Since the late 1970s, the term “colonias” (in English) has described low-income, peri-urban, and rural subdivisions north of the U.S.-Mexico border. These communities are in arid and semi-arid regions—now in a megadrought—and tend to have limited basic infrastructure, including community water service and sanitation. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how colonias residents experience unjust and inequitable dynamics that produce water insecurity in the Global North. In this review, we explain why U.S. colonias are an important example for theorizing water insecurity in the United States and beyond in the Global North. Tracing the history of water infrastructure development in U.S. colonias, we show how colonias are legally and socially defined by water insecurity. We draw on the published literature to discuss key factors that produce water insecurity in U.S. colonias: political exclusion, municipal underbounding, and failures in water quality monitoring. We show that water insecurity had led to negative outcomes—including poor water access, risks to physical health, and mental ill-health—in U.S. colonias. We present four possible approaches to improving water security in U.S. colonias: (1) soft paths & social infrastructure for water delivery, (2) decentralized water treatment approaches, such as point-of-use, point-of-entry, and fit-for-purpose systems; (3) informality, including infrastructural, economic, and socio-cultural innovations; and (4) political, policy, and law innovations and reforms. At the same time, we reflect seriously on how water security can be ethically achieved in partnership and aligning with the visions of U.S. colonias residents themselves.
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Health impacts of water and sanitation insecurity in the Global North: a scoping literature review for U.S. colonias on the Mexico border
U.S. border colonias are peri-urban settlements along the U.S.–Mexico border. Residents often face substandard housing, inadequate septic and sewer systems, and unsafe or inadequate household water. As of 2015, an estimated 30% of over 5 million U.S. colonia residents lacked access to clean drinking water, suggesting health complications. This scoping review identifies a very limited existing set of research on water and sanitation insecurity in U.S.–Mexico border colonias, and suggests value in additional focused research in this specific context to address health challenges. Preliminary health data indicates that due to water insecurity, colonia residents are more likely to contract gastrointestinal diseases, be exposed to carcinogenic compounds from contaminated water, and experience psychosocial distress. These widespread health issues in colonias are exacerbated by historical and ongoing socioenvironmental injustices in the U.S.–Mexico border region and their relation to the poor health outcomes.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2021147
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10372411
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.2166
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Water and Health
- Volume:
- 20
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 1477-8920
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1329-1342
- Size(s):
- ["p. 1329-1342"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Community-based participant-observation purposefully combines participant-observation and community-based participatory research. While participant-observation is the core method of ethnography and foundational to cultural anthropology, community-based participatory research initially emerged from health and related applied sciences to align researchers’ and communities’ agendas through focused collaboration. Participant-observation and community-based participatory research have different scholarly origins and norms but are united in centering communities’ understandings on their terms. Combining the strengths of both, we provide a step-by-step explanation of community-based participant-observation, with examples from a study of water insecurity in colonias north of the U.S.–Mexico border. Using community-based participant-observation, researchers can facilitate the co-production of knowledge and community benefit by analyzing high-quality data that inform theory building and basic research.
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The colonias in Texas along the Mexican border are self-built neighborhoods of low-income families that lack basic infrastructure. While some funding from the State of Texas has built roads and provided electricity, water and sewage systems are still lacking for many of the estimated 400,000 colonias’ residents. Of those that do have tap water, the supply is either inadequate or of questionable quality. These communities have suffered from waterborne disease, such as cholera epidemics, over the past few decades. This research is the first to collect a comprehensive dataset on water use, socio-economic parameters, and actual water quality in selected colonias in several counties in Texas. A quantitative statistical model has been developed using structural equation modeling, that relates social drivers for water use and management with actual water quality. Water quality parameters measured in these communities include traditional microbial indicators (total coliforms, E. coli, and heterotrophs), pH, hardness, free and total chlorine, and metals (arsenic and lead). The model explores relationships among latent variables relating water, health, and living situation to assess potential impacts of a water treatment technology in these low-income households. The study provides quantitatively reports for the need and desire of adopting a point-of-use treatment system, evaluates the relationship between perceived versus actual water quality, and determines the factors that influence the choice of drinking water. This model can be adopted for identifying social drivers for water use and management in other low-income communities in the United States.more » « less
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Colonias are self-built neighborhoods of mostly low-income families that lack basic infrastructure. While some funding from the state government has built roads and provided electricity, water and sewage systems are still lacking for many of the estimated 400,000 colonias’ residents in Texas. Of those that do have tap water, the supply is either inadequate or of questionable quality. Some colonias residents have access only to off-the-grid water supplies, and residents collect their water from community wells, or, if fortunate, from a personal well. Many of these wells are self-built and therefore shallow. In Nueces County, the groundwater in several colonias has been reported to contain arsenic, while poor sanitation practices (i.e., self-built septic systems) and heavy rainfall events in the region compromise the microbial quality of the groundwater. The naturally occurring arsenic in the aquifer and microbial contaminants from flooding events mean that the only available drinking water source in these colonias is contaminated throughout the year. In this research, datasets on water quality in nine colonias in Nueces County were collected both in wet (after a major rain/flooding event) and dry (no significant rainfall for four weeks) periods. The water quality analyses included traditional microbial quality assessment (total coliforms, Escherichia coli, and heterotrophs), pH, hardness, total dissolved solids, and a suite of metals that are relevant to human health (e.g., arsenic and lead). Microbial community analyses also were completed on select samples to assess the shifts in microbial ecology between wet and dry periods. Results reveal that water quality varies based on environmental conditions and presents a serious risk to human health. Water sampled during the wet period had extensive microbial contamination with elevated heterotrophs and total coliforms, and E. coli was identified in some samples. In the dry period, water from a number of colonias exhibited elevated levels of arsenic (above United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Maximum Contaminant Level of 10 µg/L). This study is one of the first to systematically investigate water quality in Texas colonias, and the results highlight how water quality in these communities is compromised year-round, going between microbial contamination in wet events and arsenic contamination in dry events.more » « less
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Abstract Water connects the environment, culture, and biology, yet only recently has it emerged as a major focus for research in human biology. To facilitate such research, we describe methods to measure biological, environmental, and perceptual indicators of human water needs. This toolkit provides an overview of methods for assessing different dimensions of human water need, both well‐established and newly‐developed. These include: (a) markers of hydration (eg, urine specific gravity, doubly labeled water) important for measuring the impacts of water need on human biological functioning; (b) methods for measuring water quality (eg, digital colorimeter, membrane filtration) essential for understanding the health risks associated with exposure to microbiological, organic, metal, inorganic nonmental, and other contaminants; and (c) assessments of household water insecurity status that track aspects of unmet water needs (eg, inadequate water service, unaffordability, and experiences of water insecurity) that are directly relevant to human health and biology. Together, these methods can advance new research about the role of water in human biology and health, including the ways that insufficient, unsafe, or insecure water produces negative biological and health outcomes.
