Scalar mismatches in metropolitan water governance A comparative study of São Paulo and Mexico City

The world is rapidly urbanizing. Smaller cities will absorb more urban dwellers, but heavily urbanized basins such as Mexico City and São Paulo are also multiplying, with severe impacts within the city and on their rural hinterlands in terms of water use, water contamination and risks related to extreme weather events. This leads to increasing competition, tensions and conflicts between cities and their river basins. Hence, this research examines the interactions between drivers and institutions at different spatial and institutional scale levels, how these shape metropolitan water challenges and how policy instruments from river basin and urban water governance frameworks can be (re)designed to foster more sustainable and inclusive metropolitan water governance.
This research makes use of an institutional analysis framework and a comparative case study methodology, with semi-structured interviews, direct observation and document analysis. It concludes that both Mexico City and São Paulo follow a linear approach to water management that does not integrate the metropolis with their river basins. This disproportionally affects the urban poor, rural communities, and ecosystems upstream and downstream. The failure to reconcile metropolitan water governance across urban and basin scales can translate into water policies that lead to “scalar mismatches”. Understanding linkages within and across basin and metropolitan scales is necessary for attaining sustainable and inclusive metropolitan water governance. To overcome these scalar mismatches, this thesis proposes developing a metropolitan water framework that accounts for different types of water, small and large-scale infrastructure, sharing and compensating for ecosystem services and containing urban sprawl.