is the title of the study by Elisa Savelli, Maurizio Mazzoleni, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Hannah Cloke, and Maria Rusca, published in Nature Sustainability online on 10 April. The authors are from Uppsala University in Sweden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and University of Reading and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
“Conditions of water scarcity and limited access to water result from the prevailing politics and power dynamics that govern the city,” state the authors.
The drought restrictions included increased water tariffs, fines for overconsumption or illicit water use, theto restrict household flow, and withdrawal of the free water allocation to households not classified as indigent. Lower income households reduced water usage from an already low 197 litres per day, to 101 litres per day.
The authors note that private borehole use by the wealthy reduces the groundwater reserves which belong to all.