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Abstract Energy transitions are reshaping hydrosocial relations. How they will be reshaped, however, depends on location and water's material relationship to other resources and industrial activities embedded within energy transitions. To highlight this, we focus on three different resources—coal, natural gas, and lithium—to signal how the water–energy nexus will be reworked in a transition away from fossil fuels. We examine the water–coal nexus as an example of a resource relationship that is transitioningout, or that is being moved away from in the green energy transition. Natural gas represents the “bridge fuel” usedthroughthe transition. Lithium illustrates a resourceinsidethe green transition, as it is a fundamental material for green technologiesinthe transition to a low‐carbon future. Coal, natural gas, and lithium each have their own material impacts to water resources that stem from their industrial lifecycle and different implications for communities shaped by coal, natural gas, and lithium activities. To explore this, we review each of these resources' connection to water, their legal and regulatory dimensions, and their impact on communities and water justice. We argue that the energy transition is also a hydrosocial transition that will create uneven water‐related benefits and burdens. To maximize sustainability and equity, efforts to decarbonize energy systems must examine the localized, place‐based hydrosocial relations that differentially affect communities. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Planning WaterHuman Water > Water GovernanceHuman Water > Rights to Water 

Abstract As a key ingredient of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), lithium plays a significant role in climate change mitigation, but lithium has considerable impacts on water and society across its life cycle. Upstream extraction methods—including open‐pit mining, brine evaporation, and novel direct lithium extraction (DLE)—and downstream processes present different impacts on both the quantity and quality of water resources, leading to water depletion and contamination. Regarding upstream extraction, it is critical for a comprehensive assessment of lithium's life cycle to include cumulative impacts related not only to freshwater, but also mineralized or saline groundwater, also known as brine. Legal frameworks have obscured social and ecological impacts by treating brine as a mineral rather than water in regulation of lithium extraction through brine evaporation. Analysis of cumulative impacts across the lifespan of lithium reveals not only water impacts in conventional open‐pit mining and brine evaporation, but also significant freshwater needs for DLE technologies, as well as burdens on fenceline communities related to wastewater in processing, chemical contaminants in battery manufacturing, water use for cooling in energy storage, and water quality hazards in recycling. Water analysis in lithium life cycle assessments (LCAs) tends to exclude brine and lack hydrosocial context on the environmental justice implications of water use by life cycle stage. New research directions might benefit from taking a more community‐engaged and cradle‐to‐cradle approach to lithium LCAs, including regionalized impact analysis of freshwater use in DLE, as well as wastewater pollution, cooling water, and recycling hazards from downstream processes. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Human WaterHuman Water > Water GovernanceHuman Water > Water as Imagined and RepresentedScience of Water > Water and Environmental Change 

ABSTRACT Environmental justice research has shown that people's experiences and perceptions of water differ because systematic inequalities shape the extent to which people access clean water and are exposed to water hazards. Q‐methodology is one technique that has been used to aggregate multifaceted subjective narratives and understand different perspectives on a topic. In this paper, we systematically review 77 case study articles applying Q‐methodology to water‐related topics, to inventory how people perceive their relationships with water. We create a classification system based on environmental justice theory to examine (1) distributive justice issues around alternative water sources and agricultural and urban water scarcity, (2) procedural justice issues around Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and trust; and (3) recognition justice issues regarding misrecognition, underrecognition, and the intersectionality of the environmental justice principles. Notably, only eight articles in our dataset found just two factors on a topic, with most finding three or more factors, suggesting that most audiences are not polarized or opposed in a binary sense but range along a spectrum of perspectives on water issues. This finding means water conflicts are complex, but also that people may share core water values on disputed topics. Learning from people from various backgrounds can provide an understanding of the different relationships people have with water, which can help water managers predict where conflicts may occur, empathize with minority viewpoints, and innovate water solutions that could be used to advance environmental justice goals. 

Abstract Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind produce electricity intermittently, creating challenges in balancing electricity supply and demand for increasingly renewable‐dominated grids. This is driving efforts to increase energy storage infrastructure, such as pumped hydroelectric power storage (pumped storage). In this research, we examine environmental justice issues in a case study of a proposed pumped storage facility in Goldendale, Washington, which has been highly controversial and actively contested by a coalition of Indigenous and environmental communities. Drawing from frameworks of political ecology, just transitions, and Indigenous environmental justice, we focus on processes of consultation and engagement around permitting as a key arena for environmental justice contestation, and critically examine the driving assumptions behind the project. Despite popular framings of renewable energy infrastructures as new and green, we argue that the environmental justice impacts of this and similar projects represent continuity with past patterns of settler colonialism and extractive development.