Disruption as opportunity for transformation? Insights from water supply contamination in Havelock North, New Zealand

Abstract

ABSTRACT As converging crises increasingly cause disruption to social-ecological systems, individuals and communities will need to become more resilient and proactive in ensuring their access to and use of natural resources is sustainable. Ten months after an unprecedented drinking water contamination event and public health emergency in the New Zealand town of Havelock North, interviews were conducted with the owners of twenty local small and medium businesses. We applied a transformative learning framework to explore whether the disruption increased business owners’ awareness of their dependence on and connection to natural systems, prompted them to change their water management practices, and/or led them to contemplate or initiate alternative water supply relationships, thereby reshaping the prevailing provider-user “hydrosocial contract”. We found that business owners did become more conscious of natural systems and the criticality of water to their businesses, and made temporary adjustments to their practices to allow them to survive financially until their water supply returned to normal. However, because they saw no reason to challenge the existing provider-user water supply model, their primary focus was to bounce back to their previous state as quickly as possible.