southwest United States, are likely to see their situations worsen as temperatures climb, while water-rich areas are likely to have even more rain and water.
    Iskander’s course is a workshop built around five case studies on the provision of potable water and/or sanitation services in Accra, Ghana, the slums of Dakar, and two cities in Ecuador; on how a growing Las Vegas will handle water shortages; and the competition between agricultural and urban uses of water in San Diego and the Imperial Valley.
    The students focus on these case studies from three angles: pressures besetting the hydrological system, public access to water in the context of the region’s political economy, and adaptive technologies that might help in the coming decades.
    To simulate real-world problem solving, students review the relevant literature and consult with a range of experts in the field. The students are organized in small groups so they can consult with each another as well, and they draft memos describing bottlenecks and possible solutions. The closing phase of the class will require the students to draft a memo aimed at a real-world or fictional policy maker, offering useful ways of thinking about his or her water system over the next 20 years, positing useful adaptive technologies, political considerations they should be thinking about, and other suggestions. Finally, a personal essay is also required, providing a moment of reflective practice.
    Wedded to the class is the Wagner-wide “Capstone” consultancy requirement. Many of the students worked over the summer and this fall in Ghana, Ecuador, or Senegal for three weeks on projects related to water for clients including the World Bank, the International Water Management Institute, or the Inter-American Development Bank. They will produce work products for the clients in December.
    “People are realizing that water is likely to be a central area of contest in the 21st century, with such issues as privatization and access currently cropping up,” Iskander explains. “What we’ve tried to do in the class is break apart these debates and see if we can think of solutions that are practical and thoughtful. The point is to work toward a composite model that creates the greatest access to water, with the greatest environmental sustainability.”