Social Science Research Council

“Greywater and the Grid: Analyzing Wastewater Reuse in Tijuana, Mexico”

Provision of municipal water supply is one the great challenges facing rapidly-urbanizing cities in the developing world.  New efforts to reuse and market wastewater, however, raise key questions in institutional change, political economy, and the role of informal water use in communities located off the infrastructure grid.  This dissertation project will examine how informal water harvesting (such as rainwater capture and greywater reuse) transforms public-private efforts to reclaim wastewater in Tijuana, Mexico.  Using ethnographic and geospatial modeling techniques, I will: 1) analyze the adaptive strategies, infrastructure systems, and institutions formed in water harvesting; 2) model the hydrologic effects of informal water harvesting on stormwater flows (the source for formal reclamation); and 3) examine the political effects that water harvesting has on community autonomy and urban development. 

My research will show that wastewater reuse constitutes an alternative economy, redefines the political conditions of urban development, and improves local stormwater runoff and quality.  This study will provide primary data on informal water use strategies, institutions, and flow quantities in Tijuana, elucidating the geographic and governance challenges for water provision and wastewater reclamation in a desert city.  As Tijuana’s wastewater transitions from an environmental “bad” into an economic “good,” this research will elucidate institutional and equity challenges for urban water management along the U.S.-Mexico border.