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Coevolution in water resource development: The vicious cycle of water supply and demand in Athens, Greece

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  • Kallis, Giorgos

Abstract

This paper adopts a coevolutionary perspective to criticize the dominant narratives of water resource development. Such narratives of progress portray a sequence of improving water technologies that overcame environmental constraints, supplying more water to satisfy the demands of growing populations for better living. Water supply appears as the response to an insatiable demand, exogenous to the water system. Instead, as the history of water in Athens, Greece illustrates water supply and demand in fact coevolve, new supply generating higher demands, and in turn, higher demands favouring supply expansion over other alternatives. This vicious cycle expands the water footprint of cities degrading environments and communities in the countryside. Far from being predetermined and inevitable, as progressive narratives wants it, water resource development has been contingent on geographical and environmental conditions, institutional struggles, accidents, experiments and external geo-political and technological forces. In the last part of this paper, I discuss the policy implications of this coevolutionary reframing with respect to a the transition to a "soft water path".

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  • Kallis, Giorgos, 2010. "Coevolution in water resource development: The vicious cycle of water supply and demand in Athens, Greece," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 796-809, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:4:p:796-809
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    2. Ríos-Núñez, Sandra M. & Coq-Huelva, Daniel & García-Trujillo, Roberto, 2013. "The Spanish livestock model: A coevolutionary analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 342-350.
    3. Rosanna Salvia & Pere Serra & Ilaria Zambon & Massimo Cecchini & Luca Salvati, 2018. "In-Between Sprawl and Neo-Rurality: Sparse Settlements and the Evolution of Socio-Demographic Local Context in a Mediterranean Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Marletto, Gerardo, 2012. "Which conceptual foundations for environmental policies? An institutional and evolutionary framework of economic change," MPRA Paper 36441, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Kebai Li & Tianyi Ma & Guo Wei, 2018. "Robust Economic Control Decision Method of Uncertain System on Urban Domestic Water Supply," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Gerardo Marletto, 2012. "Which Conceptual Foundations For Environmental Policies? An Institutional And Evolutionary Framework Of Economic Change," Working Papers 0112, CREI Università degli Studi Roma Tre, revised 2012.
    7. Margherita Carlucci & Sabato Vinci & Giuseppe Ricciardo Lamonica & Luca Salvati, 2022. "Socio-spatial Disparities and the Crisis: Swimming Pools as a Proxy of Class Segregation in Athens," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 937-961, June.
    8. Thiel, Andreas, 2012. "The politics of problem solving: A co-evolutionary perspective on the recent scalar reorganisation of water governance in Germany," UFZ Discussion Papers 09/2012, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    9. Andreas Nicolaidis Lindqvist & Rickard Fornell & Thomas Prade & Linda Tufvesson & Sammar Khalil & Birgit Kopainsky, 2021. "Human-Water Dynamics and their Role for Seasonal Water Scarcity – a Case Study," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(10), pages 3043-3061, August.
    10. Kallis, Giorgos & Norgaard, Richard B., 2010. "Coevolutionary ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 690-699, February.
    11. Brandli Stitzel & Cynthia L. Rogers, 2022. "Residential Water Demand Under Increasing Block Rate Structure: Conservation Conundrum?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(1), pages 203-218, January.
    12. Daniel Coq-Huelva & Angie Higuchi & Rafaela Alfalla-Luque & Ricardo Burgos-Morán & Ruth Arias-Gutiérrez, 2017. "Co-Evolution and Bio-Social Construction: The Kichwa Agroforestry Systems ( Chakras ) in the Ecuadorian Amazonia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-19, October.
    13. Ilaria Zambon & Pere Serra & Rosanna Salvia & Luca Salvati, 2018. "Fallow Land, Recession and Socio-Demographic Local Contexts: Recent Dynamics in a Mediterranean Urban Fringe," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-17, October.
    14. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh & Giorgos Kallis, 2009. "Evolutionary Policy," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-02, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    15. Buchs, Arnaud & Petit, Olivier & Roman, Philippe, 2020. "Can social ecological economics of water reinforce the “big tent”?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    16. Paavola, Jouni, 2011. "Reprint of: Sewage Pollution and Institutional and Technological Change in the United States, 1830-1915," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1289-1296, May.

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