Wells of Privilege: Collective Resource, Private Solutions: Unequal Adaptation to Drinking Water Scarcity in Samaipata, Bolivia

Resumen

This paper examines how residents of Samaipata, Bolivia, adapt to clean water scarcity amid climate change within a cooperative-based water system. Drawing on hydrosocial and political ecology perspectives, this study employs the concepts of access and commoning. Through a mixed-methods approach, this research shows how unequal access to adaptation strategies shape unequal access to clean water. While water is constitutionally a right, and framed as a collective responsibility, the local cooperative struggles to provide clean water, prompting wealthier residents to seek private solutions like wells, bottled water, and large-scale rainwater harvesting. These individualized strategies deepen existing inequalities, as poorer residents remain dependent on the unreliable cooperative. The study highlights the paradox of water as a collective resource increasingly accessed through private means and calls for greater awareness of how uneven capacities to adapt can shape who gets access to clean drinking water in the face of growing climate pressures.