Climate change vulnerability and resilience of water, sanitation, and hygiene services: a theoretical perspective

What is it about?

This paper presents different perspectives on how the impacts of climate change may be approached in the WASH sector. It is demonstrated that scholarly WASH literature shows little awareness that there are fundamentally different ways of addressing climate change with significant implications for what kind of adaptations are recommended. The paper argues the WASH sector must be more aware of the assumptions it is making and be more thoughtful about other perspectives aside from a risk/hazard engineering focus.

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Why is it important?

The general climate change adaptation sector experienced substantial growing pains in the 90s and 00s as researchers and practitioners grappled with conflicting terminology, epistemologies, and worldviews. Much progress has been made to rectify these challenges. Meanwhile, the WASH sector has not adequately engaged with these discourses, and runs the risk of repeating many of their same mistakes. This paper contributes to orienting the WASH sector toward the latest thinking in climate change discourses and provides a foundation for WASH thinkers to consider what it all means for safe, sustainable access to WASH.