Normalizing scarcity. Geographies of power in the governance of the Segura River Basin (Spain)

My research looks at why water shortages persist in the Segura River Basin in southeastern Spain, one of Europe’s most intensively irrigated regions. Rather than treating scarcity as simply a natural consequence of limited rainfall, I examine how decisions, policies, infrastructure, and competing interests have shaped both water availability and demand. I show how successive efforts to provide more water—through dams, water transfers, irrigation modernization, and groundwater pumping—have often enabled agriculture to expand while making scarcity more deeply embedded in the way the basin is governed. The research also explores who benefits from these transformations and who bears their social and environmental costs. By revealing how scarcity is produced and managed, the study helps explain why providing more water does not necessarily solve water shortages, and why addressing them requires confronting the political and economic structures that shape water use.

Javier Rodríguez Ros,

The candidate of the PhD defence "Normalizing scarcity. Geographies of power in the governance of the Segura River Basin (Spain)".