UC Santa Cruz

The Deschutes Basin, a watershed spanning central Oregon, is one of countless regions across the American West experiencing an increasing demand for water amid a rapidly decreasing supply. The human population in the Deschutes has the fastest growth rate of any county in Oregon, but while municipal demand has skyrocketed, available surface water supplies are already over-allocated. In addition, during the spring and summer irrigation season, water diversions cause a dramatic reduction in the Deschutes River’s flow, contributing to degraded fish habitat and poor water quality.

The Deschutes is emblematic not only for its water supply concerns. The basin is also nationally renowned for having undertaken an innovative approach to solving its water distribution problems. In 2001, tribal members, irrigation district managers, and environmental proponents came together and established a water market for managing and distributing the basin’s fresh water supply. Since the inception of the Deschutes Water Bank, water marketing has become increasingly popular across the American West and the Deschutes has served as a model for many of these initiatives.

My dissertation examines the ways in which more-than-human encounters matter when it comes to natural resource politics. In foregrounding the commodification of local waters, current management strategies tend to overlook the everyday practices and encounters that are central to waters’ movement through the landscape. I turn to theories of affect and emotion in order to demonstrate that how we know, feel, and relate to local waters and to local politics is central to our water management practices and key to understanding and participating in equitable water policies.