Water Security, Climate Change, and the São Paulo Macrometropolis: Challenges from a Critical Perspective

In the last 10 years, the water security concept redefined how we discuss and practice water governance under climate change conditions. Practitioners and academics define water security as a goal as well as a process that mobilizes different scales, dimensions, knowledge, and flows of power to guarantee water access. In this chapter, our goal is to present and to discuss the different definitions of water security such as instrumental water security and critical water security and their impact over water governance theory and practice, having the São Paulo Macrometropilis as our empirical case. From the understanding that water security is the result of hydrosocial relations, we observe a change in the scales activated and constructed in this process, as well as the multiplicity of actors involved and the importance of the contextual specificities of each location. Such a perspective unveils the limitations of available secondary data to identify water security conditions and its impacts on governance practices and policies. Therefore, the question we must ask is how we can produce water security based on the principle of the right to water that responds to the needs of the multiple actors involved, human and non-human, taking as its starting point the individual and the household, and unfolding in the hydrosocial territories that are constituted from such dynamics.