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Assumptions of trust in water systems are widespread in higher-income countries, often linked to expectations of "modern water." The current literature on water and trust also tends to reinforce a technoscientific approach, emphasizing the importance of aligning water user perceptions with expert assessments. Although such approaches can be useful to document instances of distrust, they often fail to explain why patterns differ over time, and across contexts and populations. Addressing these shortcomings, we offer a relational approach focused on the trustworthiness of hydro-social systems to contextualize water-trust dynamics in relation to broader practices and contexts. In doing so, we investigate three high-profile water crises in North America where examples of distrust are prevalent: Flint, Michigan; Kashechewan First Nation; and the Navajo Nation. Through our theoretical and empirical examination, we offer insights on these dynamics and find that distrust may at times be a warranted and understandable response to experiences of water insecurity and injustice. We examine the interconnected experiences of marginality and inequity, ontological and epistemological injustice, unequal governance and politics, and histories of water insecurity and harm as potential contributors to untrustworthiness in hydro-social systems. We close with recommendations for future directions to better understand water-trust dynamics and address water insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exist few examples of functioning water co-governance systems where Indigenous and settler colonial governments work together to share authority for water on a nation-to-nation basis. In this paper I examine the multiple barriers to achieving water co-governance, highlighted by a multidimensional framework including distributional, procedural and recognitional (in)justices. I apply this framework to a case study in the Yukon, Canada, which is based on research conducted in partnership with four out of fourteen Yukon First Nations (Carcross/Tagish, Kluane, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and White River First Nations); all are in areas where the water governance system is shaped by Indigenous water rights and authorities that are acknowledged in modern land claim and selfgovernment agreements. Despite the many substantive and positive changes resulting from the explicit acknowledgement of Yukon First Nation water rights, I find that this system falls short of achieving co-governance. In particular, Yukon First Nations critiques highlight the limitations imposed by the continued assertion of 'Crown' jurisdiction over water and by the marginalisation of Indigenous legal orders that follows from the privileging of settler worldviews and forms of governance. Thus, co-governance arrangements depend not only on the distributional justice of shared jurisdiction; Indigenous legal orders and relationships to water must also be reflected in the procedural and recognitional justices of the decision-making processes and institutions that are developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing acknowledgement that the material dimensions of water security alone are inadequate; we also need to engage with a broader set of hydrosocial relationships. Indeed, more holistic approaches are needed to explain Indigenous peoples' relationships to water including the use of traditional water sources such as mountain creeks and springs. In this paper, we seek to reimagine water security through a case study of Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in's relationships to both treated and traditional water sources throughout the First Nation's traditional territory in Yukon, Canada. Through community-based research including interviews with Elders and other community members, we examine the importance of traditional water sources for meeting important health requirements including physical, spiritual and cultural wellbeing. This intervention contributes to ongoing debates about what it means to secure safe and affordable water in three key ways: First, we argue that Indigenous water relations invite a shift towards more a holistic understanding of water security; second, we contend that settler colonial politics should be understood as a root cause of water insecurity; finally, we explore how Two-Eyed Seeing can be applied as an alternative to the 'integration' of Western scientific and Indigenous approaches to drinking water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]