Water policy and politics have global ramifications, and a new class at the University of Oregon explores these issues in depth.
Katie Meehan, an assistant professor in geography, is the resident expert on water policy and urban development, from a water politics point of view. Her geography class, "International Water Policy," which debuted in fall 2012, is the only UO class at that deals solely with issues about water policy and politics from an international perspective.
Meehan uses a multidisciplinary approach to water policy, from economic to anthropological points of view. Students are required to think critically and offer insight to water issues such as informal and formal regulation, water markets and privatization, big dam development, small dam removal, and access to water in cities.
"When students want to study water issues, they tend to go to Oregon State, so I think people here are really interested in it," said Meehan, who earned a bachelor’s degree in 1999 from the UO, a master’s degree in 2005 from Oxford University in the United Kingdom and a doctorate in 2010 from the University of Arizona.
Meehan's research in the past has investigated how populations in semi-arid desert environments get water from nontraditional sources, such as paying for trucked-in water, stealing water or rainwater harvesting. For an upcoming research project, based in Mexico City, Meehan will focus solely on rainwater harvesting – how households do it and why.
"The research will be looking at ways these decentralized technologies produce new forms of knowledge, and to what extent is that sustainable," Meehan said.
Her research is designed to help reveal alternative forms of water supply and urban development, to hopefully lead to better policies that will allow people, especially in the southwestern parts of the United States, to rely on different sources of water.
Meehan became interested in water policy issues when, after she graduated from UO in 1999, she served in the Peace Corps in central Belize. She volunteered with a watershed organization along the Sibun River, where local villagers had formed a watershed basin council and wanted to increase environmental education.
"It got me interested in using water as a lens for looking at governance," Meehan said.
While at Oxford, Meehan studied environmental change and management in the School of Geography. Her doctoral dissertation at Arizona focused on the Mexican city of Tijuana, where she looked at different types of informal use among a population that wasn't connected to the municipal water supply.
Meehan also is working on a book titled "When the Rain Fall: Water Supply Alternatives in the Neoliberal Era.” It will cover her research in Tijuana and Mexico City, looking at different ways that populations use informal water supplies and specifically rainwater harvesting.
Meehan’s course on International Water Policy is gaining traction in the geography department. She hopes to expand the class next year and include field trips to Portland and various dams around Oregon, where students can get a hands-on experience with water development and policy.
"We're in Oregon. We have rivers full of water, so why shouldn't Oregon be a top place to study water?” Meehan asked. “It's a perfect laboratory."
- by JoAnna Wendel, for the UO Office of Research, Innovation and Graduate Education