Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas

This research paper examines how water policies in the arid Americas interact with land and neoliberal policies to exacerbate vulnerabilities among disadvantaged groups across rural and urban settings. The authors analyze four specific case studies to demonstrate how disconnected management, water rights transfers, and competition for resources increase disparities and recommend more inclusive policymaking and systematic data collection to protect livelihoods.

• Water policies in arid regions interact with land and neoliberal policies across various scales, which disproportionately increases the vulnerability of less privileged groups and widens disparities.
• The paper identifies four specific cases of vulnerability in the arid Americas: disconnected groundwater and surface water management in Mendoza, Argentina; the transfer of local water rights to large-scale mining in central Sonora, Mexico; land use changes driven by water competition in peri-urban Hermosillo, Mexico; and the exclusion of underserved communities from rainwater harvesting in Tucson, Arizona, USA.
• To reduce climate vulnerability, the authors recommend inclusive policymaking, coordination between natural resource policies to ensure coherence, the systematic collection of public data on water use and environmental health, and a policy focus on multidimensional wellbeing linked to environmental health.

APA

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (2025). Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/analyzing-water-policy-impacts-on-vulnerability-cases-across-the-rural-urban-continuum-in-the-arid-americas/

Chicago

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas. 2025. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/analyzing-water-policy-impacts-on-vulnerability-cases-across-the-rural-urban-continuum-in-the-arid-americas/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |title=Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas |date=8 January 2025 |url=https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/analyzing-water-policy-impacts-on-vulnerability-cases-across-the-rural-urban-continuum-in-the-arid-americas/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{interamericaninstituteforglobalchangeresearch2025analyzing, author = {{Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}}, title = {{Analyzing water policy impacts on vulnerability cases across the rural-urban continuum in the arid Americas}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/analyzing-water-policy-impacts-on-vulnerability-cases-across-the-rural-urban-continuum-in-the-arid-americas/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }