Towards more sustainable water management? The challenges of water and land use in the Los Angeles metropolis

Towards more sustainable water management? The challenges of water and land use in the Los Angeles metropolis

This book is based on the author's PhD dissertation (2004-2007) at LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires, Societes), Paris, and the UCLA Institute of the Environment. Drawing on previous work for the author’s Master’s degree on the links between urban fragmentation and the development of water and power networks in Los Angeles (MacKillop, F., Boudreau, JA, 2008 Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms, Geoforum, Volume 39, Issue 6, November 2008, Pages 1833-1842), the dissertation analyses claims and controversies around water supply 'sustainability' in major master-planned communities in the periphery of Los Angeles. Developers, water agencies and politicians claimed that these developments would herald a new age of water and land use stewardship in the region, through innovative practices and technologies ranging from novel landscaping to water demand management measures and water recycling. Despite this, local community groups, sometimes supported by national environmental organisations, were voicing their opposition on the grounds that these developments would make an already difficult situation even worse. The region would be exposed to more water shortages, especially in the context of climate change. To go beyond these sometimes passionate arguments, the author mobilised urban regime theory, urban political ecology and other approaches, to question the notion of 'sustainability' in this context by analysing what the word meant, for which group, and why, with the aim of producing an accurate picture of where this region is going in terms of managing its water and land use.

Published thesis. Text in French. Thesis was presented in 2007.