Thinking Outside the Pipe: The Role of Participatory Water Ethics and Watershed Education Community Action Networks (WE CANs) in the Creation of a New Urban Water Narrative (open access)

Thinking Outside the Pipe: The Role of Participatory Water Ethics and Watershed Education Community Action Networks (WE CANs) in the Creation of a New Urban Water Narrative

According to the United Nations, two-thirds of the world's population, approximately 4 billion people, experiences water scarcity at least one month per year. To avoid the water quantity crisis experienced in many regions of the world and the United States, a path to sustainability must be forged. My research aims to identify and critique the salient features of the narrative that drives contemporary urban water decisions and practices and to provide a meta-narrative about the role of narratives as invisible lenses through which individuals see, interpret, and interact with the world often without realizing the existence of those frames. The purpose of this problem-oriented dissertation is twofold: to provide a philosophical policy analysis of contemporary water issues in the United States generally and North Central Texas in particular, and to offer a pragmatic and interdisciplinary approach to discovering a sustainable relationship to water. The intent of my research is not to produce a new metaphysical understanding of water, but to provide a pragmatic application of ideas that can be utilized in the field; ideas that can invoke a new narrative, vision, and direction for urban water issues in North Central Texas and in areas far beyond the Lone Star State. …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Moss, Teresa Jo
System: The UNT Digital Library