Emerging Water Futures: Resilience of Private Water Supplies

Understanding of rural communities’ vulnerability and risk perceptions to water scarcity and variable water quality.

About the project

Rural drinking water is one area of supply that is significantly impacted by the emerging threats to Scotland’s water resources and services that are posed by pollution and contamination, low levels of user awareness, and climate change impacts. Users and managers of these supplies must contend with the increased regularity of low flow conditions and drought, health and social impacts of poor drinking water quality, as well as the need to respond to changing policy and regulatory environments. Although these impacts play out across multiple scales, rural households and businesses dependent on private water supplies (PWS), experience these challenges in very material ways, and often find themselves tasked with developing coping strategies and innovating in the face of growing uncertainty. As such, rural PWSs are an appropriate case study for examining: the socio-economic factors that amplify/mitigate vulnerability to water shortages and water quality issues, attitudes and perceptions of risk associated with water supplies, and the feasibility of self-monitoring to support a wider self-supply management model.

Building on existing understandings of biophysical risk to rural PWS, our approach adopts an intersectional social justice framing that will explore relational vulnerability across deprivation, housing insecurity, disconnection, and minority groups in rural and island areas. Specific focus will be placed on well-being, resilience of rural communities, economic activity and wealth creation in rural places.

Our research will also identify key determinants that impact risk perception (experiences of scarcity and quality issues, agency contact, informal knowledge sharing and networks, affective assessments). Household and community scale barriers (primarily risk perception, socio-economic factors, and attitudes and values associated with water), as well as institutional barriers (access to information and advice, existing knowledge sharing networks, impacts of short-term relief support packages, and financial barriers) will be examined.

Using qualitative social sciences methods, we will contribute to build an interdisciplinary understanding of the risks, impacts, and responses that arise from growing uncertainty and variabili ty in drinking water supplies/quality. We will identify key determinants that impact risk perception (experiences of scarcity and quality issues, agency contact, informal knowledge sharing and networks, affective assessments). Household and community scale barriers (primarily risk perception, socio-economic factors, and attitudes and values associated with water), as well as institutional barriers (access to information and advice, existing knowledge sharing networks, impacts of short-term relief support packages, and financial barriers) will be examined. In the final phase, we will utilise a participatory approach to explore how households can play their part in becoming resilient to water-related climate impacts. 

This research started in April 2022 and runs until March 2027. We intend to:

• Review existing evidence about private water supplies (PWS) in Scotland.
• Develop a qualitative understanding of rural communities’ vulnerability to and experiences of water insecurity.
• Explore how risk awareness and perceptions of water scarcity function as barriers to and drivers of individual and community behaviour change and innovation.
• Hold a series of rural Water Security workshops to bring together PWS users, share preliminary findings, and explore opportunities for the creation of a PWS network.
• Provide recommendations to social learning and networks to enhance resilience of rural PWS.

Members of our team are also involved in related research as part of the MDT Fellowship on Rural Water Security.

Principle investigator