Intra-household dynamics and their effects on water insecurity

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

The cost of the water supply is rising rapidly to confront ongoing challenges related to environmental change. Water shortages affect not only drinking water, but many other uses and potentially its quality as well. How households manage the rising costs of water to mitigate risks of water shortages across domains is not well understood.

This is despite the well documented importance of multi-person households working together to pool resources and minimize risks. This research leverages theory from economic and ecological anthropology to understand how household structure and function affect social and economic stressors associated with water insecurity, as well as the intra-household tensions created by such stressors.

This project trains students and coordinates outreach and dissemination of findings to academic and non-academic communities, and contributes much-needed insights to design effective ways to manage these policy challenges.

The project uses a socio-hydrology approach to examine the impact of rapidly rising water prices on diverse households residing in water-insecure neighborhoods. The focus is on intra-household dynamics, including household demographic structure and its effects on perceived socio-economic tradeoffs, and impacts on household members’ well-being. The investigators use a novel combination of ethnographic (interviews, focus groups), demographic (surveys), and GIS mapping methods to investigate home heat vulnerability, water use, economic stressors, and aspects of household composition and function.

In doing so, the research provides a holistic, multi-level perspective on the dynamic feedbacks between households, individuals, and water insecurity

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.