Research

Water governance, legal geography, and political ecology in the US West

My research focuses on the management of water in the U.S. West. I am particularly interested in the interfaces between resource management, law and policy, political economy, and social discourses. Through my research I contribute to scholarship in the areas of political ecology, water governance and hydropolitics, critical legal geography, environmental justice, and feminist science and technology studies (STS). I also contribute to applied policy conversations by studying processes of policy implementation.


Critical legal geographies of water: Hydrosocial transformations, urban-rural dynamics, and water transfers

I examine transformations to the hydro-social cycle, including urban-rural dynamics and the transfer and diversion of water for urban and agricultural use. I study how discourses supporting water diversions and transfers are produced, translated and mediated through legal institutions, and how different human and nonhuman actors have experienced the consequences of transferring water from one place to another. I have particularly focused on examining legal geographies. I have also used ideas of the hydrosocial cycle and hydrosocial territories to examine water's social, politicial, material, and place-based dimensions. Through this research I contribute to several bodies of literature, including political ecology of water and the hydrosocial cycle, geographies of waste, critical legal geographies, urban political ecology, and poststructural and relational political ecology.

Cantor, Alida and A. Ross (2021). “Urbanization and water governance dynamics in Bend and Hood River, Oregon.” In Urban Cascadia and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice, eds. N. Janos and C. McKendry. University of Washington Press: 91-108.

Cantor, Alida (2021). "Hydrosocial hinterlands: An urban political ecology of Southern California's hydrosocial territory." Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

Cantor, Alida, Kelly Kay, and Chris Knudson (2020). "Legal geographies and political ecologies of water allocation in Maui, Hawai`i." Geoforum 110: 168-179.

Cantor, Alida and Sarah Knuth (2018). "Speculations on the postnatural: Restoration, accumulation, and sacrifice at the Salton Sea." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.

Cantor, Alida and Jody Emel (2018). “New Water Regimes: An Editorial.” Resources 7(2).

Cantor, Alida (2017). “Material, political, and biopolitical dimensions of "waste" in California water law.” Antipode.

Cantor, Alida (2016). “The public trust doctrine and critical legal geographies of water in California.” Geoforum 72: 49-57.


Applied water policy, management, and governance

Water is political, and involves many management issues. I have researched a wide range of water policy issues including groundwater policy, wastewater innovation, and data systems for water decision-making. Some of this work has been conducted in collaboration with UC Berkeley's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. This research highlights challenges and solutions related to water management, and policy.

Haeffner, Melissa, D. Hellman, A. Cantor, I. Ajibade, V. Oyanedel-Craver, M. Kelly, L. Schifman, and L. Weasel. 2021. “Representation justice as a research agenda for socio-hydrology and water governance.” Hydrological Sciences Journal 66(11): 1611-1624.

Cantor, Alida, M. Kiparsky, R. Bales, S. Hubbard, R. Kennedy, L.C. Pecharroman, K. Guivetchi, G. Darling, and C. McCready. 2021. “Making a water data system responsive to information needs of decision makers.” Frontiers in Climate: Special issue on Democratizing Data: Environmental Data Access and its Future 3:761444.

Owen, Dave, Alida Cantor, Nell Green Nylen, Thomas Harter, and Michael Kiparsky (2019). “California groundwater management, science-policy interfaces, and the legacies of artificial legal distinctions.” Environmental Research Letters 14(4).

Cantor, Alida, L. Sherman, A. Milman, and M. Kiparsky. 2021. “Regulators and utility managers agree about barriers and opportunities for innovation in the municipal wastewater sector.” Environmental Research Communications 3(3): 031001.

Sherman, Luke, Alida Cantor, Anita Milman, and Michael Kiparsky (2020). "Examining the complex relationship between innovation and regulation through a survey of wastewater utility managers." Journal of Environmental Management 260: 110025.


Other research areas:

Food-Water-Energy Nexus and just transitions

Cantor, Alida, B. Turley, C. Ross, and M. Glass. 2022. "Changes to California alfalfa production and perceptions during the 2011-2017 drought." The Professional Geographer.

Knudson, Chris, A. Cantor and K. Kay. 2022. “Just water transitions at the end of sugar in Maui, Hawai’i.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

Turley, Bethani, A. Cantor, S. Knuth, D. Mulvaney, K. Berry, and N. Vineyard.* 2022. “Emergent landscapes of renewable energy storage: Considering just transitions in the Western United States.” Energy Research and Social Science 90: 102583.

Cantor, Alida, Jody Emel, and Harvey Neo (2018). "Networks of global production and resistance: Meat, dairy, and place." In Food and Place: A Critical Exploration, eds. P. Joassart-Marcelli and F. Bosco. Rowman & Littlefield.

Socio-environmental networks

Cantor, Alida, Elisabeth Stoddard, Dianne Rocheleau, Jennifer Brewer, Robin Roth, Trevor Birkenholtz, Katherine Foo, and Padini Nirmal (2018). “Putting Rooted Networks Into Practice.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 17 (4): 958-87.

Stoddard, Elisabeth and Alida Cantor (2017). “A relational network vulnerability assessment of the North Carolina hog industry.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

Geography education

Cantor, Alida, Verna DeLauer, Deborah Martin, and John Rogan (2015). “Training interdisciplinary ‘wicked problem’ solvers: Applying lessons from HERO in community-based research experiences for undergraduates.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 39(3): 407-419.