Governance and Social Sustainability of Water and Wastewater

Dear Colleagues,

The water challenges we face are unprecedented and growing. Water depletion and pollution are at once at the margin and the centre of the socioecological crisis of our generation and indeed could be the beginning of an accelerated end of life on planet Earth as we know it. The Anthropocene crisis, and the social injustice marring it, is nowhere more physically evident than in what are emerging as the graveyards of its waterscapes. Fair access to, and establishing responsibility for, the sustainability of our water lifelines will quickly emerge as the marker of whether different populations have a future or not. By 2020, UN-Water is clear that ‘The water and sanitation crisis is getting worse’ and that Sustainable Development Goal 6 is ‘alarmingly off track’ (UN-Water, 2020). Nonetheless, looking forward, their Global Acceleration Framework (UN- Water 2020) names governance as the fifth of five accelerants to be put into play to redress the situation: ‘Cross-sector and transboundary collaboration, clear roles, stakeholder involvement and effective and inclusive institutions will make SDG 6 everyone’s business’ (UN-Water 2020: 4).

Transformation of water resourcing underpins and is fundamental to the achievement of that overall objective of sustainable development, but the emphasis of this Special Issue is on the social sustainability dimension of sustainable development more than on its economic or ecological dimension. While society has no option but to manage the socioecological water related crisis trickling into every sphere of economic, social and cultural activity, the radically transformative requirements that are necessary appear to remain out of the grasp, and perhaps out of the mind frame, of current global policy makers.

This Special Issue seeks to publish articles exploring the capacity of governance to act as an accelerant of the social sustainability of water resourcing. We invite conceptual and empirical contributions that critically explore the governance elements, processes or mechanisms of informed decision making on water resourcing that could measure up to the complex responsibility of balancing uses and ensuring sustainability of water while at the same time enhancing equity, inclusion, parity of participation and the wellbeing of those diverse communities reliant on that source.

Prof. Dr. G. Honor Fagan
Dr. Chandana Mathur
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• governance
• social sustainability
• equity
• wellbeing
• wastewater
• SDGs
• global acceleration framework
• protecting communities