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The human right to water (HRTW) and sustainable development goals (SDG) emphasize that human well‐being depends not just on the quality and physical accessibility of drinking water, but also on its economic accessibility. Despite this recognition, governments and academics alike have been hard‐pressed to define and measure water affordability. In the US, affordability is no longer solely focused on utility cost‐recovery models but equitable water access for individuals and households. How should water affordability be measured to represent this new focus? This question motivates the critical review presented here. We propose that household‐centered affordability measures reflect the normative aims of internationally established frameworks such as the HRTW and the SDGs. Linking measurement to aims is essential to improve transparency and comparability across studies, and ultimately, to align measures with water access objectives. First, we characterize normative positions outlined in the HRTW and SDGs and identify defining features of water affordability. Second, we identify dominant definitions and measures of affordability, including novel approaches. Bringing the defining features of affordability to bear on existing measures enables us to identify several emergent debates in the literature where affordability measures could better incorporate the aspirations of the HRTW and SDGs. We conclude with recommendations on how to improve water affordability measurements, while recognizing the trade‐offs between ideal measures and practical implementation. This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Stresses and Pressures on EcosystemsHuman Water > Value of WaterHuman Water > Rights of Water [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a potential solution to water scarcity, the United Nations advocates for a human rights‐based (HRB) approach to water management, characterized by a focus on the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation, stakeholder participation, and the realization of water equity for traditionally marginalized communities. Although most states around the world suffer from some form of water scarcity or stress, not all governments have officially recognized the validity of an HRB approach to water management. India stands as an instructive case study in this regard. The Indian state suffers from physical and economic water scarcity across its urban and rural communities, but the Indian federal government has not yet explicitly recognized the human right to water as a legitimate policy approach. Interestingly, though, the right to water has been tacitly recognized within India's legal system; thus, it is worth examining whether a tacit recognition of an HRB approach to water management exists in other aspects of India's national policy. This article utilizes content analysis to explore that question by, first, identifying seven key concepts within an HRB water management approach and, second, tracing those concepts through the 1987, 2002, and 2012 iterations of India's National Water Policy. The results help to illustrate that India's National Water Policy is congruent with an HRB approach to water management, although challenges remain due to a lack of both accountability and clarification of responsibilities between the national and subsidiary governments within India. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Rights to WaterHuman Water > Water Governance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of its official recognition by the United Nations in 2010, the human right to water remains a contested notion as illustrated by three main debates: (a) the definition of its scope, content, and indicators to monitor its implementation; (b) the conceptual appropriateness and effectiveness of the human rights approach in countering water services privatization; (c) the call for decolonizing or decentering the western, liberal, individualistic, and anthropocentric approach of the human right to water. The article introduces the main themes and insights within these debates and concludes by pointing at potential future research at their intersection, in relation to (a) other species' rights, (b) culture and religion, and (c) technology and infrastructure. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Rights to WaterWater and Life > Conservation, Management, and AwarenessHuman Water > Water Governance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era increasingly focused on the question of how to value fresh water, this essay argues that questions of value cannot be parsed apart from the multiple ontologies that undergird those value judgments. Returning to Nelson's observation that water exists "in a metaphysical blindspot," this essay describes what chastened metaphysics have to do with fresh waters' pluralities and depicts three apertures by which contemporary water discourses delineate fresh waters' values: economic theory and neoliberal market practice, paradigms of liberal governance, and cultural‐religious multiplicities. In the latter, fresh waters' life‐giving properties tend to be accorded central respect in ways that often exceed the ontological understandings and moral possibilities preferred by western liberal discourses in an era that has been decisively shaped by scientific, hydraulic/extractive modernity and rational planning. Parsing the ways that selected cultural‐religious formulations align with or challenge dominant governance paradigms, this essay argues that decolonial ways of proceeding are necessary if value discourse and ethical action are to be substantially oriented toward the inclusive, long‐term flourishing of human and other bodies of waters. The final section summarizes these claims and underscores necessary warnings. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Value of WaterHuman Water > Water as Imagined and RepresentedHuman Water > Methods Fresh waters are plural and valued variously, in ways that bear critical‐constructive decolonial scrutiny in the twenty‐first century. (Aerial view of Atchafalaya basin, southern Louisiana, 1982. Photo copyright Robert Perron.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the United Nations, over a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. As a call to action regarding deficient water availability, the UN has recognized formally the prescriptive norm of a "human right to water" within treaty legislation for over a decade. The right to water requires states to ensure that water is available, accessible, safe, affordable, and acceptable, but little consensus exists regarding the conditions that constitute adequate compliance with this norm. In general, structural, process, and outcome indicators are considered to be the benchmark of right to water compliance, but these terms remain ambiguously defined on the international level, which leaves states without a specific national roadmap for compliance. This analysis attempts to clarify the confusion surrounding right to water indicators by (a) explaining the historical context behind the creation of each distinct type of indicator for water access, (b) reviewing the salient literature on human rights compliance, and (c) reflecting critically on the utility of the existing indicator matrix. Ultimately, the evidence suggests that structural, process, and outcome indicators are necessary, but insufficient on their own to determine whether a state has complied with its human right to water obligations. As an alternative, a move to integrate the existing indicator categories in order to evaluate a state's capacity to provide the human right to water may serve as a more effective tool assessing how able states are to provide a right domestically to which they may have agreed internationally. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Rights to WaterHuman Water > MethodsEngineering Water > Planning Water Modeling Implementation Capacity as a Critical Component in Human Right to Water Measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]