ABSTRACT
This chapter draws for its empirical evidence on a case study of diverse schemes to relieve water stress in the Berlin metropolitan area. Adapting technical networks to a changing context is a particularly poignant theme in the Berlin region, where, post-unification, a variety of new economic, social, commercial and environmental pressures are prompting utility managers to revise their strategies for network expansion. The chapter explores the alternative ways of operating their electricity water, sewage and the waste systems. The large technological systems (LTS) approach presents a model of how technological systems develop and change in response to shifting socio-technical forces. While the existence of competition between technologies and the systems they represent is undeniable, evidence suggests that a change of circumstances can increase the compatibility of competing technologies and the openness of existing technological systems to adaptation. The technology, promoted by environmentalists, was long dismissed by water managers as unsuitable for urban settlements for technical reasons.
