Water in Conflict
Published in May 2026
This three-episode podcast series emerges from a collective effort developed within a course on urban and territorial conflicts (in a MSC in Urban Planning and Policy Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy), where students engaged in groupwork to investigate some of the most pressing and contested issues surrounding water and infrastructure. Bringing together diverse case studies, disciplinary perspectives, and analytical approaches, the series reflects both the collaborative nature of the learning process and the complexity of conflicts that unfold around water as a crucial resource and a testbed for planning choices.
Water occupies a unique position in territorial conflicts. Unlike many other resources, it is simultaneously a basic human necessity, a key ecological element, and a strategic economic asset. Its management and distribution are deeply embedded in political, social, and spatial arrangements, making water-related conflicts able to unveil underlying power dynamics. In urban and territorial contexts, disputes over water often intersect with questions of infrastructure: who has access, who controls the networks, who produces or contests the knowledge, and whose needs are prioritized or neglected. These conflicts are rarely just technical; they are inherently political, involving competing visions of development, governance, and justice.
The podcast series is structured in three episodes, each focusing on a different dimension of water-related conflicts. The cases around which the episodes revolve are diverse in terms of geographical location, scale, and networks of actors involved, ranging from the water management arrangements across the US/Mexico border to the protection of the Venice lagoon, to environmental protection related to agriculture in Denmark but they all clearly show the inherent complexity and distributional nature of decision making around water planning. Through these narratives, the episodes emphasize how local realities are shaped by broader processes, including privatization, climate change, and shifting governance frameworks.
Overall, this podcast series aims to make visible the specificities of territorial conflicts around water use, management, and distribution, impinging on the specific knowledge emerged through knowledge sharing group research and class debated in a territorial conflicts course. By translating academic discussions and group research into an accessible audio format, the project not only documents a learning experience but also contributes to a broader conversation about the politics of water in contemporary societies.
