Unrepresentative decision-making by utilities, water managers, and others can have real societal consequences.
2018) and make socio-hydrology research socially accountable (Lane 2014). 2010), and recent efforts strive to incorporate gender into socio-hydrological and water management models (Baker et al. Calls to understand changes in water governance regimes have been made (Pahl-Wostl et al. Gendered (and intersectional) identities continue to inform how water management issues are perceived and how they are acted upon (Katko 1992). Gendered relationships to water have changed over time, specifically in urban and higher income areas where water infrastructure has been modernized (Katko et al. 1440) found that leaders invested more in infrastructures that were directly relevant to the concerns of their respective genders – for example, in West Bengal and Rajasthan, women leaders tended to make more significant investments in drinking water resources. Notably, Chattopadhyay and Duflo ( 2004, p. Empirical evidence in other sectors indicates that gender and racial leadership composition matters (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004, Devlin and Elgie 2008, Franceschet and Piscopo 2008, Leisher et al. One study of water utility chief executive officers (CEOs) in the United States (US), for example, found that 93.9% were male and 93.4% were white, in contrast to the populations they serve (Teodoro 2013). However, in practice, women and minoritized 1 populations continue to be underrepresented in the global water sector, in particular among the top managerial positions (Cleaver and Nyatsambo 2011, World Bank 2019). Understanding who makes coupled human-water system decisions and how they are made is critical for sustainable water resource governance (Pahl-Wostl et al. We offer a representation justice research and water management agenda that goes beyond quota filling to include meaningful engagement with diverse groups, lenses, and knowledge. We identify ways in which socio-hydrology can benefit from a representation justice lens by considering the following: (1) how power and politics shape the composition of the water sector and decision-making processes (2) how available quantitative data do not account for lived experiences of individuals in the water sector and (3) how intersectionality cannot easily be accounted for in current socio-hydrological models. Responses unveiled how macro- and microaggressions impede career pathways to leadership positions and, therefore, representation. An exploratory survey of 496 water sector employees in the United States revealed that self-identifying females felt more strongly discriminated against due to their gender and other social factors, compared to self-identifying males. We propose representation justice as a theoretical lens for socio-hydrology and water governance studies.
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