ABSTRACT
The notion of water management practices is heavily underpinned by risk understandings. This is due to the constant supply/demand issues of water resources that stem from a range of factors, including climate change, political upheaval, urbanisation and economic conditions. Water management emerged from the field of engineering, stemming back from as far as Ancient Greece in its development of Aqueducts to transfer water. As a result, water risk management practice has been developed through this technical-based prism. This chapter argues that risk thought has shifted considerably from these original notions of technical risk approaches (such as those portrayed by international standards ISO31000) and little is acknowledged within practice regarding other framings of risk. This is potentially dangerous as it ignores many of the biases or social constructions that can work to sway our perceptions of risks, and, in turn, the funds that are allocated to certain projects over others.
This chapter introduces the topic of risk in water, highlighting current practice and its drawbacks. It also argues that understanding how we perceive risk matters considerably in the way that public-sector decisions are made around water resources. This is what makes this book so important: it sheds light on our own biases and values so that we can see the decisions we make as practitioners with a fresh set of eyes.
