Luisa Moretto

A socio-natural standpoint to understand coproduction of water, energy and waste services

This introductory article of the special issue on ‘Geographies of water, energy and waste service coproduction’ explores the implications of coproducing these services in terms of both accessibility and environmental sustainability. According to a socio-natural standpoint, provision extent and resources metabolized by the services are equally regarded employing a threefold conceptual framework integrating actor/flow and area fields. A rich variety of service coproduction geographies in terms of actors involved, resources mobilized and urban spaces covered emerges. More importantly, coproduction of water, energy and waste services proves to leverage on both service accessibility and environmental sustainability of the related resources.

Challenges of water and sanitation service co-production in the global South

Co-production of water and sanitation services, especially in the global South, implies that recipients of a service play a fundamental role in managing water resources. In the context of citizen–government synergies, service recipients are more than consumers, and (co)-production alters their involvement in the service production process, with respect to their relationships with both the natural resources and the delivery process. Our hypothesis is that a meaningful understanding of co-production for water and sanitation services is only possible through an interdisciplinary approach that takes into account natural and social dimensions. The objective is to develop a possible new conceptualization of service co-production that can foster a renewed citizenship while taking into account the risks of urban fragmentation.