Can science be a neutral? Lessons and reflections from water resources planning in Mexico City

Abstract:

Science can be a powerful tool for a multitude of issues facing our society and earth systems. The manner in which it is applied has the ability to reinforce inequity and biases. It also, however, holds the potential to overcome these issues. This presentation will draw on lessons from an ongoing project which aims to identify portfolios of actions and investments that improve the sustainability and equity of water provision in the greater metropolitan water supply system of Mexico City under uncertainty and within a highly political context. The process to date has included 11 workshops, engaging over 70 individuals and 34 institutions in Mexico City and its two external water supply systems (the Cutzamala and Alto Lerma systems).This presentation will outline both the quantitative and process based strategies used for addressing the equity for how benefits of future investment decisions are distributed across the system. Finally, we reflect on known heuristics and their resulting biases within the problem and solution framing, how they have evolved throughout the five years of the project, and potential avenues for addressing these issues.