The lack of universal urban water access in the cities in the global south is a wicked problem. Using the case of Mumbai, this paper illustrates how consistently this wicked problem was chiselled and selectively problematised to turn it into a tame problem – a problem of water shortages at the city level. The chiselling included neglecting the essential aspects of urban water supply, such as supply coverage, pressure and leakages, which define the quality of urban water service received by citizens. Through chiselling and selective problematisation, the paper illustrates how the problem of providing universal urban water access in Mumbai was ignored for decades and the issues of water shortages were emphasised alone to justify and prioritise the development of dams.
AckoffRL (1974) Redesigning the Future: A Systems Approach to Societal Problems. New York: J. Wiley and Sons.
2.
Alda-VidalCKooyMRuscaM (2018) Mapping operation and maintenance: An everyday urbanism analysis of inequalities within piped water supply in Lilongwe, Malawi. Urban Geography39(1): 104–121.
3.
AnandN (2017) Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Durham: Duke University Press.
4.
BakkerK (2005) Neoliberalizing nature? Market environmentalism in water supply in England and Wales. Annals of the Association of American Geographers95(3): 542–565.
5.
BakkerK (2013) Constructing ‘public’ water: The World Bank, urban water supply, and the biopolitics of development. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space31(2): 280–300.
6.
BapatMAgarwalI (2003) Our needs, our priorities; women and men from the slums in Mumbai and Pune talk about their needs for water and sanitation. Environment and Urbanization15(2): 71–86.
7.
BawaZ (2011) Where is the state? How is the state? Accessing water and the state in Mumbai and Johannesburg. Journal of Asian and African Studies46(5): 491–503.
BiswasAKTortajadaC (2018) Assessing global water megatrends. In: BiswasATortajadaCRohnerP (eds) Assessing Global Water Megatrends. Singapore: Springer, 1–26.
11.
BjörkmanL (2014) Un/known waters: Navigating everyday risks of infrastructural breakdown in Mumbai. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East34(3): 497–517.
12.
Boakye-AnsahASFerreroGRuscaM, et al (2016) Inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water supplies in urban areas: The case of Lilongwe, Malawi. Journal of Water and Health14(5): 851–863.
13.
Bombay Metropolitan Region Planning Board (1974) Regional Plan for Bombay Metropolitan Region 1970-91. Pune: Director of Town Planning, Town Planning and Valuation Department, Government of Maharashtra.
14.
BrinkerhoffDW (2016) State fragility and failure as wicked problems: Beyond naming and taming. In: GrimmSLemay-HébertNNayO (eds) The Political Invention of Fragile States. UK: Routledge, 137–148.
15.
ChurchmanCW (1967) Free for all. Management Science14(4): 141–146.
D’SouzaR (2003) Supply-side hydrology in India: The last gasp. Economic and Political Weekly38(36): 3785–3790.
18.
DagdevirenH (2008) Waiting for miracles: The commercialization of urban water services in Zambia. Development and Change39(1): 101–121.
19.
DaviterF (2019) Policy analysis in the face of complexity: What kind of knowledge to tackle wicked problems?Public Policy and Administration34(1): 62–83.
20.
DuckettDFelicianoDMartin-OrtegaJ, et al (2016) Tackling wicked environmental problems: The discourse and its influence on praxis in Scotland. Landscape and Urban Planning154: 44–56.
21.
FallonALankfordBWestonD (2021) Navigating wicked water governance in the ‘solutionscape’ of science, policy, practice, and participation. Ecology and Society26(2): 37.
22.
FuestVHaffnerSA (2007) PPP–Policies, practices and problems in Ghana’s urban water supply. Water Policy9(2): 169–192.
23.
GandyM (2008) Landscapes of disaster: Water, modernity, and urban fragmentation in Mumbai. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space40(1): 108–130.
24.
GarrickDDe StefanoLYuW, et al (2019) Rural water for thirsty cities: A systematic review of water reallocation from rural to urban regions. Environmental Research Letters14(4): 043003.
25.
GrahamSDesaiRMcFarlaneC (2013) Water wars in Mumbai. Public Culture25(1): 115–141.
26.
GrahamSDesaiRMcFarlaneC (2015) De-networking the poor: Revanchist urbanism and hydrological apartheid in Mumbai. In: CoutardORutherfordJ (eds) Beyond the Networked City: Infrastructure Reconfigurations and Urban Change in the North and South. New York: Routledge, 114–137.
27.
GustafssonJ-EKokuJE (2007) Achieving the MDG’s in Ghana: Rhetoric’s or reality. In: TiezziEMarquesJCBrebbiaCA, et al. (eds) Ecosystems and Sustainable Development VI. UK: WIT Press, 331–349.
28.
HargroveWLHeymanJM (2020) A comprehensive process for stakeholder identification and engagement in addressing wicked water resources problems. Land9(4): 119.
29.
HeadB (2010a) How can the public sector resolve complex issues? Strategies for steering, administering and coping. Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration2(1): 8–16.
30.
HeadB (2010b) Wicked problems in water governance: Paradigm changes to promote water sustainability and address planning uncertainty. Urban Water Security Research Alliance Technical Report No. 38. Queensland: Urban Water Security Research Alliance.
31.
HeadB (2019) Forty years of wicked problems literature: Forging closer links to policy studies. Policy and Society38(2): 180–197.
32.
HeadBAlfordJ (2015) Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and management. Administration & Society47(6): 711–739.
33.
HearnshawEJTompkinsJ-MCullenR (2011) Addressing the wicked problem of water resource management: An ecosystem services approach. In: Paper presented at 55th Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) National Conference, Melbourne, Victoria. Available at: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/handle/100556 (accessed 4 October 2024).
34.
HirviMWhitfieldL (2015) Public-service provision in clientelist political settlements: Lessons from Ghana’s urban water sector. Development Policy Review33(2): 135–158.
35.
KarnSKHaradaH (2002) Field survey on water supply, sanitation and associated health impacts in urban poor communities - A case from Mumbai City, India. Water Science and Technology46(11–12): 269–275.
36.
KharelGRomsdahlRKirilenkoA (2019) Managing the wicked problem of Devils Lake flooding along the US–Canada border. International Journal of Water Resources Development35(6): 938–958.
37.
KooyMBakkerK (2008) Splintered networks: The colonial and contemporary waters of Jakarta. Geoforum39(6): 1843–1858.
38.
LachDRaynerSIngramH (2005) Taming the waters: Strategies to domesticate the wicked problems of water resource management. International Journal of Water3(1): 1–17.
39.
MahdiZMazumderTN (2023) Re-examining the informal housing problem in Delhi: A wicked problem perspective. Cities140: 104419.
40.
MariaA (2008) Urban water crisis in Delhi. Stakeholders responses and potential scenarios of evolution. Paris: IDD-RI Idee Pour le Debat N◦ 06.
41.
MarkowskaJSzalińskaWDąbrowskaJ, et al (2020) The concept of a participatory approach to water management on a reservoir in response to wicked problems. Journal of Environmental Management259: 109626.
42.
MaronMIvesCDKujalaH, et al (2016) Taming a wicked problem: Resolving controversies in biodiversity offsetting. BioScience66(6): 489–498.
43.
MaysLW (2000) Water Distribution Systems Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.
44.
McCandlessE (2013) Wicked problems in peacebuilding and statebuilding: Making progress in measuring progress through the new deal. Global Governance19(2): 227–248.
45.
McCullyP (2001) Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams. London and New York: Zed Books.
46.
McDonaldRIWeberKPadowskiJ, et al (2014) Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure. Global Environmental Change27: 96–105.
47.
MCGM (2009) White Paper on Water Supply of Mumbai. Mumbai: Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.
48.
MCGM (2018) Report of the Expert Committee: Towards Equitable and 24×7 Water Supply for Greater Mumbai. Mumbai: Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.
49.
MMRDA (2021, April) Final regional plan for Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Mumbai: Mumbai Metropolitan Planning Committee, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority.
50.
MolleF (2003) Development Trajectories of River Basins: A Conceptual Framework. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute.
51.
MukherjeeSShahZKumarMD (2010) Sustaining urban water supplies in India: Increasing role of large reservoirs. Water Resources Management24(10): 2035–2055.
52.
NayakAK (2010) Big dams and protests in India: A study of Hirakud dam. Economic and Political Weekly45(2): 69–73.
53.
NüsserM (2014) Large Dams in Asia: Contested Environments Between Technological Hydroscapes and Social Resistance. Dordrecht: Springer.
54.
Pahl-WostlC (2007) The implications of complexity for integrated resources management. Environmental Modelling & Software22(5): 561–569.
55.
Quentin GraftonR (2017) Responding to the ‘wicked problem’ of water insecurity. Water Resources Management31(10): 3023–3041.
56.
RittelHWWebberMM (1973) Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences4(2): 155–169.
57.
ShiLAhmadSShuklaP, et al (2021) Shared injustice, splintered solidarity: Water governance across urban-rural divides. Global Environmental Change70: 102354.
58.
SimbolanJMcIntyre-MillsJ (2019) Water mismanagement as a wicked problem in Nauli City, Indonesia: A mixed-method approach. In: McIntyre-Mills J and Romm NR (eds) Mixed Methods and Cross Disciplinary Research: Towards Cultivating Eco-Systemic Living. Switzerland: Springer, 401–428.
59.
SmithLEPorterKS (2010) Management of catchments for the protection of water resources: Drawing on the New York city watershed experience. Regional Environmental Change10(4): 311–326.
60.
SpickerP (2016) Poverty as a Wicked Problem. Norway: International Social Science Council.
61.
SubbaramanRMurthySL (2015) The right to water in the slums of Mumbai, India. Bulletin of the World Health Organization93(11): 815–816.
62.
SubbaramanRNolanLSawantK, et al (2015) Multidimensional measurement of household water poverty in a Mumbai slum: Looking beyond water quality. PloS One10(7): e0133241.
63.
SubbaramanRShitoleSShitoleT, et al (2013) The social ecology of water in a Mumbai slum: Failures in water quality, quantity, and reliability. BMC Public Health13(1): 1–14.
64.
SuleimanLKhakeeA (2017) Rethinking water reform policies as a ‘wicked problem’ the case of urban water supply in Ghana. International Planning Studies22(4): 320–332.
65.
ThompsonPBWhyteKP (2012) What happens to environmental philosophy in a wicked world?Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics25(4): 485–498.
66.
TiwaleS (2019) Materiality matters: Revealing how inequities are conceived and sustained in the networked water infrastructure - The case of Lilongwe, Malawi. Geoforum107: 168–178.
67.
TiwaleS (2021) Number narratives of water shortages: Delinking water resources development from water distribution in Mumbai, India. Water Alternatives14(3): 841–865.
68.
WhitfieldL (2006) The politics of urban water reform in Ghana. Review of African Political Economy33(109): 425–448.
69.
WissinkB (2013) Enclave urbanism in Mumbai: An actor-network-theory analysis of urban (dis)connection. Geoforum47: 1–11.
70.
World Bank (1972) Maharashtra Water Supply Sewerage Sector Survey (Bombay Water Supply and Sewerage Project - India - Credit 0390 - P009680 - Correspondence - Volume 1, Folder ID 1379766). Washington, DC, United States: World Bank Group Archives.
71.
World Bank (1973) Appraisal of Bombay Water Supply and Sewerage Project, India. World Bank.
72.
World Bank (1978) Staff Appraisal Report India: The Second Bombay Water Supply and Sewerage Project. World Bank.
73.
World Bank (1996) India Impact Evaluation Report: Water Supply and Wastewater Services in Bombay. World Bank.
